Miren Gutiérrez

By Miren Gutierrez* and Oriana Boselli

ROME, Sep 22 (IPS) – Angelica Mucchi-Faina, psychology professor at the Perugia University, thinks that “in Italy you cannot even talk about equal opportunities for women in politics.”

However, Italy signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1980, and ratified it in 1985.

As a result, in 2003, Italy modified Article 51 of its Constitution, introducing the principle of equality in access to political offices. For the first time the concept of equal opportunities entered the Constitution. The Ministry for Equal Opportunities exists since 1996.

But for Mucchi-Faina, there are three factors that still hinder women’s entry in politics.

“First, the burden of family responsibilities falls on women’s shoulders,” she says. “Women dedicate 24 percent of their available time to the family, while men invest just 8 percent … Second, the prevailing machismo in politics discourages women’s involvement. To include women in the lists is just a way of saving face. We continually hear that quotas create ghettos for women, but it is men who take refuge in the Mount Athos of politics, and don’t have any intention of letting us in.”

“Third, women know that they have to be much, much better and invest much more than men. The result is that women see very few opportunities to enter politics, and succeed,” she concludes.

Some of her points coincide with a 2004 report on Italy released by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women – an expert body that watches over the progress for women made in those countries party to the 1979 CEDAW.

“The shortage of female representatives in the political arena is mainly due to three factors,” it says. The first is linked to the fact that women are generally depicted as weak, needing protection; a figure which causes disaffection among women themselves, unfit for the environment where power is exercised.”

“The second concerns an intrinsic feature of Italy’s ruling class, which tends to represent and reproduce itself, and so tends to come over as inward looking, because it does not fulfil its role through a vital and open relationship with civil society,” it continues.

“Whereas the first two factors are grounded in Italian culture, the third has strong political connotations. Today, there are still numerous obstacles to women wishing to take part in political life, due to the difficulty of reconciling the female role in politics and work, with family life,” it concludes.

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By Miren Gutierrez* and Oriana Boselli

ROME, Sep 22 (IPS) – Four ministers out of 21; 193 parliamentarians out of 952 (upper and lower houses); no party leaders. Why are there so few women in Italian politics?“The feminist movement in Italy has been strong… But in order for women to participate in politics as women, politics itself should change,” says Luisa Capelli from L’Italia dei valori party (The Italy of Values). “Italian feminism has influenced party politics, especially those from the left. But it has been marginalised to the point that if you identify yourself as a feminist, you are looked upon with distrust.”

Capelli, who is also the head of Meltemi Editore, a social sciences publishing house, has thought a great deal about the weak political presence of female politicians in Italy.

“There have been years of exposing women’s bodies, of daily belittling women’s talents,” she tells IPS in an interview. And this is the result of the systematic vilification of women on television. “At least two of our (female) ministers have been chosen because their presence sexually pleases prime minister (Silvio Berlusconi)… Why should we be shocked? When two years ago a female student asked him for advice about her future, he suggested that she marry a rich man.”

Chiara Volpato, professor of social psychology at the Milano-Bicocca University, sees “historic factors” in the current impasse.

“The democratic development of Italy was interrupted by 20 years of fascism,” she says. “The regime’s machismo was translated into laws that reduced women’s rights even further. For example, women were forbidden to teach philosophy and history, considered the highest studies.”

In spite of it, women had a key role in the fight against fascism, and created for themselves social and political spaces like the right to vote in 1946 and the divorce, abortion and family planning laws in the sixties and seventies. “But this thrust vanished in the following years, while the lack of ideas and initiatives has been replaced by the commercial Berlusconian TV,” she says.

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