Gender equality is still a mirage

(by Simona Grossi) Despite numerous steps forward are being made on the issue of eliminating the socio-economic gap, gender equality still remains a mirage in its practical application, and so on 25 September last the Senate of the Republic was presented with Ddl which provides for the creation of an ad hoc Commission on women's rights.

The current picture sees the persistence of a strong disparity between the salary of women and that of men, a gap that, according to the World Economic Forum (Wef), at the current rate will end up being filled only in 217 years, as reported during the Global Gender Gap Report 2017. Italy has deteriorated sharply, and has recently collapsed to 82nd place out of the 144 countries examined after it held 2015st position in 41 alone.

There are several sectors analyzed, from health education to work, life expectancy and the rise to power in politics. The clues clearly point to a national recession on the gender gap between men and women regarding opportunities, status and attitudes. In particular, if we focus on the front of work and wages, we discover that it is precisely in this area that the furrow becomes deeper. The report highlights how there is "a very low perception of wage parity for similar work between the sexes", sliding our country to 126th place out of 144 available.

From the analysis of the WEF it is therefore found that the percentage of unpaid daily work is close to 61,5% for women compared to the 22,9% threshold reached by the other gender

Four out of ten young Italian women between the ages of 25 and 29 who turn out to be inactive, i.e. without study and work, while among men the percentage drops to 28%, and all this counts us among the greatest differences in height in the OECD area

Even on the issues of health and survival, in just one year it has gone from 77th place to the current 123rd. Just as we hold the 90th place in participation in the workforce, and even the 103rd for wages received. The gap in education is also impressive, highlighting a rapid decline from the 27th to the 60th position and a clearly superior male percentage both in terms of school participation and access to the world of the web.

The national data is worsened by the world data, as as explained by the Wef himself "for the first time" since this Report exists, "the global gender gap has widened", a figure in contrast with that of progress which is slowly increasing throughout the last decade

All this has therefore made it necessary, as I anticipated, the establishment in the Senate of the Parliamentary Commission on Women's Rights and Gender Equality. And so the Councilor for Equality and Authority for Rights and Equal Opportunities of the Molise Region Giuditta Lembo was personally invited to the meeting held last September 25, declaring how "the Commission is being formed, which arises from a transversal political agreement between different parliamentarians, at a time when many are denouncing that Italy has the worst performance in terms of actions and policies of equal opportunities between men and women ”.

“To be taken into consideration”, added the Councilor, “were the disparities in the workplace, both in terms of participation and wages, political representation and health. The Italian situation is even worse than that of Greece (78 °), Belize and Madagascar, and slightly exceeds Burma and Indonesia ”.

Among the workers who do not seek employment, 60,5% belonging to the female gender stands out, while the daily work of women counts 60 minutes more on average than that of men, with the aggravating circumstance that 61% of women's work is not paid, since it drops to 23% if we look at men.

"The birth of a permanent Commission", Lembo specifies, "that monitors and analyzes, proposes and urges the Government, so that urgent action is taken on issues such as female employment, women's health, gender representation in politics, is now a necessity, an urgent need. A Commission that verifies all the acts issued by the Chambers so that no provision can conceal a distinction linked to being a man or a woman and similar to the European model of the Commission for women's rights and gender equality ”.

The Commission will thus be involved in monitoring multiple aspects concerning gender equality, from female poverty to the wage gap, from childcare and family services to under-representation in decision-making processes, from motherhood and health to trafficking in human beings. All with the collaboration of the Commission of Inquiry on Violence Against Women and Femicide.

Each year this Commission will report to the Chambers advancing amendments to current legislation to push it more in the direction of European Union legislation and international conventions.

"In light of this important news, I invite the Molise Regional Councilors Calenda, Matteo, Manzo, Romagnuolo, Fanelli and Scuncio, to evaluate the possibility of proposing the establishment also in Molise of a Council Commission on the protection of women's rights and equality in the light of the latest data regarding the female unemployment rate, the emergency of creating employment as well as young people as well as women must certainly be considered as a priority since it has been shown that women's work is a resource for our country. No longer pursuing equality, but equal opportunities, that is to say the acceptance and appreciation of the fact that there is a difference between man and woman and this difference is not to be hidden, to be deleted, but to be valued and to assert within decisions, of choices, because it means obtaining more and better results, especially in the professional sphere ”, said the Councilor of the Molise Region.

"Various surveys and calculations have been made, to show that the fact that women did not work as much as men, and were not paid as much as they were, involved an overall damage to the country's gross domestic product which blocked the development and transformation of a a society that necessarily had, within it, the two male and female components, each of which contributed to the achievement of results. I hope for the birth of a transversal commitment within the Regional Council so that something significant occurs that also ensures that the bodies set up to protect existing equality and equal opportunities can have an interlocutor within the Regional Council such as a Council Commission with which discusses the many issues still to be resolved concerning the female world ”he concluded.

Gender equality is still a mirage

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