April 25, 2011 • 20 mins
Breaking the glass ceiling in organized crime may not be anything to celebrate, but it's making headlines all the same. In this episode, Molly and Cristen explore the juicy stories of Italian godmothers running Mafia families while the men are in jail.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From House top Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Molly and then Kristen. Kristen. One
(00:20):
story that my father always told me about his days
growing up in New Jersey was about a mobster who
lived in his neighborhood in Jersey. In Jersey. Uh, that's
the setting of the Sopranos, very popular show about the
mob um. It was sort of like my dad was
living a little bit of a stereotype. But he said,
the guy was really nice. Is your father it's alien? No,
(00:41):
he's not. He just happened to be in New Jersey.
I guess with this guy and uh that. But I
did go to Italy to study when I was in college,
and you know, I was fascinated by the mafia there
that I went to Russia, which also has a good Mom,
Were you hanging out with mafia folks and the mafio
so in Italy? Not to my knowledge, But I did
go to Naples, which, as we learned this week, is
(01:02):
quite the center of mafia activity but also surprisingly a
center of female empowerment question mark question mark exactly because
the story that we're going to try and lay out
for everyone today is whether women are breaking the glass
ceiling in the mafia. And this is also one of
the examples of whether or not we need to assume
(01:25):
that everything that women step up to the plate to
do and and breakthrough and typically male dominated activities and fields,
is that always a good thing? Is that always something
to be celebrated? Does everything have to include is shattering
of a glass ceiling? Because I don't know if shooting
bazookas through a glass ceiling to perpetuate the heroin trade
(01:49):
out of Naples is really something we need to be like, Yeah,
that's an example, all the same, it's a good story
while the kids. We can endorse criminal activity, but if
you're going to be a criminal, at least make it interesting.
And that's what these people have done, especially when you
consider what the stereotype, especially perpetuated by the Godfather and
(02:09):
all these mafia mobster movies, is that the women are
just there to take care of the men, to look
the other way when they've got a mistress, to raise
the kids, to keep quiet, to enjoy their spoils, but
not raise a big ruckus about what the mister is doing. Yeah,
and in a lot of cases that's that's true. And
then for the daughters in mob families, they're typically used
(02:31):
as ponds. They create the ties between different families. They'll
be married off, set up. You know, everything is is
very much managed for them, at least back in ye
old mob days. Yeah, and that we found this really
interesting commandments of the mafia that were found when they
when um, they did a raid on a mobster's house,
(02:52):
and it kind of showed how women were viewed. Uh,
you were supposed to respect your wife, not abuse her.
She shouldn't expect you to show up at childbirth because
you might be busy doing mob stuff. Um, you shouldn't
look at a friend's wife. So it was this degree
of respect, but also the sense that women needed to
know their place. Their place was not at the table
with the rest of the family figuring out what the
(03:13):
family was going to be doing. And they also need
to get over the fact that their husband probably had
at least one mistress on this side, because within the
the mob social scene, the mistresses would be used as
a sign of a demonstration of a man's power, and um,
you know, a lot of I was reading this one
(03:34):
or girl said a lot of the modern mobsters kind
of learned how to be mobsters by watching The Godfather.
I mean, you think that they would have figured it
out hundreds of years of criminal activity, but that really
seemended things to a lot of people. But it came
out kind of recently that Mario Puzzo, who wrote The Godfather,
based the character of Don Corleone on his mother. Like
(03:58):
what he said, when I heard r Leon's words come out,
I heard my mother and all her wisdom and all
her love for her family and her ruthlessness. And you know,
he wrote this very aggressive character that to him represented,
you know, a very prominent female in his life, which
I think is really interesting that mobsters have internalized this
character who's actually based on a woman. But maybe Mario
(04:19):
Puto's idea of this more female of figure, or at
least putting the female figure in the form of Marlon Brando.
