Women in Parliament, what do the data say? That’s why the road is uphill

A long, uphill road. It is that of women in Parliament, a representation that has grown in small steps, from 5% of the first elections to the third currently in office, with a turning point, however: the first premier, Giorgia Meloni, who has recently been joined by the first secretary of the Pd, Elly Schlein.

The numbers
On 18 April 1948 the first political elections in republican Italy were held, but women were very few: 4 elected senators and 45 deputies, 5%. It took almost 30 years (and another 7 legislatures) for the threshold of 50 presences in Parliament to be exceeded in 1976, and another 30 years to reach the 150 quota. The 300 quota was exceeded only in 2018, with 334 elected (equal to the 35%). The outcome of the polls in 2022 confirmed the growth trend: women today permanently represent a third of parliamentarians.
But there is a very important event, a true historic turning point: after 64 governments run by men, Giorgia Meloni, leader of the relative majority party, was elected and assumed the office of Prime Minister, giving life to one of the three governments with the highest female presence (22 women) in the history of our Republic. And in opposition there is now another woman, Elly Schlein, who won the race for the secretariat of the Democratic Party with 53% of the votes, thus becoming the first woman, as well as the youngest, to lead the dem.

Article 3
On March 24, 1947, the Constituent Assembly approved article 3 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic which would come into force on January 1, 1948: an article and a very important moment for Italian women, who had only one year obtained the right to vote and still found themselves living in a deeply patriarchal country. Gender equality thus became one of the founding principles of the Republic. In the last three quarters of a century, legislation has evolved in favor of women: from job guarantees to the protection of sexual freedom, up to new opportunities for accessing the political and economic life of the country. The Constitutional Court has played a leading role: in many cases, its jurisprudence and requests have been followed by the adoption of fundamental reforms.

The policy against gender violence

More than half of the female victims of femicide in the two-year period 2017-2018 alone were killed by their partner (12.7% by a former partner). Not only that: a third of cases for child custody highlight episodes of domestic violence. Worrying data. However, these cases are too often invisible to the eyes of justice: in 2018, out of a total of 2,045 prosecutors, only 455, 22%, were specialized in violence against women. In 95% of the courts, the cases of domestic violence that have emerged in cases of separation, divorce and child custody are not quantified. Only 11% of the surveillance courts involve victims of violence, before deciding on the aggressor’s release. This photograph brings with it a task, a duty, an indication. In other words, what can Parliament do to make anti-violence policies more effective? The Femicide Commission of the Senate, established in the XVIII Legislature, has adopted a statistical approach to photograph the women’s protection system and its weakest points, but it is still difficult to give effective answers.