EDUCATION AND CULTURE LIFELONG LEARNING PROGRAMME COMENIUS

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR A SUCCESSFULCAREER

LONG WALK OF THE ITALIAN WOMAN TOWARD THE RIGHTS: SPROUT REFLECTION

Unione Europea Ministero dell’Istruzione dell’Università e della Ricerca

Istituto d’Istruzione Superiore “Mancini” Via dell’Autostazione 87100 Cosenza (Italia)

One day, while Europe played with her friends on the shore of the sea, swimming Jupiter reached her under the semblances of a bull and abducted her. The figurative representations of this myth show a frightened Europe that, from the rump of the bull, sadly takes leave from her companions of game. The fear and the sadness were entirely justified, since Jupiter had not conquered her with gold rain, but with violence. The descendants of Europe have demanded for peace and liberty. But have they really succeeded to be free? What have women experienced in their lives and jobs? What has their juridical situation been? What have their ideals and realities been?How have they conducted their fatiguing struggle for civil, political and social rights?

THE ITALIAN LEGISLATIONTHE ITALIAN LEGISLATION

WOMAN AND WORK

WOMAN AND FAMILY

WOMAN AND VIOLENCE

THE ITALIAN LEGISLATIONTHE ITALIAN LEGISLATION

The principle of formal and factual equality among citizens is affirmed by the Italian Constitution in art. 3:

All the citizens have equal social dignity and they are equal in front of the law, without distinction of sex, of race, of language, of religion, of political opinions, of personal and social conditions."

It is also affirmed that “It is a duty of the Republic to remove the obstacles of economic and social order, that, factually limiting the liberty and the equality of citizens, prevent the full development of the human person and the actual participation of all workers in the political, economic and social organization”.

To strengthen this principle, different laws have been introduced among which some very meaningful ones for the women, especially in the family at work and as regards personal liberty.

WOMAN AND WORKWOMAN AND WORK

Work is the central point of all social policies and it

intersects with the theme of the rights of the person of the family and of social compatibility. The Italian legislation has recognized the principle of equal salary and, on this base, it has developed a consistent legislative apparatus to protect and to guarantee the equal opportunity of access to work and working conditions . Nevertheless problems of application still remain, that don’t guarantee the concrete realization of factual equality.

WOMAN AND WORKWOMAN AND WORK

Law n° 66 of 1963 Women's admission to public offices and to professions Law n° 7 of 1963 Abolition of firing for cause of marriage.

WOMAN AND WORK

Law n° 903 of 1977 It is in chronological order, the first law introduced

to safeguard women in the working enviroment directed to repress individual and evident discriminations at work.

WOMAN AND WORK

Law N° 215 of 1992 Directed to benefit the creation and the development

of female entrepreneurs, to qualify the professionalism of women employers, to favour the access to the credit for the predominantly female enterprises, to promote the birth of enterprises of predominantly management female in the innovative areas of the different economic sectors.

WOMAN AND WORK

L. D. No. 196 of 2000 It has redefined and strengthened the functions, the

juridical regime, the instrumental endowments of cou ncilwomen/men of parity, to the purpose of improving the effectiveness of their action, to strengthen the functions finalized to the respect of the anti-discriminating norms in the working places, to notice the violations in topic of parity.

WOMAN AND WORK

The imagination, the organizational ability of the woman, the wealth of proposed ideas, the sensibility and the natural predisposition to solidarity together with their competence and professionalism constitute a patrimony to which we cannot renounce.

Nevertheless, the recognition of the specificity of female work has not brought to a reduction of the unbalance in the sexual division of work. In Italy, we can still find an elevated rate of female occupational segregation, in all the duties, particularly in the more qualified and managerial ones.

WOMAN AND FAMILYWOMAN AND FAMILY

For more than two decades of the Italian Republic life, the laws concerning the family were not modified up to the reform of the family right in 1975:

Parity between consorts in terms of rights and duties, of equalization between children born inside or outside marriage;

Overcoming of the obsolete conception of the family as undiversified unity, represented only by the head of the family;

The communion of goods, included the implicit recognition of non remunerated domestic work and of care, make parity concrete also on the side of economic and property aspects related to consorts.