Uh is actually coming to fruition today in Naples. And
again this is when I'm I feel strange about getting
excited about talking about this. But the Godfather is fading
(04:43):
into the distance as God mothers rise up through the ranks,
particularly in naples, within these naples of mafia families, and
one of the leading women in this all these crime
rings is a woman named Maria Lechi. Yeah, I think
(05:04):
she had to be kind of my favorite. Again, it
sounds weird to say that, but if you just want
to go for a woman whose life can be a
movie so easily because it's gonna have so many shootout scenes,
you're gonna go with her. Uh. She, you know, was
was kind of instrumental in allying all these little gangs together,
all these little mafia families. And then one day they
(05:26):
get in a shipment of heroin, naturally, and Maria is like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
this is way too strong. It's going to kill the junkies.
And at first I was like, oh, that's so nice
public health, and then I realized, you know, she's really
looking after her customer base, handing out you know, like
free condoms, Molly, this is heroin. It's just it's weird
how you find yourselves, you know, allying with these people
(05:46):
for the ladies, they're so interesting. So anyway, she's like,
that's probably and also, I mean that's that also hints
at her more nurturing side, like when we're talking about
like female bosses in the corporate world. Uh, she's just
demonstrating that she's just eternal skill sets. Yes. Anyway, she's like, guys,
don't sell this, and one of her, one of her
you know, allied families, is like, no, we're selling the heroine.
(06:07):
And they do, and all these junkies start dying, as
Maria predicted, Yeah, eleven junkies died in Naples in one week.
And so they're saying that, you know, tourists are tripping
over bodies in the streets. A little bit of an exaggeration,
but but like I said, great movie, great movie, heroin,
junkies dying in the streets, Molly very mccob sense of
(06:30):
sense of cinematic greatness. So anyway, eventually these these families
are are feuding because the junkies died and it's bad
press for the mob, and Maria Lechiari is like, dudes,
I told you not to to give that pure heroin out.
We were supposed to cut it up. Yeah, And so
eventually someone shoots members of Licharity's own own, own family,
(06:55):
So that means more. Obviously I've seen enough mom movies
to know that. And what commenced was this just deadly
spree of dead bodies, dead dead, all sorts of death,
dead dead blood running in the streets of Naples to
read one article. And so she became one of Italy's
most wanted criminals, most infamous for this spree of deadness,
(07:19):
and finally she was caught. Um. But I mean that
was an example of someone who rose through the ranks
and wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty. You know,
there was this myth that these female bosses, yeah, they
might be taking over, but they were, you know, they're
just kind of place placeholders till the men got back.
But you know, people like this are showing that women
(07:40):
can be just as aggressive when it comes to ordering
hits as men can well. And we should also point
out that this makes sense for the families in Naples because,
according to their family traditions, family the business matters within
the family, i e. Uh, you know, cutting up heroin
and other things, um passes down to a female family
(08:01):
member before it would be passed down to an unrelated male.
Not so, as we'll learn a little bit later on.
In Sicilian families, which is where the core leoned family
from the Godfather series um is from But I just
want to share this one tidbit. This is from an
AP story from two thousand nine describing these showdowns in
(08:24):
Naples among rival Camorra clans. In the Camora clan is
the one that Maria Alicchiardi, the Madrina or Godmother, is
head of. And it says in one of the most
lurid episodes in two thousand to two, carloads of women
from rival Camora clans lurched through the streets, first trading
insults in the machine gun fire and pistol shots until
(08:46):
two grandmothers and a sixteen year old girl were dead.
Oh yeah, but that's where I gets a little bit better,
because you know where this whole fight started. Yeah, I
do a hair salon. A hair salon. The sixteen year
old is getting her hair done, and she's sassy, and
she is too sassy to a rival clan member and
slaps her in the face. And so that night, that's
(09:08):
why they had to go out in the streets of
Naples and they're Audie and rumble and uh and what
they found and you know, the sixteen year old died
for her sass. But what they found on her body
was a vial of acid, Like, oh, they're about to
throw acid. We're going to throw acid on someone. And
so that just shows that you gotta be careful what
you say in the hair salon lesson for us, all
(09:30):
mafia related or not. These mafia women who were taking
over while the all the dudes are in prison, they're
just as tough. They find that there are reports of
bazooka fights. Bazoukas. Why do you get your hands on
a bazuka. It's like a flamethrower. Someone's gonna know it's
gonna be the mom. But let's let's go back, though,
and talk about the woman who really started it all,
(09:53):
who really made her mark. And I feel like we're
talking about like, I don't know, Susan being the New Years.
