‘Gelato gate’: Italian gossip mag in row over lewd photo of ice cream-eating MP

One of Italy’s most popular gossip magazines has been accused of sexism after publishing photographs of a female government minister eating an ice cream with a lewd and sexually suggestive headline.

Paparazzi pictures of Marianna Madia, a minister in Matteo Renzi’s cabinet, are featured in a spread in this week’s Chi magazine.

They show Madia, 34, eating an ice-cream cone in the passenger seat of a car, with her husband sitting in the driving seat. “She knows how to do it with an ice cream,” read the headline used in the magazine, owned by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. It added that Madia was “allowing herself a … pleasurable break” with her husband.

Even by the standards of Chi magazine – which has in the past published paparazzi shots of the Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing topless – the tone has appalled Italians and prompted a chorus of condemnation.

Susanna Camusso, head of the largest trade union federation, the CGIL, chastised it on Twitter as “a real outburst of male chauvinism”. Ignazio Marino, the centre-left mayor of Rome, branded it “vulgar and sexist”.

The disciplinary council of the order of journalists in the northern region of Lombardy, around Milan, announced it is investigating Chi’s editor, Alfonso Signorini, for “manifest violation of the ethical rules on privacy and acts inconsistent with the decorum and professional dignity”.

And on social media “gelato gate” gathered steam, with a number of women and men posting pictures of themselves eating ice creams on Twitter and holding up signs reading: “I know how to do it, too.”

Signorini, however, appeared unmoved by the scandal, telling Berlusconi’s Channel 5: “I’m not sorry, not at all … I’d [do] it again in a heartbeat. Chi will continue to do irreverent stories as part of its public service mission.”

An attempt to get Berlusconi’s girlfriend Francesca Pascale on side, however, backfired. Signorini had tried to suggest his critics in “gelato gate” were leftwing foes that had enjoyed a suggestive video featuring Pascale licking an ice lolly.

His comments implied he did not see a difference between a woman dancing in a music video and a woman being secretly photographed inside a car. But Pascale, 29, ended up weighing in on Madia’s side, describing the feature as “revolting” and “offensive”.

Questioned about the feature, Madia declined to comment on Thursday apart from saying it was “something that speaks for itself”.

Pressed by RepubblicaTV, she added: “What can I say? Everyone is responsible for who they are and what they do. I am responsible for … the reform of the public administration, of the reformist plans of this government. Signorini, as editor of Chi, is responsible for what he publishes. Everyone must face up to the responsibilities of their choices.”

Madia, one of several women in the Italian prime minister’s cabinet, is not the only one to have been picked on by gossip and mainstream Italian media. A fake photo of constitutional reform minister Maria-Elena Boschi showing a thong peeking out over the top of her trousers began circulating on social media after she was sworn in.