Advice from Italy

“We all felt this American loss as a personal loss, as women,” [Francesca] Comencini said the day after the election. “But this is wrong! We must not allow this feeling to grow inside us. It’s in the strength of women that this kind of leader can find resistance.” Comencini was speaking from experience. In 2011, with her sister, Cristina, she masterminded a massive feminist manifestazione protesting the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

…The sisters have a suggestion for their American counterparts as they prepare for the Million Women’s March on Washington, the day after Trump’s inauguration. “Do not make something against him, but communicate the idea that women are the nation,” Cristina said. “This is strength — it’s there, it’s something that he has to face.”


Ariel Levy in “Can Women Bring Down Trump?” The New Yorker, November 28, 2016.