I think who is the really first icon of female
mafia member and that is the little Doll Doll? Uh Yeah.
(10:14):
Everyone seems to trace this female mob bactorty back to
La Popeta and in the nineteen fifties, the Little Doll
she was in her twenties. Uh, she was hanging out
with a guy named Big Pasquality Simonetti and uh he
would sell protection to the local produce venders, and uh
(10:35):
little doll was a beauty contest winner, so you know
she made a nice arm candy for the Big Pasqually
And uh then there happens to be some bad blood,
as there usually is in mob stories, and Big Pasquality
gets shot by a guy who was sent by another
guy named Tony Esposito. But here's the thing. Before the
(10:57):
dude was shot, Big Pasqually, big um He and La Pepeta,
we're gonna have a bud. No, it's true. Yeah, so
she was a quick child in the nine fifties, a
time when you should be you know, at home, getting
ready to nest and whatnot, barefoot and pregnant. But but
Pasquality told her it was Tony. She takes the gun
(11:21):
into her own hands, a little pregnant is something woman,
and she shoots Tony Esposito. She goes to court. The
case was so big that they put microphones in the
courtroom so everyone could hear. And when when she says, yeah,
I shot the guy and I would do it again,
everyone just cheers, like here's this little pregnant woman upholding
(11:43):
these uh mafia ideals of protecting your own and uh,
she'd be just became famous. She went to jail and
then she kind of got out and lived a life
of crime, and everyone was like, you know what, that's
what you do in our family. So it's some people
make the argument in these articles about mob women that
it is the mothers who instill these kind of values
in their kids. And it makes sense that, you know,
(12:04):
you can't break up a family or get one of
them to turn state's witness because the women just ingrain them,
you know ingrain these values in them so strongly, and
probably ingrained pretty good marksmanship because La Pipetta apparently landed
twenty nine bullets in Tony Esposito's body, is saying, and
(12:27):
her life was made into a movie. There's usually a
good movie where a mafia story is concerned. Let's face it,
so Lava Peta kinda you know, is usually consider the
first real female mafia mafiosa. And uh, but you know
there are, like we said, all these trend stories about
this happening in Naples and the reason it's happening there,
like Kristen said, there's a difference in Sicilian values and
(12:49):
the values in Naples, where it's it's more acceptable to
give your business to a female family member, um rather
than an associate, because you know, in Sicily they still
have a lot of these uh gen their stereotyped ideas
of the woman in the kitchen um. But basically, there
was a big crackdown on male mobsters, so all the fathers,
all the brothers, all the uncles were in jail, so
(13:11):
that someone had to step up, and more and more
it's the women. And so some people are saying it's
really not empowerment because they're just holding the place until
the guy gets back. There'd be no other circumstance in
which they get to head the family. But other people
are saying, no, it's been the women all the time.
There was this one Sicilian court that said that, uh,
(13:31):
you know, women, we shouldn't pay attention to women. They're
too stupid to make mobster related decisions. And uh you know,
a prosecutor later said, if we had just followed the women,
we would have found all the crimes because they were
the ones orchestrating it. They were just clever enough to
make the men think that they had thought of them.
And even when the men are in prison, the women
can run messages by going to visit their husbands and
(13:53):
then take whatever kind of commands back to the other
mafio so out there. And of course the Italian police
have caught on to this trend of of women taking
more powerful roles within mafia families, and the number of
women charged for mafia crimes has only been escalating since
(14:13):
nine when only one woman was indicted for a mafia association.
And it has a lot to do with people like Lechiardi.
And then there's this also wonderful rival. Why am I
saying wonderful? It's so weird, Uh, this rival god mother
figure named Armenia Giuliano, who was also arrested not too
(14:36):
long ago. But she insisted on being able to take
a shower, visit her hairdresser, put on high heels in
a fake leper skin coat just for the pictures she
is being taken to jail. She wanted to look good.
