Not All Italian Women Charmed By Berlusconi

Here are scenes from the protests yesterday against an aging dictator who is stubbornly clinging to power despite his people’s yearning to be free — okay, the analogy is pretty facile. Still: “Hundreds of thousands of women gathered in cities across Italy yesterday to protest at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s incorrigible sexism and in particular his fondness, in the words of his estranged wife, for consorting with minors — a penchant that may see him charged with sex-related offences in the coming week. Some of the protesters, who were demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation, carried banners that said: ‘Italy is not a brothel.’”