Protests on March 8, La Festa delle Donne

The banner reads "Journeys for
women, journeys for peace".

March 8 in Italy is the Festa delle Donne, the Festival of the Women and it falls on the International Women’s Day. Italian men mark the Festa delle Donne in a way that seems to resemble, slightly at least, Valentine’s Day in our country. Men are expected to pick up sprays of little yellow spring flowers which are called mimosa in Italy. The flowers are small and delicate and last no more than a day; Italian women note, ruefully, that the celebration of women also lasts no more than a day.

Marching through Piazza San
Ambrogio, near our apartment.
The banner reads "Free all".

This year the celebration was much more edgy. The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has not ingratiated himself to Italians in general and to Italian women in particular with his “bad boy” behavior. “Bad boy”, however, is too mild a way to describe his problems. Berlusconi has been accused of keeping intimate company with  young ladies who were under the age of legal consent in Italy. There were already financial and legal scandals in the public mind and the sex scandals have raised the temperature still higher.

Many women wore this sign.

Italian women, including Tuscan women, are not amused by the Prime Minister’s behavior. This year the Festa dell Donne in Italy was reason for demonstrations that gathered people from many points of view but the coarse behavior of the country’s leader dominated the concerns expressed by the women and men who marched to protest the behavior of their Prime Minister. 

The sign reads "Not just meat".

Here are some pictures from today’s demonstration in Florence.