The Guardian view on the new leader of Italy's left: a feminist fresh start | Editorial
On the eve of last autumn's crushing election defeat for Italy's Democratic party (PD), one of the party's youthful rising stars addressed a cri de coeur to a rally in Rome.I am a woman, said Elly Schlein, I love another woman and I am not a mother, but I am no less a woman for this.The words were a clever liberal rejoinder to Italy's current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, who had famously signalled her social conservatism on LGBT+ rights and abortion with the formulation: I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian.