The Condition of Women in Italy: A Legal Framework That Is Still Evolving
In Italy, like in other countries, women have obtained their rights gradually and always with great sacrifice. Their society preferred them at home, in the kitchen, and not actively involved in public life. Even now there is not a real equality between women and men and it is still a goal to be fully achieved. In this first column I will present an overview of the main laws that have created the contemporary legal framework for women's rights in Italy.
The starting point was 1945/1946 when Italian women obtained the right to vote. A 1945 decree granted women the right to vote but they had to wait until 1946 until they were allowed to be candidates in political elections. Women in Europe and North America won the right to vote in two big waves: After Word War II, women in Germany (1918), the U.S. (1926) and the UK (1928) were among the first. Italian women joined French and Greek women in being granted voting rights after World War II.
The first time women officially voted in Italy was on June 2nd, 1946 when, by an institutional referendum, Italian people chose between a Monarchy and a Republican form of government.
The Italian Constitution, came into effect on January 1st, 1948. Article 3 states: “All citizens have equal social dignity and are equal before the law, without distinction of sex, race, language, religion, political opinion, personal and social conditions.” But, despite this clear statement, women received differential treatment and it was never for the better. In 1963 Italian women achieved two other small victories: a ban on dismissal by reason of wedding or maternity, even if there is still an illegal practice known as “blank resignation letters” today, making the worker sign her resignation in advance, to be used in the case of illness or - the most widespread case - pregnancy. Later that year, they were given access to the public professions, previously prohibited, but only with later reforms they could fully exercise this right. Only in 1981 were women admitted to the Police Force and in 1999/2000 to the Armed Forces. In Italy the percentage of women in the Police Force is around 15% while in the U.S. around 13-14%.
The divorce law of 1970 represented a big milestone in women’s achievements. Previously a married couple could not get divorced in Italy; the separation was possible but women were stigmatized for life as a “home-wrecker.” In 1970, divorce is granted and regulated; at first it stipulated legal procedures of five years, reduced to three in 1987. Around the world the divorce law came in over different years and in several contexts. In France the first law about divorce was passed on September 20th, 1792; instead in the U.S., the full legalization of divorce has been introduced first in California in 1969 and last in New York in 2010. In Italy, in 1974, a revocatory referendum tried to abolish legal divorce but the 59.3% of voters decided to keep the law alive. One year later, in 1975, the reform of Family Rights established the spouses’ equality before the law; the wife was no longer subservient to her husband, and the breadwinner no longer had exclusive parental rights and ownership of heritage. The law n.194 adopted in 1978 establishes the norms about social protection of motherhood and voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion).
The approval by Parliament was an achievement of 1970’s feminist initiatives. It was important to face and solve the problems associated with the dangerous practice of illegal abortions, and it was time to adapt legislation to European standards, in order to establish a free and responsible relationship between individual and society. Even if some political minorities often try to call it into question, the abortion debate today is no longer a controversial political issue in Italy, while in the U.S. President Trump unsuccessfully tried to adopt a controversial measure this year in order to ban abortions after the first 20 weeks.
Another significant step was taken in 1981, when “honor killing” and Italian “shotgun weddings” were made illegal. “Honor killing”, something comparable to the U.S. “crime of passion”, was committed against an adulteress wife or a mistress and was punished with a lower sentence compared to other types of homicides with a different “motive” - for example, most murders would have received an “ergastolo” (life imprisonment in Italy) or sentence of around 30 years, whereas honour killings received only 3 to 7 years of imprisonment in Italy, or as low as 18 months in the U.S.Contrary to the American definition, the “shotgun wedding” was a practice which allowed a rapist to avoid punishment in the case that he married his victim, “settling” the crime and this was primarily seen as a way not to dishonor the victim. This was a practice also used to overcome parents’ opposition to the wedding because it had already been consummated.
In 2010, transposing European directives, a law was introduced in Italy, which tries to ensure and promote equal opportunities in the labour market, and in 2011, the Golfo-Mosca law provided quotas for women on boards of directors, given the absence of women at summits. In 2009 a law against stalking was entered into force: to stalk, to harass a woman with different tools and to threaten the use of violence was finally considered a crime. The law against gender violence adopted in 2013 aims at further strengthening this concept, a long-awaited ruling due to the alarming escalation of violence and murder committed against women in Italy (in 2016, there were 149 women killed by voluntary manslaughter in Italy, more than 1600 in the U.S in 2015.).
The Catholic Church and the European Union have undoubtedly affected all of these changes to the legal framework. The Church, strongly rooted in Italy, has, in a certain sense, represented an obstacle for topics like divorce and abortion. In contrast, the EU has often acted as a “trailer hitch,” imposing its own standards to all Member States.
As said by Professor Ida Dominijanni, “women are now becoming visible and they want to talk with their own voice.” Women know they have an uphill battle before the finish line, but they will never stop fighting for full equality.
