Before changing the language, women’s salaries should be changed

In 2006, the World Economic Forum introduced a standardized measure to quantify the difference in treatment and conditions between women and men, nation by nation: the so-called “gender gap score”, a percentage which, at least in intention, allows us to evaluate how equal the treatment is for individuals of both sexes, all other factors being equal. This score makes it possible both to compare different nations in terms of culture and legislation, and to follow, year by year, the evolution of an at least approximate estimate of gender equality, thus being able to assess whether a given country worsens or improves over time. Barring the inevitable flaws of any metric, the “gender gap score” introduces an objective way of weighing the equity in allocating resources, rights and opportunities in each nation; and given that, at least to date, no country achieves a score of 100 per cent, corresponding to perfect equality, it reflects the persistence of the most significant injustice on a global scale – more significant because it is more widespread in the world and because it pertains to a category that it is not even possible to define a minority, i.e. people of the female sex.

As Antonella Viola did not fail to underline at the Festival of the Word, in Parma, our country, already in bad shape, worsens further this year, going from 63rd to 79th place in a list of 146 countries for which we have data. In terms of gender equality, and therefore justice and equity, Ethiopia (75th place), Kenya (77th place) and Uganda (70th place) are also better than our country; and if we want to take into due consideration the error rate on the estimate of the parameter, it will still be possible to observe that in the 64th position, well beyond the error rate which could make the difference with Italy insignificant, sits Botswana, or, if you want to go up the ranking again, Mozambique is in 25th place. It is obvious that in those countries, on average, people live worse than in Italy; but the inequality between the sexes in cultures that we are accustomed to consider patriarchal more than ours is in any case much less, and therefore the problem inherent in the fact that in the greater poverty in which we live in the nations mentioned, despite everything, will not escape the reader it is a more dignified consideration of the so-called weaker sex, with much more favorable gender parity. The Global Gender Gap Index is calculated taking into account the gender gaps of the countries included in the ranking along four dimensions: economic opportunity, education, health and political leadership. It is therefore possible to examine which of these dimensions weigh more in dragging our country down the ranking.

With a parity of 69.7 per cent in Economic Participation and Opportunity, Europe ranks third behind North America and East Asia and the Pacific in this dimension. Gender parity decreased by 0.5 percentage points compared to last year. Norway, Iceland and Sweden have the highest parity in terms of economic participation and opportunities, while Italy, North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have the lowest. Globally, considering all countries and not just Europe, Italy is in rather bad shape, finding itself in 104th place in this ranking, with a score of 0.618 against 0.895 for the first place. It is also in 95th place in the standings in terms of the right to health, but here the scores are much more flat, with 0.967 for Italy against 0.98 for the first place; the same thing goes for the right to education, where Italy is indeed in 60th place, but with a score of 0.995 (almost equal) against 1 of the first in the standings. Where things are disastrous is in the field of political clout: Italy is in 64th place, with a miserable score of 0.241, against 0.901 for the first classified. The picture that emerges is therefore quite clear: the situation for women in our country is worsening, with a significant disparity in economic treatment and, above all, with a disastrous political irrelevance, despite the fact that the head of government and that of the opposition are both female. The voice of women and their salary: this is the front where things really need to change, this is the breaking point where the protest really needs to be addressed.

Naturally, the discussion can be extended well beyond the indicators of the World Economic Forum: the widespread sexist culture, of which my own community, the academic and scientific one, is the bearer in a particularly shameful way, as well as violence against women, are not directly captured by those indicators, but contribute to aggravate the situation. Time to worry a lot more than just the schwa to indicate respect for gender preference: long before arriving at linguistic parity, and indeed without the need for certain verbal antics and certain revisionisms typical of cancel culture, we need to think about the salaries and democratic power of half of Italian citizens who are kept on the margins by an archaic and counterproductive culture. My mother and I debated this same point 30 years ago; nothing has changed, and indeed the situation has worsened, in the judgment of economic institutions that we certainly cannot define as bearers of counterculture or feminist interests; it is time for everyone to wake up, in the awareness of how much we continue to lose, stupidly blocking at least half of our country’s energies in an enclosure of cultural, economic and power prejudice and oppression.