A Moment of Cultural Examination in Italy

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/business/2019/11/18/only-57-of-italian-mums-work-istat_6095acfc-0148-4de5-8310-b388510a8208.html

The ANSA news service seems to be lamenting the fact that only 57% of Italian mothers work outside the home. If there's something to lament it's that 57% of Italian mothers work outside the home. Ideally the number would be zero.

The brief article goes on to speak of employers failing to facilitate working mothers and the typical north-south divide in Italian economics and culture.

Despite the overwhelming presence of Catholicism, there's almost no Christian presence in Italy. A type of Christianity surrounds you but it has nothing to do with the Christianity of the New Testament.

That said, I was always struck by how much more 'family' oriented Italy was (and perhaps remains) when compared to the 'Protestant' north and the Protestant work ethic dominated United States. I found the same to be true in Catholic Ireland but that was almost thirty years ago, so I'm sure it has changed since then.

I'm sure things have also changed since I lived in Italy but in the mid-1990's most gas stations were closed on Sunday. There were some pay with a card places in a nearby city but in the small towns you had better fill up on Saturday night. The practice of siesta, closing your business at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and then re-opening for a couple of hours in the evening was widespread. It made Americans roll their eyes but for Italians the time not just for rest, but time with family and was all but sacred.

It doesn't surprise me that many Italians have refused to bow to modern pressures. The traditionalism was at times stifling but at other times refreshing. Once again I'm reminded that feminism often went in different directions in Europe. Even in France the land of Simone de Beauvoir, feminism has not taken on the same hue that we find in the Anglo-American sphere. Vive le difference seems to inform the French as much as militant misandric feminism does and thus the largely bogus MeToo movement hasn't gained as much traction there.

It's a minor thing but one of many that got me thinking almost twenty-five years ago about culture and why I was enjoying my time in Catholic lands more than Protestant ones. I didn't understand it then as I do now. The answer isn't terribly satisfying or pleasing as more than ever I feel the alien in whatever culture I dwell. Catholicism and the culture it produces are something less than Christian and yet even some of the simple things with regard to time and family condemn the Protestant movement and the (in many ways) ungodly culture it produced... and continues to produce.