June 2020 European Committee of Social Rights (EDS) of the Council of Europe started work to respond to a complaint submitted by the non-governmental organization European Women’s University, which asked for an analysis of employment equality in 15 European countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands ). , Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Sweden). The goal was to assess whether there were any serious violations of the rules passed in each state on this issue. The result was not particularly positive, considering that of all, only Sweden passed the test without any problems. inequality in work between men and women. Italy fared particularly badly, which, according to the study, actually “has made little progress,” as the report says, “primarily measurably in achieving equal opportunities in terms of equal pay.” In a word, we were rejected by the main human rights organization on the continent. Not much of a shock given that it was known that with the pandemic the gap between men and women in the employment rate widened even further, with family care, much more burdensome that year, still left mainly to the female world, with significant gender pay gap, and with a fixed horizontal segregation that prevents women from accessing certain sectors of work, added to the vertical, or rather to the famous glass ceiling.

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However, two years later, on the difficult path to gender equality, two good news emerged: first, for the first time in the health the number of women doctors exceeded the number of men; ldepending on what among the first hundred women scientists in the world there are seven Italians. Analyzing the first, one can say that this is not entirely unexpected, given that for many years there has been a predominance of female students over male students in Italian universities. And from school to work, now in a public health system that has survived two hellish years, there are consequences of change that are destined to remain. Just to give a clear outline to the adjective “hellish,” recall that 32 studies conducted in 2020 that studied the level of stress among medical personnel described the army of veterans: 7 out of 10, according to the Catholic University study, showed symptoms of burnout. Some surrendered, others resisted. And, returning to today’s news, in 2021, according to a study recently published by the Ministry of Health, 49.9% of cases were women. Let’s take a closer look at these figures: since there were 107,379 of these specialists in total, the difference between the two sexes was only 121 people. And considering that since then the state has been hiring predominantly women, and the average annual increase in medical personnel is 2%, it is assumed that 50% is currently exceeded. On the other hand, looking back at the history of our country, it should be remembered that National Health Center born 1978 has founding mother (not father): Tina Anselmi. The history of Italian public health is closely linked to the history of the first woman to hold the post of Minister of Labour, and then, of course, of Health.

Returning to today, as always, there is both light and shadow around the news, and looking at the latter, there is a pretty weighty given that comes from the fact that there are more men among employees, only if they are people aged 55 and older. are considered. And it is for this reason that the primaries continue to be held predominantly by men.. As in many other sectors, it is more difficult for women to reach top positions. In fact, the directors of operating divisions make up 83% of the total. A truly disproportionate figure compared to workers in white coats. There are, however, some specialties where women are already clearly larger than their male counterparts, and these, in particular, are of a medical nature. The most “noble” surgeons still see a predominance, sometimes very high, of men. In the list of the first children’s neuropsychiatry, among women 79%, pediatrics 74%, medical genetics 71%, oncology 64%, hematology 63%, pathological anatomy 61%, gynecology 60%, endocrinology. , 59%, neurology, 57%, anesthesia and intensive care, 56%, psychiatry 56%, and so on. On the other hand, there are very few female employees specializing in urology, 15%, maxillofacial surgery, 17%, cardiac surgery, 18%, neurosurgery, 24%, general surgery, 27%, vascular surgery, 28%, thoracic surgery . 30% and plastic surgery, 33%. In short, men operate much more often, and it would be interesting to conduct a special study of this discrepancy.

Heard from the republic Claire Rivettiin charge of Piedmont in Anaao, the main hospital union, thought that in the light of these data he might “there are doubts that because our work has become difficult and underpaid over time, it is becoming less interesting for men”. But there is another, more positive interpretation: “Women have always had a penchant for caring work,” insists Rivetti. And so they can do our job very well. Of course, the data from the primaries are bitter. This confirms that mostly men make careers, even in areas dominated by women. I’m thinking about gynecology.” Women also face many difficulties when wearing a dress. “It’s shift work and often hard work,” says the trade unionist, “which is more difficult to reconcile with family management, which often still falls on the shoulders of women. And it is no coincidence that female doctors are also less liberal professions.” And we will see if this predominance of female doctors will have a positive impact on the next Council of Europe report on gender equality in the workplace.