Gender equality unfinished

“Gender equality is growing more distant. On the current track, UN Women puts it 300 years away” Guterres, 2024

The words of the UN Secretary-General ring a deafening warning bell for those of us who have been lulled into thinking that gender equality is a goal within easy reach. All that remains for us to do is to hit the road once again and overcome old die-hard hurdles (e.g., gender stereotypes) and gear up to squash another two that have emerged more recently: intra-gender violence (between women) and the queen bee syndrome; they threaten to become a dangerous ‘own goal’ in the game played with men. Three problems lurk in the background, problems that may severely limit the economic status of women – a crucial element in their efforts to achieve independence and equality: intra-family care – to which we must add the unpaid task of caregiver for those with disabilities or handicaps since this task rests almost exclusively on the shoulders of women; smart-working, that can either be an opportunity for a woman, an element of segregation or a hurdle in her career path; artificial intelligence, where gathering clouds portend probable mass female unemployment. The author starts with the “bread and roses strike” in 1912 and draws a thin red line linking this American event to the century-long struggle of European feminist movements to gain fundamental human rights, to demand and in the end obtain, at least theoretically, equality between men and women in the constitutions of nearly all countries.

FRANCESCA MESITI SPANÒ, barrister of the Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome, expert in hereditary law, co-founder and Vice President of the association Oltre. Publications include: La lotta per i diritti; Il rinnovamento dell’avvocatura; L’avvocatura istituzionale, Guido Alpa and Francesca Mesiti (edited by); Le donazioni ai figli minori in Come donare ai figli minori, Ida Grimaldi (edited by).