What Makes Italy’s Giorgia Meloni a Woman Leader With Difference 

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has emerged as leader of substance whose prominence in the news cycle is outshining her European peers, such as UK’s Rishi Sunak and France’s Emmanuel Macron. 

Meloni recently became the first leader to announce on social media that she was parting with her boyfriend. 

In a postscript, Meloni addressed those who hoped to ‘weaken’ her by striking her private life. 

“No matter how much a water drop may hope to carve the stone, the stone remains stone and the drop is only water,” Meloni wrote. 

For weeks, Giorgia Meloni’s relationship with TV news host Andrea Giambruno, was dominating the news cycle in Italy and its immediate neighbourhood. Theirs was a relationship that lived in constant media limelight. 

But a comment by Giambruno, stating women should avoid getting drunk to avoid potential sexual assaults, created a political storm in Italy. Meloni clarified that her partner did not represent her views. But the damage was done. 

The personal and political overlapped. Meloni chose political, defying a discourse among women leaders (example New Zealand’s former PM Jacinda Ardern) to reflect that she has enough to fulfil the demands of a challenging premiership. And that she’s there to stay.