Lincei Academy, Lamorgese inaugurates ‘The voice of ministers’: the role of women at the top

With the first conference of the academic year 2021-2022, the cycle of meetings organized by the Accademia dei Lincei dedicated to the “Voice of the ministers” starts and the head of the Viminale Luciana Lamorgese was the first to speak, this morning, in the Science Room Physics, alongside the President of the Lincei Roberto Antonelli and the Vice President of the Lyceum and Nobel Prize in Physics Giorgio Parisi. Lamorgese spoke of the role conquered by women also in the top management of the public administration and of the challenges that this long path entails for achieving substantial equality between genders. The minister started from a historical reminder, that of the honorable Teresa Mattei who in March 1947, at the age of 26, spoke to the Constituent Assembly to advocate a small but significant change to the text of what would later be become the second paragraph of Article 3 of our Charter. “The Honorable Mattei – said Lamorgese – knew that the text that was taking shape recognized equality of rights for men and women, but he believed that formal parity was not enough and that something more was needed to guarantee it even in a substantial way. because in that paragraph a two-word subdivision was added: in fact “. It is a reference to “substantial equality” where the work of women who hold public roles is evaluated on the basis of their skills, their choices and the results obtained and not on the gender belonging of those who have performed them. “My opinion – continued the minister – is that, for each choice, we must always look at preparation, experience and competence. Only in this way will we avoid that the balance between genders translates into an element of separation if not difficulty “. The goal is to eliminate that” glass ceiling “, the borderline that marks the differences, by adopting increasingly incisive rules. The latest legislative provision on the subject approved by the Italian Parliament (law no.162 of 5 November 2021) aimed at promoting equal pay between men and women looks in this direction. “Thanks to this law – said Lamorgese – from next year all companies will have to equip themselves with a new tool, also referred to in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan: the certification of gender equality”. women belonging to the prefectural body, said the minister taking a photograph of the female presence in the administration of the Interior, “represent more than half of the total (664 women and 480 men) and, projections in hand, this percentage is probably destined to increase still in the future. Also in the other two great families who live together in our ministry, the State Police and the National Fire Brigade, we are setting out on this path “. Lamorgese, in closing her speech, identified two themes that are strongly intertwined. The first concerns the imbalances in gender representation at the top of the ruling classes with still few women in key roles. The second concerns the prejudice that accompanies the evaluation of their work. “What I personally consider desirable – concluded the minister – is an equality that is not homologation, but above all inclusion, respect for differences, enhancement of the wealth of skills”.