Deconstructing
Italy’s Fixed Gender Identities
Italy’s gender equality is ranked among the lowest in the European Union, according to the European Gender Equality Index (EGEI), with a score of 40.1 out of 100 possible points, a whopping 13.9 points lower than the average European score of 54.0. The UK, on the other hand, sits at 60.4 points, and countries such as Finland, Sweden and Denmark have achieved a score within the 70s. Aside from these figures, the position of Italian women in society is visible in Italy’s legal policies. For example, Italian women first won the vote in 1946, in contrast to the UK where women voted for the first time in 1918.
So how has Italy, a developed and culturally thriving country, fallen so far behind its European counterparts in the development of modern, gender-neutral ideologies and identities?
Italian society does not make it easy for women to establish themselves within the professional sphere; the fact is there are not enough policies to help women balance profession and family. This in turn has resulted in a meagre female employment rate of just 46.3 per cent. This passive rejection of women from professional roles exposes women to social poverty, weakening their ability to break the social boundaries imposed upon them, whilst simultaneously limiting their own freedom and independence. Where women do manage to secure a professional role, they are often subject to discrimination and sexualisation. This is partly due to the way in which Italy’s media tends to portray women, either as the stereotypical family-orientated wife or as a sexualised object, subject to chauvinistic thought and treatment.
These statistics are shocking to the external eye, but within Italy itself there has been little pressure for change. In fact, most changes that have taken place are due to pressures from European cultural and social norms.
Italy typically embraces traditionalist Catholic ideals, which suffer under the development of modern, liberal societies, creating confused and disproportionate identities. However, there are increasing attempts to break down these traditionalist social structures, as Fabiana Martini, deputy mayor of Trieste, notes: “The gender gap is one of the major problems of our country, due to lack of development of the whole society: to overcome it we must remove the structural causes.” Nevertheless, a recent proposal to break down fixed gender identities in Italy through a children’s game which contains images of female plumbers and male homemakers received negative comments from various politicians, notably those representating the Lega Nord [far-right separatist party].
Gender expectations and attitudes are not something that can be manipulated easily through reform: they are ideas that have been manifested over a long period of time, creating and entrenching the foundations of social norms. Unfortunately, Italy’s media landscape – dominated by Silvio Berlusconi – has proven to be an ineffective tool for countering sexist ideologies. Independent media alternatives must therefore be created in order to downplay the perpetuation of women as sexualised objects, whilst the Italian government must do more to bridge the gender equality gap between sexes.
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