And of course the press eats these things up, and
that's why we can, you know, giggle over these, you know,
(14:56):
titillating articles. But you know, it just seems to go
in the face of stereotypical gender stereotypes because a lot
of uh, legislators and law officials thought that once women
were in charge, they might do what was better for
their children. They might, you know, try and get their
men out of crime. You know, they might get them
(15:17):
to to turn, you know, to confess, to to give
up some names. And they really haven't done that. There's
only one notable case where female mobster got arrested and
finally uh sang like a canary so that she could
be with her children. And it, you know, it's been
interesting to the prosecutors to see that. You know, it's
not like women are going to be the trick to
breaking up organized crime. But on the outside of the mafia,
(15:41):
we should note that there is a group of women
in Sicily who was trying to stand up to the
mafia forces that will go around to the businesses and
basically charge them for the protection. And they founded this
group called the Audio Pezo name meaning goodbye Piso uh
(16:04):
and the Pizzo is a reference to a ten percent
levy and post on the entire business community by the
coast and coastin Nostra, so that's where the name comes from.
But a lot of these are younger female business owners
who are saying, you know what, it is time for
us to stop sitting under the mafia's thumb and let's
let's create our own sort of protective bands. And they've
(16:26):
also done a tourism push to uh have tourists come
and support specifically support these businesses that are not giving
money to the mafia, and so far it seems like
it might be making a little bit of a difference. Granted,
some of these female business owners are terrified because they
are still getting followed and threatened by mobsters. But again,
(16:51):
it's it's kind of interesting to see, like on one
hand you have the rise of the female godmothers, and
then on on the outside, we've got this, this rise
of the female led audio Piezo. So so here's my
question to wrap things up, Christen, for you and for
our listeners if they care to weigh in, if we're
going to make a female buddy movie, which would we
rather play to godmother's you know, lording over Italy or
(17:12):
Jersey or wherever with our with our mob like ways,
you would have to be in Italy versus Jersey, let's
just put it, yeah, Or would we rather play two
young women on the outside taking on the mob. Both
could be really good movies, you know, but what we
could do, I mean this might sound a little controversially,
but you know, like I could play someone in the mafia,
and maybe you could place someone on the outside trying
(17:34):
to bring me down and taking the juicy role for
yourself a little bit. And because I really, because that
means that're not gonna be to the basta all the time.
Coo can the spaghetti while your victims are in the
basement while on throwing acid on people's faces from the
window of my audie. So if you have anything he'd
(17:55):
like to say in response to are extolling the virtues
of blood thirsty god mothers in Naples, send us an
email or head over to Facebook and Twitter and let
us know your thoughts. And in the meantime, let's read
a couple listener emails. Okay, I've got one here from
(18:18):
Mary and it's on the episode about whether it costs
more to be a man or a woman? And Mary right,
it does cost more to be a woman. This is
a fact recognized by the federal government as reflected and
the clothing allowance received by military enlisted personnel this year,
Army man will receive a clothing allowance of three D
seventy dollars and eighty cents, while women we'll see four
ten and forty cents. Uh. This additional mused to pay
(18:39):
for extra stuff women needs, such as running bras, pantyhose,
dress pumps, and other gender specific necessary uniform items that
are not issued. When I was in the army, it
was always nice to get that little bit extra. It
was never enough to actually pay for all the additional
items that I had to buy simply to be able
to go to work, but it was better than not
getting anything extra compared to the men. I've don an
email here from Phoebe and she is fourteen years old
(19:02):
living in London, and she was writing in in response
to our Royal Wedding podcast kind of Up. It really
delights me so and she writes, I don't think that
the Royal Wedding is all that negative, especially considering we're
just emerging from a depressing recession. The wedding is refreshing
and new and seems to be giving people a sense
(19:22):
of national identity and constancy. I disagree with those who
try and demonize the wedding, as it should be remembered
that this union seems to be a real love match
and made of true feelings and not just glued together
by meringue like dresses and a lot of imagined affection.
