A woman worth a thousand men: the true story of Tina Anselmi, who deserved to go to the Quirinale. And instead...

TINA ANSELMI MINISTER OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC –

"We're missing a woman here...": for nearly thirty years, the Christian Democratic leadership's famous "fireside meetings," the crucial ones for compiling the list of ministers for the new government, have ended with this sort of acknowledgment. A woman is missing from the list, and never mind: things will go better next time. It went on like this until the summer of 1976, when Aldo Moro and Benigno Zaccagnini, respectively president and secretary of the DC, at the time of closing negotiations for the formation of one of the many Andreotti governments (to be precise, the third in the series) They put their foot down and asked to include the name of Tina Anselmi, who passed away yesterday in her home in Castelfranco Veneto at the age of 89, in the list of ministers.. With a ministry of weight and not of representation, added Moro, who indicated Labor, then combined with Social Security, where Anselmi was placed amidst a thousand grumbles and with the approval of the PCI which at that time effectively supported the Andreotti government with the formula of "no no confidence". But the breaking of an ancient and vulgar practice of political etiquette also occurred with the awareness of realizing, with this choice, a historic event for the country, a real turning point in the chemistry of power, of the checks and balances that regulate a democracy: the presence of a woman, in a club strictly reserved for men, within a governmentThirty years after the approval of the law that gave women the right to vote in Italy (1946) and more than a century after the unification of Italy (1861).

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WHO WAS TINA ANSELMI –

Yet reducing Tina Anselmi's biography to this epochal shift in the practice of the "Cencelli Manual" (the code by which power was distributed in the Christian Democratic universe) means transforming a woman leader of extraordinary political power, the inspiration for an authentic reformism of action and of politics understood, à la De Gasperi, as the "art of the possible," into a sort of caricature of her character. Of course: "Tina," as she was affectionately and respectfully called within the party and in Parliament, as a female minister, was forced to first ask for a women's restroom in Palazzo Chigi, where none was even provided, to avoid being accompanied by a clerk when going to the restroom during a government meeting. But later, under his push for Labour and later (fourth and fifth Andreotti government) for Healthcare, real reforms arrived, such as the new architecture of the social security system, the National Health Service, the law on Equal Opportunities, where Tina failed to obtain the gender quotas she had fought so hard for.

TINA ANSELMI MINISTER –

Anselmi, if you look at her carefully, up close, She deserves a place in the Pantheon of the Republic, where it would be right to include her among the fathers and mothers of the NationDaughter of a pharmacist's assistant with socialist sympathies and a woman who ran a tavern in the heart of the very Catholic Veneto, Tina encountered the Resistance on September 26, 1944, the day she, along with other students from a teacher training high school, was forced by the Nazi-Fascists to witness the hanging of 31 prisoners in retaliation. From that moment on, she became Gabriella, the nom de guerre under which she served as a courier for the Cesare Battisti Brigade commanded by Gino Sartor, and joined the Christian Democrats, a reformist Catholic. She barely had time to graduate from the Catholic University of Milan, the home of a highly modern, Guelph-inspired ruling class that would shape the history of the Italian Republic, from Amintore Fanfani to Romano Prodi, from Ciriaco De Mita to Giovanni Bazoli, to name just a few, before Tina entered the fray through the union door. Where Catholics had the rule of "two memberships, one loyalty," she could represent, on a single identity card, membership in the DC and the CISL. In the union, already as a leader and no longer as a partisan runner, Anselmi fought successfully for the recognition of the rights of textile workers (she knew the Venetian “filandere” very well) and teachers (Tina has meanwhile become an elementary school teacher.) Combining competence with civic passion, pragmatism and ideals, ambition with style, For nearly thirty years, from 1968 to 1992, Tina Anselmi managed to be a leading figure in Parliament, the government, and institutions. Aside from her female flag at the ministry, Italy was and remains a profoundly chauvinistic nation..

TINA ANSELMI FEMALE PRIME MINISTER –

And who better than a woman can prevent politics from devolving into a sterile and self-destructive struggle? With this argument, certainly not unfounded, Nilde Jotti, then Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, and Amintore Fanfani, then President of the Senate, appointed Anselmi to chair the parliamentary commission of inquiry into P2 in 1981. Here, too, the barrier of sexual discrimination was broken: it was the first time a woman had been appointed to lead a commission of inquiry.. But, more importantly, the name of Anselmi, on whose reputation in terms of honesty and strictly speaking, no one can open their mouths, which is the right thing for a Christian Democracy that in just a few years finds itself at risk of crumbling, after several major corruption scandals (when Moro himself was forced to say in Parliament: "We will not be tried in this chamber"), the killing of Moro himself, the attacks by the Red Brigades and the explosion of a political bomb, entitled precisely "P2 Masonic Lodge", led by the alleged coup plotter Licio Gelli, with a host of Christian Democrats within it. The work of Anselmi and her 40 fellow deputies and senators was supposed to last six months, but in reality it continued, with constant tremors, for four years, until 1985. And while the true weight of the P2 members, in terms of conspirators, is still a matter of dispute among historians rather than politicians, Italy, in a climate of growing impotence and discredit of politics, is approaching the collapse of the First Republic, which imploded after the 1992 elections. That was the year in which Tina of Castelfranco Veneto, of that Veneto that was meanwhile transforming from a white Guelph party to a green League party, was not even re-elected.

In a normal country, Anselmi, with this biography behind her and in this political context, would have become President of the Republic, a position which she, without excessive worries about chasing power but with feminine transparency, held very dear. His name has been circulated on the occasion of more than one election, in one case supported and actually burned by the Network movement, but he has never really been in the fieldNo one has tried or wanted to try to take up a political battle for Anselmi at the Quirinale, and with a form of Italian-style compensation, Tina was granted an honor that, during her lifetime, only popes had. A commemorative stamp commemorating her history as the first female minister of the Republic was issued on June 2nd, thirty years after the event.The passive space on a stamp is certainly not worth seven active years at the Quirinale, but let us console ourselves by thinking that at least it is something, given that in Italy, beyond and before Politics (this time we need a capital P), memory has been lost.

(Cover image source: Getty Images)

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