5 Italian Women Changing Contemporary Italy

Giorgia Meloni

Giorgia Meloni,  born in Rome in 1977, is the first woman to hold the position of president of the Council of Ministers, serving as Prime Minister of Italy since October 22, 2022. A member of the Chamber of Deputies since 2006, she has led the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) political party since 2014 and been the president of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party since 2020. A right-wing populist and nationalist, she describes herself as a conservative and a Christian. In 2022, Forbes ranked Meloni seventh on its list of most powerful women in the world. She has a six-year-old daughter, Ginevra.

Elly Schlein

According to a May 2023 interview released by Vogue Italy, Elena Ethel “Elly” Schlein, born to American-Italian parents in 1985 in Lugano, Switzerland, has done to Italian politics what Måneskin has done to Italian music. In fact, Vogue continues, since her nomination as leader of the Partito Democratico on February 26, 2023 as the first woman to take this role, the 38-year-old former Europarliamentarian and ex-vice president of the Emilia-Romagna region demasculinized and brought new youth to politics and projected it onto an international arena. “A new awareness is growing in society and especially among the younger generations. There is a European mobilization that combines social justice with climate justice, also embracing dignity in employment, fighting against exploitation and the condition of the precariat, and for equality of rights, of initial opportunities,” Schlein declared in Vogue.

Samantha Cristoforetti

Mechanical engineer, military pilot, UNICEF ambassador, and fluent in six languages, Captain Samantha Cristoforetti was the first Italian woman to join the crews of the European Space Agency. After becoming the first Italian woman on the International Space Station (ISS )in 2014, she became the first “extraterrestrial” Tik Toker and also grabbed the record of the first European astronaut to take an hours-long “walk” outside the ISS. Her bio on the European Space Agency’s website says that Samantha, born in 1977 in Milan, is an avid reader with a passion for science and technology and an equal interest in humanities. She enjoys learning foreign languages and occasionally finds the time to hike, scuba dive, or practice yoga. Last, but not least, she’s the mother of two.

Miuccia Prada

Thanks to her talent and entrepreneurial ability, the Milanese Miuccia Prada has created  one of the best-known brands in the world, combining avant-garde and innovation in fashion. One hundred ten years have passed since Miuccia’s grandfather created the first Fratelli Prada store in Milan. Today, according to the 2023 Forbes ranking, she is Italy’s second richest woman with $5.24 billion. The icon of elegance and iconic Italian cerebral chic and understatement, at age 75, Miuccia retains her  manifesto on life: “Do well the things we like to. More than business, we are interested in the ideas we believe in.”

Rita Levi Montalcini

Born in Turin in 1909 with homes in the U.S., Belgium, and Italy, Montalcini died in 2012 at age 103. She was one of the first Italian women to graduate from medical school and was just a young student at university when forced to flee Jewish persecution. For decades, Montalcini has been a strong role model for Italian girls with careers as a neurologist, academic, and senator in the Italian parliament. She won the Nobel Prize in Medicine along with Italian Renato Dulbecco in 1986, having discovered and illustrated the growth factor of nerve fibers, and she was also the first woman member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Her lifelong passion was supporting international neuro-medical research.