The wedding is also positive because it shows younger children
that princesses don't have to be ditzy and charmingly vulnerable
(19:44):
to be considered true princesses, but can also be intelligent,
down to earth and independent, something that may well instill
values of self reliance and literal life, and the knowledge
that they don't need to pretend to be dumb and
only interested in ball gowns to feel feminine. Uh well,
said fourteen year old Phoebe. I love it. If you
have any emails again, our address is mom Stuff at
(20:07):
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(20:31):
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reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From House top Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Molly and then Kristen. Kristen. One
(00:20):
story that my father always told me about his days
growing up in New Jersey was about a mobster who
lived in his neighborhood in Jersey. In Jersey. Uh, that's
the setting of the Sopranos, very popular show about the
mob um. It was sort of like my dad was
living a little bit of a stereotype. But he said,
the guy was really nice. Is your father it's alien? No,
(00:41):
he's not. He just happened to be in New Jersey.
I guess with this guy and uh that. But I
did go to Italy to study when I was in college,
and you know, I was fascinated by the mafia there
that I went to Russia, which also has a good Mom,
Were you hanging out with mafia folks and the mafio
so in Italy? Not to my knowledge, But I did
go to Naples, which, as we learned this week, is
(01:02):
quite the center of mafia activity but also surprisingly a
center of female empowerment question mark question mark exactly because
the story that we're going to try and lay out
for everyone today is whether women are breaking the glass
ceiling in the mafia. And this is also one of
the examples of whether or not we need to assume
(01:25):
that everything that women step up to the plate to
do and and breakthrough and typically male dominated activities and fields,
is that always a good thing? Is that always something
to be celebrated? Does everything have to include is shattering
of a glass ceiling? Because I don't know if shooting
bazookas through a glass ceiling to perpetuate the heroin trade
(01:49):
out of Naples is really something we need to be like, Yeah,
that's an example, all the same, it's a good story
while the kids. We can endorse criminal activity, but if
you're going to be a criminal, at least make it interesting.
And that's what these people have done, especially when you
consider what the stereotype, especially perpetuated by the Godfather and
(02:09):
all these mafia mobster movies, is that the women are
just there to take care of the men, to look
the other way when they've got a mistress, to raise
the kids, to keep quiet, to enjoy their spoils, but
not raise a big ruckus about what the mister is doing. Yeah,
and in a lot of cases that's that's true. And
then for the daughters in mob families, they're typically used
(02:31):
as ponds. They create the ties between different families. They'll
be married off, set up. You know, everything is is
very much managed for them, at least back in ye
old mob days. Yeah, and that we found this really
interesting commandments of the mafia that were found when they
when um, they did a raid on a mobster's house,
(02:52):
and it kind of showed how women were viewed. Uh,
you were supposed to respect your wife, not abuse her.
She shouldn't expect you to show up at childbirth because
you might be busy doing mob stuff. Um, you shouldn't
look at a friend's wife. So it was this degree
of respect, but also the sense that women needed to
know their place. Their place was not at the table
with the rest of the family figuring out what the
(03:13):
family was going to be doing. And they also need
to get over the fact that their husband probably had
at least one mistress on this side, because within the
the mob social scene, the mistresses would be used as
a sign of a demonstration of a man's power, and um,
you know, a lot of I was reading this one
(03:34):
or girl said a lot of the modern mobsters kind
of learned how to be mobsters by watching The Godfather.
I mean, you think that they would have figured it
out hundreds of years of criminal activity, but that really
seemended things to a lot of people. But it came
out kind of recently that Mario Puzzo, who wrote The Godfather,
based the character of Don Corleone on his mother. Like
(03:58):
what he said, when I heard r Leon's words come out,
I heard my mother and all her wisdom and all
her love for her family and her ruthlessness. And you know,
he wrote this very aggressive character that to him represented,
you know, a very prominent female in his life, which
I think is really interesting that mobsters have internalized this
character who's actually based on a woman. But maybe Mario
(04:19):
Puto's idea of this more female of figure, or at
least putting the female figure in the form of Marlon Brando.
Uh is actually coming to fruition today in Naples. And
again this is when I'm I feel strange about getting
excited about talking about this. But the Godfather is fading
(04:43):
into the distance as God mothers rise up through the ranks,
particularly in naples, within these naples of mafia families, and
one of the leading women in this all these crime
rings is a woman named Maria Lechi. Yeah, I think
(05:04):
she had to be kind of my favorite. Again, it
sounds weird to say that, but if you just want
to go for a woman whose life can be a
movie so easily because it's gonna have so many shootout scenes,
you're gonna go with her. Uh. She, you know, was
was kind of instrumental in allying all these little gangs together,
all these little mafia families. And then one day they
(05:26):
get in a shipment of heroin, naturally, and Maria is like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
this is way too strong. It's going to kill the junkies.
