Politics & Power Quote by Emma Bonino

There’s a provocation baked into Bonino’s blunt triad: mother, wife, politician. It reads like a job description nobody would dare write for a man, and that asymmetry is the point. Bonino, a veteran of Italy’s often macho political arena and a symbol of liberal reform, is not romanticizing “having it all” so much as naming the double (or triple) bind women are expected to manage in public life. The line works because it compresses an entire social negotiation into nine words: legitimacy for women is still policed through domestic credibility.

The intent is both pragmatic and accusatory. Pragmatic because Bonino understands that in many electorates, a woman’s authority is treated as conditional; she has to signal she won’t rupture the familiar order. Accusatory because the expectation itself is absurdly demanding. By stacking “mother” and “wife” beside “politician,” she exposes how politics isn’t just a profession but a performance of identity, with women required to supply extra evidence of normalcy, warmth, and sacrifice.

The subtext cuts deeper: women in power are often permitted to lead only if they can be read as caretakers first. That framing narrows the range of acceptable female ambition and turns private life into a public credential. Coming from Bonino, whose own life choices didn’t fit traditional family scripts, the quote can also be heard as a critique of the script itself: a snapshot of what the culture demands, not necessarily what she endorses. It’s less advice than indictment of the terms of entry.