When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Geopolitics

Merkel, May And A New Wave Of Women Mayors Around The World

Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico City on July 1
Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico City on July 1
Khadija Belmaaziz

PARIS — When they met Thursday in Berlin, Angela Merkel and Theresa May were two leaders in crisis: the German Chancellor trying to salvage her governing coalition in the face of criticism of her migration policy, while the UK Prime Minister is being dragged ever deeper down in the Brexit quagmire. The meeting, mocked in a less-than-flattering cartoon in The Guardian, took place between two of the world's most powerful women whose "hold on power is starting to look precarious," as Mary Dejevsky writes in The Independent.

Despite the hard times for these female national leaders in Europe, a series of "firsts' on the local level in the rest of the world may hint at a new momentum for women politicians.

In San Francisco, London Breed became the first black woman to be elected mayor with her June victory over two challengers. The San Francisco Chronicle noted that Breed garnered support from across the demographics of the diverse Californian city.

San Francisco mayor London Breed — Photo: Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Meanwhile, south of the border, Claudia Sheinbaum is now the first woman to be elected mayor of the Mexican capital — a surprise win on July 1, in a country where the culture of machismo remains very much an issue. Supporters of the incoming Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who belongs to the same Morena party as Sheinbaum) have called for a great "shake off" and renewed conversation on the place of women in Mexican society.

In Tunisia, the biggest obstacle today to women's advancement is not called machismo, but Islamism. Yet the North African nation also has a history of leading the way on gender equality in the Muslim world, notably with the freedoms inherited from Habib Bourguiba in the 1950s.

Undoing millennia of patriarchy across the world won't happen overnight.

All eyes are now on Tuesday's election of 53-year-old Souad Abderrahim as the first woman mayor of the country's capital. It is a victory that must be put into perspective, as Abderrahim is backed by the Islamist party Ennahda: "Abderrahim is one of the faces that will help de-demonize Ennahda with a Tunisian electorate that is generally against political Islam," wrote French daily Le Monde.

Undoing millennia of patriarchy across the world won't happen overnight, even as each election of a woman to power can be counted as progress. Still, just ask Mesdames Merkel and May: Rising to power is one thing; wielding it successfully is something else.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

food / travel

Pasta v. Fascists: How Italy's Staple Dish Became A Symbol Of Resistance

Pasta may not be considered controversial today, but it played an important role during Italy's fascist years, particularly in one family's celebration of community and liberation.

Photo of the Cervi family.

Photo of the Cervi family, whose seven children were shot by the Fascists on December 28, 1943, at the Reggio Emilia shooting range.

@comunisti_alla_ribalta via Instagram
Jacopo Fontaneto

ROME — Eighty years ago — on July 25, 1943 — the vote of no confidence by the Grand Council of Fascism, leading to Benito Mussolini's arrest, set off widespread celebrations. In Campegine, a small village in the Emilian province, the Cervi family celebrated in their own way: they brought 380 kilograms of pasta in milk cans to the town square and offered it to all the inhabitants of the village.

The pasta was strictly plain: macaroni dressed with butter and cheese, seen as more of a "festive dish" in that period of deprivation. As soon as the Cervi brothers learned about the arrest of Mussolini, they procured flour, borrowed butter and cheese from the dairy, and prepared kilos and kilos of pasta. They then loaded it onto a cart to distribute it to their fellow villagers. Pastasciutta (dry pasta) specifically regards dishes with noodles that are plated "dry", not in broth. That would disqualify soup, risotto, ravioli...

Even though pastasciutta is the most stereotypical type of pasta today, it had a complicated relationship with the government during Italy's fascist years.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest