Premier Giorgia Meloni addressed a row
caused by one of her MPs saying motherhood was the ultimate
aspiration of Italian women amid a chronically flagging birth
rate by saying she would choose her daughter over her job any
day.
"Motherhood as the highest aspiration? I cannot say whether the
word aspiration is right, but I can say that as Prime Minister,
I am the woman considered among the most successful in Italy, if
I were asked what to choose between the role of premier and my
daughter Ginevra I would have no doubts, like any other mother,
because motherhood gives something that nothing else can give,"
the premier told an end of year press conference.
"If this is the concept I agree with it. I do not agree that the
goal of motherhood can take opportunities away from you".
The row started on December 28 when the MP for Meloni's
right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, Lavinia Mennuni said
motherhood should be the utmost aspiration for Italian women
sparking opposition claims FdI wants to take Italy back to the
Middle Ages.
Mennuni said on social media: "The first aspiration of
girls must be to be mothers.
"There is a need, a mission to bring children into the world,
who will be the future citizens and Italians".
She said the time had come to make having babies "cool again"
for wive and girlfriends.
In response, populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) deputy leader and
former Turin mayor Chiara Appendino said: "Why does Fratelli
d'Italia have this nostalgia for the Middle Ages?"
And Raffaella Paita of the centrist Italia Viva (IV) spoke of
"embarrassing backwardness". adding that "in Mennuni's words
(there are) echoes of ideas of an obscurantist past".
Meloni has unveiled plans to boost Italy's dramatically flagging
birth rate, making it the prime mission of the families
minister, while the premier's brother-in-law, Farm Minister
Francesco Lollobrigida, caused a stir by saying Italians were
being ethnically replaced by migrants.
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