Gendering the State in the Age of Globalization by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780742581401
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2013-07-10T16:00:00+00:00

CONCLUSION

Notwithstanding a conventional opinion that the Italian women’s movement is weak, fragmented, and divided, the movement that mobilized around the issue demonstrated a certain degree of cohesion and capacity for advocacy. The outcome of the debate was considered a success given the long-standing tradition of Italian policymakers’ being resistant to gendering their approaches and mainstreaming women’s rights. EU legislation and programs on gender equality, gender mainstreaming, and women’s empowerment were widely mentioned and used by women’s activists to support their claims and they may have been an important source of pressure on policymakers.

A number of reasons might explain the success. First of all the issue of increasing women’s descriptive and substantial representation was a high priority for the movement due to the decrease in the number of women elected at all levels in the second half of the 1990s. Secondly, Center Left women members of Parliament succeeded in mobilizing support not only among party colleagues but also among women in other parties, at least during one phase of the debate: in the third bicameral commission, there was a cross-party agreement to introduce an amendment on equal opportunities of access to elective posts. In the final discussion and vote in Parliament (1999–2001), the women in the Center Right parties opposed the reform not because it contained an article that favored women, but because they had to vote in line with their parties. Thirdly, there was a synergy of action between the Center Left women in Parliament, the National Commission for Equal Opportunities, and the minister for equal opportunities. Fourth, the policy subsystem that adopted the law was controlled by a Center Left majority, making it possible for women’s movement activists to get support for their claims.

Finally, one of the reasons that might explain the success is that the law was permissive: it simply stated a general principle that regional laws should remove all obstacles to equal opportunities between men and women in all fields and promote equal opportunities for access of women and men to electoral posts. It would then be up to regional legislators to adopt precise measures to implement the new terms of the constitution. In fact, the implementation of the law has been limited. In the regional elections held in April 2005, only five regions adopted a quota system which established that no more than two-thirds of candidates in the lists may be of the same gender. Only 11.49 percent of candidates elected to regional councils were women—a disappointing result.

We can conclude that if, on the one hand, the approval, within the constitutional reform discussed in this chapter, of an amendment on gender equal opportunities has to be considered a success, on the other hand, only the degree to which the reform will be implemented in the next years will give a measure of its effectiveness.

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