La rappresentanza delle donne nel sindacato: il caso CGIL

Since the nineteenth century women’s movements, gender studies, public and international debates have focused the attention on a range of issues that include political equality, women’s status and rights, women’s access to the elective offices and to power roles. This study takes into consideration women’s participation and representation in decision making processes in one of the most important trade unions in Italy, the CGIL (ITALIAN GENERAL CONFEDERATION OF LABOUR).CGIL was the first trade union in Italy to introduce measures (quotas, women’s sections) to achieve an equal gender participation in the decision making bodies, therefore this study tries to understand and analyse the complexity of “what is happening) with CGIL women’s representation”.We examine gender dynamics and strategies to outline the importance of women’s presence in position of power. Thanks to documental analysis and interviews, we take into consideration the main features of this process. The research addresses a number of questions. How, and under what circumstances, were CGIL’s women able to increase their presence in the decision making posts?Having increased their presence, did they tackle gender issues and discrimination? Were they able to make a difference in the political agenda?Data collected in the empirical research show that women face a lot of problems in their career and in their day to day work: the difficulty to reconcile the “time to care” and the “time to work” and a difficult relationship with men’s subculture are some of these.However, women have reached a sufficient number, a good proportion of members in the decision making roles (the descriptive representation), and they constitute a critical mass for advancing women’s issues and interests. So they are substantive representatives interested in women’s concerns and in kick-starting other processes of empowerment. They propose a new model of doing leadership: they promote a gender mainstreaming approach for dealing with women’s as well as men’s issues.In this way they want to point out women’s differences: a different style of behaviour, different outcomes for all the members.Parole chiave: partecipazione, rappresentanza, tetto di cristallo, acquisizione di potere, processi decisionali, approccio di genere.Keywords: participation, representation, glass ceiling, empowerment, decision making processes, gender mainstreaming

The problem of constitutional legitimation: what the debate on electoral quotas tells us about the legitimacy of decision-making rules in constitutional choice

Proponents of electoral quotas have a ‘dependent interpretation’ of democracy, i.e. they have formed an opinion on which decision-making rules are fair on the basis of their prior approval of the outcomes these rules are likely to generate. The article argues that this position causes an irresolvable problem for constitutional processes that seek to legitimately enact institutional change. While constitutional revision governed by formal equality allows the introduction of electoral quotas, this avenue is normatively untenable for proponents of affirmative action if they are consistent with their claim that formal equality reproduces biases and power asymmetries at all levels of decision-making. Their critique raises a fundamental challenge to the constitutional revision rule itself as equally unfair. Without consensus on the decision-making process by which new post-constitutional rules can be legitimately enacted, procedural fairness becomes an issue impossible to resolve at the stage of constitutional choice. This problem of legitimation affects all instances of constitutional choice in which there are opposing views not only about the desired outcome of the process but also about the decision-making rules that govern constitutional choice

Una rappresentanza limitata: le donne nel Parlamento italiano dal 1948 a oggi (1987)

Aperta a tutti, ma di fatto esercitata da poche migliaia di persone, mestiere raro, ma influente e potente, la professione politica costituisce un tema sul quale resta ancora molto da indagare. Non che manchino ricerche empiriche su coloro che ne costituiscono il personale tipico: parlamentari, governanti, amministratori locali, personale di partito ecc. Tali studi hanno preso prevalentemente in esame la composizione sociale, i meccanismi di carriera nonché gli atteggiamenti del personale pol..

Masculinity and secessionism in Italy: An assessment

The masculinist rhetoric of the northern Italian separatist party, the Lega Nord, is an example of nationalist status affirmation. The stereotyped contrast between effeminate southerners and masculine northerners developed at the end of last century is used to affirm the superiority of the masculine North. The Lega's rhetoric parallels mainstream concerns on Italy's international status, and proposals for reforms to make Italy more ‘masculine’ and European. The use of a gendered language for the affirmation of national status reveals a belief in a normative hierarchy of nations, but also introduces a tension between a ‘masculinist’ status affirmation and a model of modernity which includes the emancipation of women as one of its principles.FLWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe