Bianca Belli

03/16/2017

Short Report

Italy is a fitting example of a modern and democratic country that still struggles with achieving

complete gender equality despite the presence of articles on civil rights in the Constitution. In fact,

women's rights are acknowledged and respected on paper, but in reality Italian women still struggle

with several injustices such as the right to abortion, the so-called white letter of resignation and

everyday misogyny and cat-calling.

Concerning the termination of pregnancy, the situation in Italy is alarming. Although abortion is

legal in every part of the country and it is thus recognized as a citizen's right, it is often a difficult

and overwhelming burden. In fact, after the approval of a new Code of Conduct in 2006 that

allowed moral objection to abortion, more and more gynecologists decided to stop providing this

service. The result is that women often have to look for a doctor in another province or, even worse,

another region, with consequential difficulties and increased wait time, that frequently worsen the

overall situation. Indeed, not only is an abortion better performed as soon as it is possible, but also

no citizen should have to wait several weeks before seeing one of their rights recognized. For a

matter that is as time-sensitive as a termination of pregnancy, this is even more important.1

The workplace too can involve discrimination, both during hiring and in the office. For many years

Italian women have been forced to sign letters of resignation (called white because no date was

put on them) prior to their hiring, so that they could be fired anytime with no valid reason which

often happened to be a pregnancy. In this way, women were constrained to choose between having a

family or a career, with the obvious choice of the latter, given the hardship of having a family

without a stable salary. The reason behind this illegal activity is that if an employee has a

pregnancy, the employer is required by law to give paid maternal leave and, in case of a firing for

valid reasons, they are required to pay them their benefits. This can be avoided with the practice of

1 https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/medical_versus_surgical_abortion/
said white letter of resignation. In the last few years, however, progress has been made and now

female employees are more protected by the law, thanks to a new online procedure for resignations:

resignations written on paper are not valid anymore and this illegal practice is quickly drawing to an

end.

According to the 2016 Gender Gap Report by the JobPricing Observatory, women tend to make

10.9% less in terms of salary compared to men in the same positions. Although the situation is

improving, there are still gaps to fill. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum's analysis,

Italy goes from the 69th position to the 49th in the Gender Inequality Index, but, though recovering

from the 128th position, the country is still 109 th for what concerns salary gaps. Stereotypes too are

still hard to break: 71% of Italians (versus 50% of the European average) think that men are less

competent than women with regards to domestic activities, while the 43% believe that a father

should prioritize career over care for his children (29% in the EU).2

However, the worst scenarios often happen at home. A sadly common mentality of possession and

entitlement still frequently underlies in the country's conception of women, and is sometimes even

internalized by women themselves. This results in a feeling of ownership and control over wives

and girlfriends, who are often victims of violence, both physical and psychological, and murder by

the men who should love them. In this horrible scenario, so-called secondary victims must not be

forgotten: that is, the children who end up being orphans of mother and whose father is either in jail

or does not have their custody anymore (1628 in the last 15 years). The data are shocking. 3

millions 446 thousand women, according to Istat (National Institute of Statistics), have endured

stalking during their lives, but an appalling 78% (almost 8 out of 10) has not pressed charges

against the persecutor. It must be said that even when reported, stalking often ends in murder,

because the maximum that can be done is a restraining order against the stalker. In the last 10

years, 1740 women have been killed: 71.9% in a domestic situation, 67.6% of whom by their

partner and 26.5% by their exes. 16.7% of the cases has been preceded by known violence (either

2 JobPricing Observatory, Gender Gap Report (2016)

by friends of the couple, neighbors or authorities themselves).3

With these data at hand, it is clear that considerable progress still has to be made. It is then

interesting to ask ourselves why countries in which such violence is still present are considered to

be modern and civil, when their (female) citizens' rights are not respected.

3 Hausmann, Ricardo. The Global Gender Gap Report (2009)