WOMAN AND FAMILYWOMAN AND FAMILY

From the years '70 social rights and civil rights grow together, they were the years of feminism and of great social mobilizations:

1970 - Institution of the Law on divorce changed the old definition of marriage - institution in the modern conception of revocable matrimonial contract, inspired more to the "remedy" of a situation in the couple lived as unbearable, than to the concept of "guilt."

1978 - Institution of the Law on the legalization of abortion. The choice of interrupting pregnancy became an individual possibility, but it had as measure and limits those offered by the procedures that the law imposed.

WOMAN AND VIOLENCEWOMAN AND VIOLENCE

No single adjective can describe the horror and brutality of rape and of sexual violence and the effect that it leaves in the victims. The woman that is subdued to it is undermined in her own self-esteem and in the ability to react.

A step forward, after almost twenty years of social debate, to face this phenomenon, has been accomplished with Law No. 66 of 1966 against sexual violence:

Sexual violence is classified as a crime against the person, therefore changing the qualification of the previous normative, whereas the law has tried to punish the crime in such a way to avoid negotiation, so that the rapist could not remain substantially unpunished.

WOMAN AND VIOLENCEWOMAN AND VIOLENCE

DISCRIMINATION AT WORKSpheres in which discrimination at work is morefrequent: Notices for job application Staff selection Access to the job Level of initial assignment Salary Professional career Return from maternity leave Recognition of additional or discretionary

salary Assignment of executive duties

WOMAN AND VIOLENCEWOMAN AND VIOLENCE

WHAT SEXUAL HARASSMENT IS: “Any sexually connoted behaviour or other type of

sexually based behaviour, including that of superior and colleagues that offends the dignity of men or women at work, is unjustifiable”

(Rec. Comm. of 27/11/91)

WOMAN AND VIOLENCEWOMAN AND VIOLENCE

THE EFFECTS PRODUCED BY THE INDICATORS OF DISCOMFORT

Discomfort in going to work Absenteeism Indifference Desire to change job High level of gossip Aggressiveness and nervousness Psychosomatic disorder Feeling of uselessness Slowness in performance tasks Organizational confusion in terms of roles Formal adherence to rules and working anaffectivity To feel resentment toward organizations

WOMAN AND VIOLENCEWOMAN AND VIOLENCE

OFFICES WHICH ONE CAN REFER TO: TO THE EMPLOYER FOR THE APPLICATION OF THE

CODES OF BEHAVIOR TO THE MAGISTRACY (ART. 8, L. 125/91) TO THE COUNCILORS OF PARITY' (ART. 8, L.125/91) TO THE TRADE-UNION DELEGATE OR “R.S.U.” TO THE OFFICES FOR CONTROVERSY OF TRADE-

UNION ORGANIZATIONS

TO THE ASSOCIATIONS OF WOMEN

WOMAN AND VIOLENCEWOMAN AND VIOLENCE

MOBBING SUM OF OPPRESSIVE AND PERSECUTORY

PRACTICES EXERTED BY COLLEAGUES OF EQUAL DEGREE OR FROM A SUPERIOR TOWARDS MEN AND WOMEN IN THE WORKING CIRCLE.

WOMAN AND VIOLENCEWOMAN AND VIOLENCE

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS: Tenacity and determination To pick up documentation of the suffered oppressions To document the biological damage To look for alliance To transform oral orders into written form To denounce the mobbing

WOMAN AND VIOLENCEWOMAN AND VIOLENCE

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS: The journey against mobbing is a long path; Keep a diary of any mobbing action; Keep account of the psycho-physical symptoms; Look for colleagues disposed to testify; “Someone has asked me to do this, please give me

written confirmation“; Crimes: threats, private violence, defamation,

calumny, personal damage; Illegitimate administrative acts: task-lowering,

disqualification; Civil crime: reimbursement of the biological damage.

WE HAVE TO THINKWE HAVE TO THINK

“I don't see why we always have to take care of men and of their battles; the history of women is usually very interesting.”

Theodore Fontane Unwiederbringlich (1891)