And at first I was like, oh, that's so nice
public health, and then I realized, you know, she's really
looking after her customer base, handing out you know, like
free condoms, Molly, this is heroin. It's just it's weird
how you find yourselves, you know, allying with these people
(05:46):
for the ladies, they're so interesting. So anyway, she's like,
that's probably and also, I mean that's that also hints
at her more nurturing side, like when we're talking about
like female bosses in the corporate world. Uh, she's just
demonstrating that she's just eternal skill sets. Yes. Anyway, she's like, guys,
don't sell this, and one of her, one of her
you know, allied families, is like, no, we're selling the heroine.
(06:07):
And they do, and all these junkies start dying, as
Maria predicted, Yeah, eleven junkies died in Naples in one week.
And so they're saying that, you know, tourists are tripping
over bodies in the streets. A little bit of an exaggeration,
but but like I said, great movie, great movie, heroin,
junkies dying in the streets, Molly very mccob sense of
(06:30):
sense of cinematic greatness. So anyway, eventually these these families
are are feuding because the junkies died and it's bad
press for the mob, and Maria Lechiari is like, dudes,
I told you not to to give that pure heroin out.
We were supposed to cut it up. Yeah, And so
eventually someone shoots members of Licharity's own own, own family,
(06:55):
So that means more. Obviously I've seen enough mom movies
to know that. And what commenced was this just deadly
spree of dead bodies, dead dead, all sorts of death,
dead dead blood running in the streets of Naples to
read one article. And so she became one of Italy's
most wanted criminals, most infamous for this spree of deadness,
(07:19):
and finally she was caught. Um. But I mean that
was an example of someone who rose through the ranks
and wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty. You know,
there was this myth that these female bosses, yeah, they
might be taking over, but they were, you know, they're
just kind of place placeholders till the men got back.
But you know, people like this are showing that women
(07:40):
can be just as aggressive when it comes to ordering
hits as men can well. And we should also point
out that this makes sense for the families in Naples because,
according to their family traditions, family the business matters within
the family, i e. Uh, you know, cutting up heroin
and other things, um passes down to a female family
(08:01):
member before it would be passed down to an unrelated male.
Not so, as we'll learn a little bit later on.
In Sicilian families, which is where the core leoned family
from the Godfather series um is from But I just
want to share this one tidbit. This is from an
AP story from two thousand nine describing these showdowns in
(08:24):
Naples among rival Camorra clans. In the Camora clan is
the one that Maria Alicchiardi, the Madrina or Godmother, is
head of. And it says in one of the most
lurid episodes in two thousand to two, carloads of women
from rival Camora clans lurched through the streets, first trading
insults in the machine gun fire and pistol shots until
(08:46):
two grandmothers and a sixteen year old girl were dead.
Oh yeah, but that's where I gets a little bit better,
because you know where this whole fight started. Yeah, I
do a hair salon. A hair salon. The sixteen year
old is getting her hair done, and she's sassy, and
she is too sassy to a rival clan member and
slaps her in the face. And so that night, that's
(09:08):
why they had to go out in the streets of
Naples and they're Audie and rumble and uh and what
they found and you know, the sixteen year old died
for her sass. But what they found on her body
was a vial of acid, Like, oh, they're about to
throw acid. We're going to throw acid on someone. And
so that just shows that you gotta be careful what
you say in the hair salon lesson for us, all
(09:30):
mafia related or not. These mafia women who were taking
over while the all the dudes are in prison, they're
just as tough. They find that there are reports of
bazooka fights. Bazoukas. Why do you get your hands on
a bazuka. It's like a flamethrower. Someone's gonna know it's
gonna be the mom. But let's let's go back, though,
and talk about the woman who really started it all,
(09:53):
who really made her mark. And I feel like we're
talking about like, I don't know, Susan being the New Years.
I think who is the really first icon of female
mafia member and that is the little Doll Doll? Uh Yeah.
