The Axess Programme had the pleasure of hosting a seminar on the role of women in Italian media. The two main speakers were Gabriela Jacomella, a journalist from Corriere della Sera and now a fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and Lorella Zanardo, the author of a documentary "Il Corpo delle Donne", on the use of women's body in Italian TV. This short documentary has been watched by over a million people and has now made Lorella Zanardo a well known figure in the Italian public debate. She has now written a book (in italian) which will undubtedly make a good read given the interest the documentary has created. 

The seminar, which was organised together with Italian Studies at Oxford and with the Oxford University Italian Society, was extremely well attended. The showing of the movie was followed by a presentation by Ms Jacomella and by a lengthy discussion, chaired by by Dr Charlotte Ross (Birmingham University), which made the event last for almost three hours.

Zanardo's documentary argues that the idea of women presented in Italian TV is counterfeit and unreal. The presence of Italian women is one of quantity rather than quality. This has produced a change even in the way women look at other women, as they seem to do through the men's gaze. Unsurprisingly, Zanardo's documentary shows how many of the humiliations to which women are subject on Italian TV are perpetuated by fellow women. To this existing world Ms Zanardo wants to contrapose a new world. TV must change, which is why she is going around schools to sensibilise children and youngsters. She wants the new generation to look at the obscenities with new eyes.

This will be harder than it seems. As it was well summarised in Gabriela Jacomella's presentation ("Naked Ambition or Naked Exploitation? Gender issue in Italian media") one wonders whether there is really a request for a new narrative of the self. Many of the women who appear naked on Italian TV do it consciously and many end up being extremely powerful as a result. What is more, many TV authors argue that naked women are a way to attract public and, therefore advertisements: this is why even left-leaning newspapers' websites often have photos of naked women on their homepages.

The other big obstacle, Jacomella remarked, comes from female reporters. Data from the 2010 Global Media Monitoring Project show how female reportes display only very slightly more interest in challenging existing stereotypes. This seems to be particularly true in Italy where, however, it is fair to say that most of the editors are male and seem less interested in this particular issue.

This makes one wonder about the role of newspapers. If the Italian reality is inundated with the view of the woman as a sexal object, should editors only care about reflecting this reality and portraying the way in which women are seen in the collective imaginary? Or should they rather take an active role, trying to swim against the tide , even at the expenses of losing some advertising revenue (assuming they really would)? Mrs Jacomella backed the second view and did it in a very passionate way. One hopes that more of her colleagues will share her strength. If that happened, stereotypes could really be held a body blow.