Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/794736
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 5 MARCH 2017 15 "It could be a bit of both. Wom- en are maybe not empowered enough, in themselves, to feel like they can actually go for it. I don't think there's a lack of interest per se. But, seeing the success rate for women candidates is so high: if I were in a political party I would definitely look for more female candidates. Ideally, 50-50..." Meanwhile, there is another hurdle facing women in politics. Getting elected to parliament is one thing; getting entrusted with serious political responsibility is another. For all the higher female representation, Malta's politi- cal circuit is still overwhelmingly male in its outlook. The parties are (with the exception of Mar- lene Farrugia's PD) all led by men; our Prime Ministers have always been men, and their appointments have traditionally always favoured men more than women. Could it be that we have collectively come round to accepting equality in terms of political representation... but not in terms of political office? "If you look at, not just this gov- ernment but even previous ones... I don't want to generalise, but women tend to be given the 'soft' ministries: social policy, civil lib- erties... why shouldn't there be a woman prime minister, foreign minister or finance minister? Or police commissioner? Univer- sity rector? These are not politi- cal positions, I know, but... why not? Even if you look at the way the news is reported by journal- ists, for instance. 'Female doctor, mother of two...' You wouldn't say that about a male doctor. There's nothing wrong in saying that you're a parent... but usually the fact that you're a women, a moth- er and working is usually linked to your secondary profession being a lawyer, doctor, etc." In a sense, these latent prejudic- es seem to be a hangover from the mentality of the 1960s. As such, they also underscore how much worse things used to be. Today, we talk about women struggling to reach the top of the career lad- der... back then, the idea that a woman should even set foot on that ladder was scandalous. At the risk of asking an inappropri- ate question: could Maltese femi- nism have been partly the victim of its own success? Is there an underlying attitude to the effect that women's lot has improved so much since the repressive days of the Bikini inquisition, that there is nothing left to really fight for? "Obviously there have been great changes since the 1960s. But even if we look at what's been go- ing on even very recently in the world – like the Women's March, for instance – there's clearly still something that needs to be done, that needs to be spoken about. Definitely, equality has not yet been achieved. There is still that glass ceiling. We've heard a lot about glass ceilings, and about breaking – or not breaking – them. What we saw when we were researching was that: OK, things have changed... women can go out to work if they want to, but they don't that much. It's still a rela- tively patriarchal society: in the film we interviewed a number of activists and academics, and they all say that patriarchy is alive and well in Malta. And if you speak to women in Malta, on a day to day basis they are still faced with a number of barriers." This brings me to one aspect in which the underlying mentality hasn't changed much: perceptions of the role of women in society. Ostensibly the topic of the docu- mentary centred on bikinis... but that was only on the surface. On a deeper level, the film is about how women are perceived, how they were expected to dress and behave. We might have moved on from the bikini stage, but even in present-day debates (the morn- ing-after pill is an example) we still tend to talk about 'women' more on the basis of what they 'should' be, rather than what they are... "Definitely: if you see how the discussion has evolved, there is less concern about the wellbeing of women themselves, and more about the woman as something to be, kind of controlled. 'This is the way you should live your life, this is the way you should control your sexuality'..." Out of curiosity... why does she think this prospect frightens peo- ple so much? Why are certain people afraid of women taking more control over their own lives? "I think because maybe it ques- tions their own belief about how women should act. That women have the freedom to control their fertility, their sex life... to go out to work, and be what they would like to be, without the strict, clear rules that were there in the past... that rocks the foundations of what they believe in." Coming back to the notion of 'how women should live'... anoth- er side to the feminist coin con- cerned the emergence of move- ments aiming to preserve the status quo. The one that struck me was the 'Mary-Like' move- ment: which, as the name sug- gests, proposed Our Lady (i.e., archetypal Virgin Mother) as the role model for women to aspire to. This in turn suggests a certain expectation of the 'Ideal Woman', which hasn't really faded away entirely. The pro-life movement, for instance, also uses decidedly Marian imagery in its public cam- paigns. How strong is this form of social pressure today? "When we see discussions relat- ing to women in Malta, there's still that imagery: you know, 'woman = mother: obedient, good...' You can go to University, of course. You need to pass your exams. But then you're going to be a mother, and after that you should stay home. Nothing wrong with stay- ing home, don't get me wrong. But you should have the freedom to choose. On the flipside, there is the 'nasty, bad woman' who's al- ways being pointed at: the single mother, who paints her nails even though she's unemployed. Either way, women are always pointed at: you're either 'this'... or you're nasty." Burning Bikinis is funded by the Arts Council Malta, Creative Communities, together with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany and the US Embassy. Credits : "Burning Bikinis" Produced by aditus foundation, in co-production with Subway Lab A film by Alessandro Tesei & Em- manuel Tut-Rah Farah; Original music by Etnika, Matteo Cincopan - The Poets Interview 'Burning Bikinis', a documentary by the Aditus Foundation, explores the evolution of women's rights in Malta from the 1960s to the present. Researcher CARLA CAMILLERI on what has changed since then... and also what hasn't being pointed at PHOTOGRAPHY BYJAMES BIANCHI