(10:14):
Everyone seems to trace this female mob bactorty back to
La Popeta and in the nineteen fifties, the Little Doll
she was in her twenties. Uh, she was hanging out
with a guy named Big Pasquality Simonetti and uh he
would sell protection to the local produce venders, and uh
(10:35):
little doll was a beauty contest winner, so you know
she made a nice arm candy for the Big Pasqually
And uh then there happens to be some bad blood,
as there usually is in mob stories, and Big Pasquality
gets shot by a guy who was sent by another
guy named Tony Esposito. But here's the thing. Before the
(10:57):
dude was shot, Big Pasqually, big um He and La Pepeta,
we're gonna have a bud. No, it's true. Yeah, so
she was a quick child in the nine fifties, a
time when you should be you know, at home, getting
ready to nest and whatnot, barefoot and pregnant. But but
Pasquality told her it was Tony. She takes the gun
(11:21):
into her own hands, a little pregnant is something woman,
and she shoots Tony Esposito. She goes to court. The
case was so big that they put microphones in the
courtroom so everyone could hear. And when when she says, yeah,
I shot the guy and I would do it again,
everyone just cheers, like here's this little pregnant woman upholding
(11:43):
these uh mafia ideals of protecting your own and uh,
she'd be just became famous. She went to jail and
then she kind of got out and lived a life
of crime, and everyone was like, you know what, that's
what you do in our family. So it's some people
make the argument in these articles about mob women that
it is the mothers who instill these kind of values
in their kids. And it makes sense that, you know,
(12:04):
you can't break up a family or get one of
them to turn state's witness because the women just ingrain them,
you know ingrain these values in them so strongly, and
probably ingrained pretty good marksmanship because La Pipetta apparently landed
twenty nine bullets in Tony Esposito's body, is saying, and
(12:27):
her life was made into a movie. There's usually a
good movie where a mafia story is concerned. Let's face it,
so Lava Peta kinda you know, is usually consider the
first real female mafia mafiosa. And uh, but you know
there are, like we said, all these trend stories about
this happening in Naples and the reason it's happening there,
like Kristen said, there's a difference in Sicilian values and
(12:49):
the values in Naples, where it's it's more acceptable to
give your business to a female family member, um rather
than an associate, because you know, in Sicily they still
have a lot of these uh gen their stereotyped ideas
of the woman in the kitchen um. But basically, there
was a big crackdown on male mobsters, so all the fathers,
all the brothers, all the uncles were in jail, so
(13:11):
that someone had to step up, and more and more
it's the women. And so some people are saying it's
really not empowerment because they're just holding the place until
the guy gets back. There'd be no other circumstance in
which they get to head the family. But other people
are saying, no, it's been the women all the time.
There was this one Sicilian court that said that, uh,
(13:31):
you know, women, we shouldn't pay attention to women. They're
too stupid to make mobster related decisions. And uh you know,
a prosecutor later said, if we had just followed the women,
we would have found all the crimes because they were
the ones orchestrating it. They were just clever enough to
make the men think that they had thought of them.
And even when the men are in prison, the women
can run messages by going to visit their husbands and
(13:53):
then take whatever kind of commands back to the other
mafio so out there. And of course the Italian police
have caught on to this trend of of women taking
more powerful roles within mafia families, and the number of
women charged for mafia crimes has only been escalating since
(14:13):
nine when only one woman was indicted for a mafia association.
And it has a lot to do with people like Lechiardi.
And then there's this also wonderful rival. Why am I
saying wonderful? It's so weird, Uh, this rival god mother
figure named Armenia Giuliano, who was also arrested not too
(14:36):
long ago. But she insisted on being able to take
a shower, visit her hairdresser, put on high heels in
a fake leper skin coat just for the pictures she
is being taken to jail. She wanted to look good.
