Mr President, honourable colleagues,
In Italy, despite increasingly higher levels of education — often surpassing those of men — women continue to participate less in the labour market, earn less, and rarely hold managerial positions.
Meanwhile, they carry out the majority of domestic and care work: invisible, unpaid, and often unrecognised even by those who benefit from it. Men, on the other hand, are expected to do the paid work that guarantees autonomy, independence, and power.
This is not the result of free choice. It is the outcome of an ancient and persistent system of power: patriarchy. Women have fought, and continue to fight, to change this state of affairs, and progress is being made. But it still meets too many misogynist obstacles, both inside and outside institutions.
A recent example is the decision by the majority of Giorgia Meloni’s government to reject the proposal for equal parental leave. An embarrassing choice — one that speaks volumes about today’s right-wing government: radically hostile to women’s emancipation and gender equality.
It is true: having a woman at the head of government is not enough to advance policies in favour of women, especially if she insists on behaving like any other man.