How much is women’s work worth, how much is it recognised, and how important is it? The Italian Constitution addresses these issues in Article 37: «Women workers shall be entitled to equal rights and equal pay as men» reads the first paragraph of the article. An excellent statement, aimed at eradicating all kinds of discrimination.
But then comes the first shift: «Working conditions shall allow women to fulfil their essential role in the family». Their role as a woman, it goes without saying. Words are important: “fulfil” means the carrying out of an obligation. The adjective “essential” implies the impossibility of freeing oneself from the primary role attributed to women, which is precisely that of the “family”. And this family function does not only refer to what women alone can do, in fact - that is, the “physical production” of children: it is much more far-reaching than the time spent merely being pregnant and breastfeeding, and implies looking after the home, taking care of dependent family members, and the elderly.
The second paragraph of Article 37 therefore undeniably places working women in a subordinate position to working men, who are free to work without being forced to fulfil any “essential role”. In short, women can work and be paid on a par with men, provided, however, that they first perform their “duty”. In the “family”. It’s an uphill struggle.
Article 37 then closes with two paragraphs focusing on child labour. This is the coup de grace: it is therefore an article concerning work by those vulnerable persons, women and young people, not fully fit for work, in need of special protection. How far we still have to go for women to have full rights in the world of work. It must certainly be noted that the Italian Constitution is over 70 years old and was written at a time when the very concept of gender equality was inconceivable. Italian women had just won the right to vote (and not all of them: the law still denied voting rights to prostitutes!), and they were navigating a reality that was not used to working women, let alone women who wanted and could be in the world of work on an equal footing with men.
In Italy, after all, until 1919 a woman who wanted to work needed “marital authorisation” to be hired. And in the fascist era, precisely with the intention of pushing – surprise! – women to focus on childbearing, further restrictions were introduced to dissuade women's employment as much as possible, such as the ban on running middle and secondary schools, or on taking part in competitions and examinations to teach in certain types of schools (however, the gardening teacher posts in teacher training colleges were reserved for women...).
At the time the Constitution came into force, just after the end of World War II, the situation for women's employment was still catastrophically inadequate.
It was only in 1960, for instance, that a ruling of the Constitutional Court opened the way for women to enter the diplomatic service – it then took a further seven years for a woman to actually join the profession (and even today – according to figures from 2020 – women account for less than a quarter of Italian career diplomats, and only four with ‘ambassadorial rank’). It was not until 1963 that the so-called ‘bachelorette clauses’, which were common in contracts and allowed employers to dismiss female employees who got married, were declared illegal. In that same year, women were admitted by law to all public offices; in 1965 the first women entered the judiciary.
Women were only allowed to join the police in 1981; the military judiciary in 1989; and access to military careers was only granted to women in 1999.
Taking this situation into consideration, the words of Article 37 are not so surprising, and indeed many agree that it was upon this very article that practically all steps were founded that gradually removed the legal obstacles that prevented women from fully entering the world of work, having – at least potentially – access to every profession.
But now that gender equality is a mainstream and prominent concept, now that all advanced countries have policies to implement gender equity in their multi-year programmes, now is the time to carefully reconsider and evaluate every word of Article 37 of the Italian Constitution. And launch a reflection and political effort to change it, to ensure that it fits the times we live in and does not instead form an outdated and subordinate view of working women.
Today, «the essential family role» – in all its forms: from caring for children and looking after the sick and elderly, to managing the home and the household – must be carried out by all people who want to start a family. Regardless of their gender.