Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has apologised to women who felt offended by comments suggesting that less flamboyant women who wear longer skirts make better wives and mothers and are less likely to cheat. The remarks drew a wave of criticism from politicians across the spectrum.
Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani apologised on Monday for comments he made the previous Friday linking women’s dress to their trustworthiness as partners and mothers, following days of mounting controversy.
“I apologise if people felt offended by what I said, but I never intended to offend women; I have never done so in my life, neither in my private nor in my public life,” the Forza Italia leader said in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. He pointed to his decision to appoint women as Italy’s ambassadors to Iran and Afghanistan as evidence of his record on women’s rights, adding that he could cite “a hundred” other examples.
The row began after Tajani, speaking at a political rally the previous Friday, offered what he framed as fatherly advice on choosing a partner. Describing a hypothetical conversation with his son, he contrasted a “glamorous” woman with a history of failed relationships against a “less flashy but more reliable” woman who would “be a good mother and stay true to the love she pledges in marriage”. The latter, he suggested, were often recognisable by wearing longer skirts. He drew a parallel comparison for women choosing between men, advising against the “playboy” type in favour of “the reliable one”.
Vannacci lowers the tone by suggesting no skirt at all
The comments prompted swift pushback over the weekend. Former Turin mayor Chiara Appendino of the 5-Star Movement posted a photograph of herself in a miniskirt, asking pointedly whether she was not, by Tajani’s logic, a reliable woman and a good mother, and urging him to “leave the Middle Ages behind”.
Italia Viva senator Maria Elena Boschi was similarly sharp, asking whether Tajani intended to follow up with “a decree on skirt lengths” for schools, workplaces and even Parliament.
Also on Monday, veteran singer and former Forza Italia MEP Iva Zanicchi took a different tack, telling Rai Radio1’s Un Giorno da Pecora that women in long skirts and modest necklines “cheat with gusto” just as much as anyone else, recalling her own 42 years of fidelity despite having worn shorts when she met her husband. Asked what she would say to Tajani directly, she quipped that she’d want to know who he himself had married.
Roberto Vannacci, leader of the new far-right National Future party, was asked on Sky TG24 on Tuesday whether he preferred long or short skirts and replied that he preferred women in no skirt at all, saying afterwards that the remark was meant light-heartedly. He was criticised regardless, with Green-Left Alliance MP Elisabetta Piccolotti accusing him of “regressing towards the animal state”.
