Italian MP goes on sexist rant, calls female deputy speaker 'Mr President', gets angry when told to stop

The Italian parliament witnessed major drama when conservative MP Emanuele Pozzolo refused to address Deputy Speaker of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Anna Ascani, as Madam President, and instead kept calling her "Mr President". Ascani hits back by calling him a "fellow female". A video shows Ascani stopping Pozzolo midway through his speech after he addresses her as "Mr President". She says, "Colleague, excuse me. Since this is the third time I've heard it, call me 'Madam President', otherwise, just 'President' is fine." But Pozzolo dismisses her request outright and once again says, "Thank you, Mr President."

Ascani does not take this lying down and says, "Thank you, fellow female MP Pozzolo. Please continue, thank you," and gives him a confident stare. "If you're enjoying yourself, Mr President, then we're both enjoying ourselves," Pozzolo says. He defends his choice of words and says he is using the institutional term and calls on Ascani to “respect a member of parliament who uses the proper institutional terms.”

Ascani warns Pozzolo that he will be removed from parliament

"Colleague, I call you to order. You cannot behave like that," Ascani says multiple times as Pozzolo continues to shout at her in the parliament. She issues him a second warning, and tells him to continue with his speech and "never again address the Chair this way after it simply asked you for a courtesy, Mr Pozzolo." Ascani tells him to "review" his institutional language and "not address the Chair this way, or I'll have you removed from the Chamber."

German politician calls MP more sensitive than clitoris

This is the third such incident in a parliament where women have had to call out bullies in the middle of a session. Kathi Gebel, a female German politician, recently went viral after a clip from March showed her shutting down an MP in the most brutal manner. "The clitoris has 3000 nerve endings, and you are still more sensitive. To get to that point is quite something!" she tells AfD MP Martin Reichardt, who interrupted her speech. Everyone in the parliament was left stunned and laughing, with Reichardt reacting the most shocked. He didn’t attend any plenary session that or the following week," Gebel said in a later comment.

Also Read: 'Absolute queen': German politician Kathi Gebel shuts down MP with savage 'cl*****s' comeback

Rape legislation debate in European parliament

Another incident unfolded in the European Parliament in April when Swedish MEP Abir Al-Sahlani was interrupted by conservative MEP Cristian Terheș midway through a consent-based rape legislation. "What exactly is a woman that a man violates?" he asks. She takes a jibe at him by saying that he is lacks arguments, and so is "looking for watermelon seeds in the garbage," implying that his statement makes no sense. "Only yes means yes. Everything else is rape," she adds, throwing her hands in the air.

She wrote in a post alongside the video, "Anything other than a yes is rape. It’s that simple. If politics is not on the side of the victim, it’s on the side of the perpetrator. This is not complicated; it’s about giving women protection so they can be free."