Chiming in on the Move to Italy Discourse

First the good: Italy’s beauty is almost unparalleled. I say almost because I come from California.

For a lot of people who move to Italy, it will easily be the most beautiful place they will live.

For history and art, it is unparalleled.

It is the only country with more than 50 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. This, and the language, and the food and wine are the best things.

Americans have long had a huge love affair with Italy and lately—well, let’s be specific, since November 6, 2024—there’s been a tidal wave of Americans inquiring about moving to Italy.

While running to Italy can provide some respite from current horrors in the US, it must be said that Italy has its first far-right government since 1945. Even if the fascist crap is worse in the US, Italy’s PM appears to be a fan of a lot of it.

Americans become obsessed after vacationing in Italy and via hyper idealized Hollywood movies located in Italy.

I totally get the vacation thing. There’s nothing better than going to Italy’s gorgeous places with a healthy budget. But vacationing and living in Italy are two very different things.

And perhaps I should caution my compatriots from viewing the sappy Hollywood movies about Italy as a presentation of reality.

Often with the word dolce in the title, these movies depict a renovation of a ruin taking only a few months, (ha!🤣) and portray the American protagonist utterly unschooled in Italian culture, making “charming” gaffs and finding the love of his/her life within days of arriving.

No, I have not watched La Dolce Villa, but I gather it’s along those lines. They all are.

I suggest avoiding these movies if you’re seeking serious information about what it’s like to move to Italy. Watch them purely for entertainment, but don’t overlay them on your visions of moving to Italy.

With all that preamble, what I thought I’d do, is divulge some of the non-dolce stuff.

If you’re enthralled with the idea of moving to Italy, you’ve already received enough of the dolce stuff to fill the tower of Pisa. So maybe my contribution should be to admit some of the things that aren’t so sweet. I will caution that a lot of these things have to do with moving to Italy as a single woman.

I recently saw this comment on a discussion about moving to Italy:

“Unless you have some unbreakable link to another country, such as marriage or children, I highly suggest staying in your home country. Success, as an alien in a foreign land, is definitely difficult and most fail and must restart in their homeland.”

I do not have the unbreakable link this person speaks of, and that makes it harder.

Making Friends

Italians grow up with a core set of friends and they tend to remain living in the same place where they grew up. This means they hang out with their tight tribe that goes back to childhood. If you’ve married an Italian, you have access to this tribe. But if you are a single foreigner, not so much.

Italians are known for being friendly but for the most part, they are not going to expect a deep friendship with you, the straniera. This is why many people who move to Italy turn to the networks for foreigners. I have witnessed foreigners express an initial desire not to hang out too much with people from their country, in deference to connecting with locals, but after feeling unsuccessful penetrating tight-knit groups of locals, they rely on the expat (immigrant) groups.

This is mostly my reality as well. I have a few Florentine friends. Not super close friends, though. Not like my women friends in California. And I notice in my interactions with Florentines, for example those in my palazzo, that they see me as “other”.

My married male neighbor behaves inappropriately toward me in a way he does not do with Italian women in the building. It’s like he thinks he might get away with it with me, since I’m an “outsider”. Maybe it’s because I’m not a Florentine who easily yells. (More on yelling coming up.)

His wife is a very good-looking woman. But it’s as if he sees my foreignness as exotic, like I represent the risky things a dude does on vacation that he wouldn’t do at home.

It’s weird stupid shit like whenever he enters the main door downstairs at the same time as me, he walks behind me up the stairs instead of at my side. (I’ve started to just stop on the stairs and not move or wave him ahead of me.)

Or when he and I are talking to the insurance woman who is inspecting damage in our apartments from a leak, he stands overly close to me and finds a reason to touch me, but it’s all subtle and if I tell him he’s not being respectful, he can feign bafflement.

My other neighbor, in her seventies, sees me a semi-imbecilic because of my accent, or because I approach things differently than she does.

She’s never lived abroad on her own in another language and doesn’t have it in her to imagine what it might be like. She’d rather criticize. She criticizes me in a way she would never do with the Italian neighbors.

I’ve turned the other cheek to her criticisms for years. Recently though, she was particularly abhorrent about it, so I asked her in my calm way to not be so critical. She freaked out. Said I’d offended her, said it was normal for her to yell because she’s Florentine. Her attitude: she gets to have an aggressive communication style because she’s Florentine.