And of course the press eats these things up, and
that's why we can, you know, giggle over these, you know,
(14:56):
titillating articles. But you know, it just seems to go
in the face of stereotypical gender stereotypes because a lot
of uh, legislators and law officials thought that once women
were in charge, they might do what was better for
their children. They might, you know, try and get their
men out of crime. You know, they might get them
(15:17):
to to turn, you know, to confess, to to give
up some names. And they really haven't done that. There's
only one notable case where female mobster got arrested and
finally uh sang like a canary so that she could
be with her children. And it, you know, it's been
interesting to the prosecutors to see that. You know, it's
not like women are going to be the trick to
breaking up organized crime. But on the outside of the mafia,
(15:41):
we should note that there is a group of women
in Sicily who was trying to stand up to the
mafia forces that will go around to the businesses and
basically charge them for the protection. And they founded this
group called the Audio Pezo name meaning goodbye Piso uh
(16:04):
and the Pizzo is a reference to a ten percent
levy and post on the entire business community by the
coast and coastin Nostra, so that's where the name comes from.
But a lot of these are younger female business owners
who are saying, you know what, it is time for
us to stop sitting under the mafia's thumb and let's
let's create our own sort of protective bands. And they've
(16:26):
also done a tourism push to uh have tourists come
and support specifically support these businesses that are not giving
money to the mafia, and so far it seems like
it might be making a little bit of a difference. Granted,
some of these female business owners are terrified because they
are still getting followed and threatened by mobsters. But again,
(16:51):
it's it's kind of interesting to see, like on one
hand you have the rise of the female godmothers, and
then on on the outside, we've got this, this rise
of the female led audio Piezo. So so here's my
question to wrap things up, Christen, for you and for
our listeners if they care to weigh in, if we're
going to make a female buddy movie, which would we
rather play to godmother's you know, lording over Italy or
(17:12):
Jersey or wherever with our with our mob like ways,
you would have to be in Italy versus Jersey, let's
just put it, yeah, Or would we rather play two
young women on the outside taking on the mob. Both
could be really good movies, you know, but what we
could do, I mean this might sound a little controversially,
but you know, like I could play someone in the mafia,
and maybe you could place someone on the outside trying
(17:34):
to bring me down and taking the juicy role for
yourself a little bit. And because I really, because that
means that're not gonna be to the basta all the time.
Coo can the spaghetti while your victims are in the
basement while on throwing acid on people's faces from the
window of my audie. So if you have anything he'd
(17:55):
like to say in response to are extolling the virtues
of blood thirsty god mothers in Naples, send us an
email or head over to Facebook and Twitter and let
us know your thoughts. And in the meantime, let's read
a couple listener emails. Okay, I've got one here from
(18:18):
Mary and it's on the episode about whether it costs
more to be a man or a woman? And Mary right,
it does cost more to be a woman. This is
a fact recognized by the federal government as reflected and
the clothing allowance received by military enlisted personnel this year,
Army man will receive a clothing allowance of three D
seventy dollars and eighty cents, while women we'll see four
ten and forty cents. Uh. This additional mused to pay
(18:39):
for extra stuff women needs, such as running bras, pantyhose,
dress pumps, and other gender specific necessary uniform items that
are not issued. When I was in the army, it
was always nice to get that little bit extra. It
was never enough to actually pay for all the additional
items that I had to buy simply to be able
to go to work, but it was better than not
getting anything extra compared to the men. I've don an
email here from Phoebe and she is fourteen years old
(19:02):
living in London, and she was writing in in response
to our Royal Wedding podcast kind of Up. It really
delights me so and she writes, I don't think that
the Royal Wedding is all that negative, especially considering we're
just emerging from a depressing recession. The wedding is refreshing
and new and seems to be giving people a sense
(19:22):
of national identity and constancy. I disagree with those who
try and demonize the wedding, as it should be remembered
that this union seems to be a real love match
and made of true feelings and not just glued together
by meringue like dresses and a lot of imagined affection.
The wedding is also positive because it shows younger children
that princesses don't have to be ditzy and charmingly vulnerable
(19:44):
to be considered true princesses, but can also be intelligent,
down to earth and independent, something that may well instill
values of self reliance and literal life, and the knowledge
that they don't need to pretend to be dumb and
only interested in ball gowns to feel feminine. Uh well,
said fourteen year old Phoebe. I love it. If you
have any emails again, our address is mom Stuff at
(20:07):
how stuff works dot com, and as always, you can
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Never Told You at how stuff works dot com for
(20:31):
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