Gaddafi learns how to spread the love

Milan: Before arranging his historic first trip to Italy, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi had one request: To meet the ladies.
On Friday, the leader met with a group of 700 Italian women, including politicians, businesswomen, and housewives, in order to discuss women’s issues. Gaddafi, who travels with a stylish corps of female bodyguards, portrays himself as a champion of women’s rights—especially in Europe, where, he says, Western culture forces women to turn into men.
But many criticize Gaddafi—much as they do his host, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi—for using women to assert his own authority and influence. “They are both used to expressing their power through their relationship with women, by being surrounded by them,” Gad Lerner, an Italian commentator. “[Gaddafi’s visit] sounds to me like another occasion to show off women as an ornament ...He knows he can afford it, since he came to a country where women are so used to being humiliated that they take it for granted.”
For many critics, Berlusconi is Exhibit A when it comes to treating women as objects. Last week, a Spanish paper published frontpage photos of young, scantily clad women enjoying a Berlusconihosted visit to his villa last winter. The 72-year-old leader faces divorce over an affair with a teen.
Lerner dismisses Gaddafi’s meeting with Italian women on Friday as “a farce.” Local and international media, meanwhile, slammed it as “a date.” About 100 Italian and African women wrote a letter saying that they don’t want to meet the Libyan leader because of his poor record in human rights.
Gaddafi’s political manifesto, written in 1975, says that women’s primarily role is to bear children, condemning both contraception and women working in fields that are male-dominated. Nevertheless, he introduced the drafting of women into the army, and, during the 40 years of his rule, female employment rose from 6-20%.
Berlusconi has a mixed record on women’s rights. When asked why his party did not have many women in powerful positions, he said it was difficult to find “good ladies willing to leave their husband to attend Parliament sessions.” Last year, Berlusconi raised eyebrows by appointing Mara Carfagna, a former nude model as as Equal Opportunity minister. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (right) took a leaf out of Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi’s book, by showing his love for Italian women at a speech on Friday