I’m not a yeller. I’m far happier being kind, which includes a kind tone of voice, rather than yelling. I guess my personality doesn’t fit with the Florentine way 🤷‍♀️.

I’ve certainly heard Italians from other regions say “Fiorentini hanno una mazza nel culo.” Florentines have a stick up their ass.

I doubt I’ll ever have a real tribe of Florentine friends. Florence, for me, has to be about the history, art, and beauty. But as far as people who really feel like my people, they are where I grew up in Santa Cruz.

Lack of hugs

Courtesy of artlovingitaly.com

Italians do cheek kisses for hello and goodbye. In California, I’m used to hugs for hello and goodbye with friends. A few times over the years when I have tried to hug an Italian friend, the reaction is surprise and alarm, so I don’t try anymore. Not having a partner or family here, I’ve literally gone years in Italy without a hug.

Violence against women and gender inequality in Italy

Names of Italian women killed by men projected onto the colosseum on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, in 2021. Photo credit CNN.

Italy is entrenched in patriarchal norms and it scores low in gender equality. It ranks 14th on the EU’s Gender Equality Index, which is 3.6 points below the EU's score.

I came face to face with these issues during the remodel of my apartment, when the entrenched patriarchal norms and low gender equality really stood out.

It turned out to be a bad dynamic to be a single, foreign, female, hiring and trying to manage male workers.

Almost every worker was stupefied not to find a man in charge. One of their first sentences, time and time again, was, “sei sposata?”

After a year and a half of this, I was ready to scream and throw a hammer at a wall if I had to hear the question again about my marital status. Of course, it was none of their business, but they very much thought it was their business.

That was nothing though, compared to the two separate incidents of workers grabbing at my body and trying to get me to sleep with them. (You can read about it here, and here, on my website.)

This is why I don’t date in Italy. Even before this, when I tried dating in Florence, the men showed zero interest in getting to know me and at the same time, displayed an attitude of entitlement to my body. As a result, I removed myself from dating.

Femicide, the intentional killing of women due to gender-related motivations, is higher in Italy than the EU average. It’s a serious and systemic problem.

In Italy, there were 113 femicides in 2024. Most were committed by partners or ex-partners. Already in the first three months of this year there have been eleven femicides.

While the overall homicide rate is decreasing in Italy, the femicide rate since I moved to Italy in 2017 has remained in the same range—of approximately one woman every three days.

Femicide is, of course, not unique to Italy. It’s a world-wide problem that is normalized by patriarchal cultures which, in turn, normalize misogyny.

Sexism in Italy leads to low prosecution and conviction rates and impunity for perpetrators. Italian police and courts are known to re-victimize women who have suffered male violence, which makes women reluctant to report assault.

Women in Italy who are abused, stalked, and threatened often face condescending and uncaring police. Again, this is not unique to Italy. It’s why women around the world shy away from reporting. It is why I did not call the police in either of the incidents that occurred in my apartment when workers accosted me. Who wants to be re-traumatized by police when you’re already traumatized by men who’ve treated you like you’re simply a body that exists for them?

And yes, sexism and misogyny and violence against women are very prevalent in the US. But the part of California where I come from is further along on the awareness scale than Italy is, so overall I’d say I struggle with this more in Italy than I do in California.

Here is a clip highlighting one aspect of Italian culture that contributes to the problem. (I took the clip from a much longer roundtable discussion, linked below on femicide in Italy.)

Conclusion

As you can see, the three downsides I’ve presented are tied to my gender and single status.

I can’t speak for the wide range of immigrants/expats in Italy, but I’ve observed that Americans who move to Italy as a couple are less likely to struggle with (and maybe not even notice) these issues.

Be gentle in the comments. Whoever shares downsides of living in Italy needs extra courage to do so because everyone is obsessed with Italy and while some people appreciate hearing all sides, others get mad at you for “yucking” on their “yum”.

Go here for a roundtable discussion on femicide in Italy produced by TRT Global

And here are three more posts of mine on moving to Italy:

Huddle Masses

Is it Romanticized?

Two Things You Must Know