If it were just any old Ranucci from Retequattro, if this were a page from Rep

Consider a hypothetical scenario: take Sigfrido Ranucci and, hypothetically, place him in a different context—no longer the hero of ‘civil society’, the icon of indignation, or the totem of the former investigative RaiTre, but simply Ranucci. Perhaps a Rete Quattro supporter, perhaps a standard-bearer for TeleMeloni, the Pino Insegno of investigative journalism – take your pick. Leave everything else exactly the same: the same attitude, the same arrogance, the same fury because he can’t stomach the names of his successors, and above all the same, exact words that the real Ranucci directed at Giulia Presutti – thirty-six years old, guilty of being in the running for his job. Now consider the editorial we might have read today in La Repubblica: “There are phrases that portray a man better than any investigation. Those that Sigfrido Ranucci directed at Giulia Presutti are an almost textbook-like compendium of everything this government stands for and that has always characterised the culture of the Italian right: male arrogance elevated to a system, contempt for the merits of others when they do not bear his own signature, the paternalism that calls ‘protection’ what, in patriarchy, is called ‘control’. ‘Courage and psychological resilience are not her best qualities,’ says Ranucci when speaking of Giulia Presutti. And further: ‘She fares better with opportunism and cunning.’ Then the verdict: entrusting her with Report would be a mediocre choice. Let us dismantle these words, one by one, because each carries with it its own small legacy of centuries of male oppression.

Psychological resilience. It is the oldest formula of Western machismo, the one by which – from Charcot onwards – male power has always relegated the troublesome woman to the ‘hysteria’ ward. It is the cliché of the woman who ‘can’t cope’, which Ranucci disguises as an arrogant professional assessment. And it is a phrase that all of us, sooner or later, have heard directed at us. From a caring father, an understanding teacher, a boss who ‘looked out for us’. Opportunism and cunning. Translated from patriarchy into Italian: an ambitious woman – because when a man wants the most important programme on television, it’s called vision, determination, tenacity; when a woman wants it, it becomes careerism, calculation, scheming. 

The issue, as you will understand, is philosophical even before it is a trade union one: it is the oldest injustice in the world – treating fragility as a fault and ambition as a vice – but only for half of humanity. As Michela Marzano pointed out in her speech yesterday, there is no dignity where a person is asked, every morning, to prove that she deserves the position that a man would occupy without anyone asking him anything (I’m quoting from memory, but that was the gist of it). The culmination of this dynamic is prejudgement: Ranucci declares her unsuitable even before she has had a chance to try. It is mansplaining in its purest and most unbearable form: ‘Never mind, darling, it’s not for you; believe me, I’m saying this for your own good.’ As Michela Murgia has taught us, patriarchy does not dwell in monsters; it does not have horns or a pitchfork: it dwells in the words we use without thinking. Because here we are talking about power. About an established man who humiliates a female colleague thirty years his junior. It is asymmetry made into language. It is not ‘a row in the newsroom’. It is not a feud between factions. It is a worldview. It is that Mediterranean, paternal and rabid patriarchy, which today has found its official champions – from Vannacci downwards – and which still imagines women as creatures to be protected as long as they stay quietly in their place. Ranucci is the perfect illustration of this. It is worth considering the young women who are reading this: at eighteen they learn that they can study, work hard, earn their keep, and reach this point—only to find that four words from an important man are enough to thrust them back into their usual place. Many had believed this was no longer possible, yet here those words are once more. They rise up from the mists of time, from the courtyards, the kitchens, the classrooms where we little girls were told to ‘et cetera, et cetera, et cetera’.