Now there is just over a couple of weeks left before the June 12 appointment, when the citizens of 978 Italian municipalities, including 26 provincial capitals (including 4 regions: Genoa, L’Aquila, Catanzaro and Palermo) will be called to vote. Again, the most obvious data is the absence of: where are the women?

In major cities, only 15 out of 60 candidates for mayor are nominated by the main parties. Center-left lists 9 as an “important” number, center-right lists 5, while one is only supported by the 5-star movement. Things were no better last year. In administrative positions in 2021 in 17 regional centers, 25 out of 145 should have applied for the position of the first citizens, 17.24 percent, which is confirmed by the report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. With these assumptions in mind, no woman was elected leader of the major cities participating in the electoral round, while 50 percent of the smaller municipalities (less than 5,000 inhabitants) in which they voted last year did not achieve parity goals in councils.

That’s right: these depressing figures also take into account the regulatory mechanism introduced in 2012, according to which each gender cannot be represented in the lists by more than two-thirds. Italy, of course, is not the only state to adopt this type of regulation: almost all European countries have similar measures, but only in ours they are still mistakenly called “pink quotas” – a definition so full of gender bias (starting with the chromatic ghetto), to give us a clear demonstration of how far women still have to go on their way to claiming their rightful place in Italian politics. However, according to the latest census of the Chamber, it is currently the largest female representation namely in councils (44%) and municipal councils (34%) of small towns, while in regional assemblies it barely reaches 22%, 15% (EU average 17.4%). . These numbers tell us that there are women in politics, but they struggle to be taken into account by parties, especially when they face the difficult realities of big cities or hold high positions. However, as always, in the end we too can make a difference in the voting booth.

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