Women, Meloni: equality a right not a concession, not done with quotas
"I think true freedom remains being able to earn one's position on the ground," says the Prime Minister speaking at the event on the 80th anniversary of the vote
Guaranteeing "equal opportunities and a genuinely meritocratic society is a battle we have yet to win" and "we will not be able to really do it as long as we are forced to believe that women need quotas or favour mechanisms". Thus Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaking at the event on the eighty years of the vote for women. "I think that true freedom remains being able to earn one's position on the field" and what the state can do is "to ensure that the game is not rigged", to guarantee "equality at the starting point, to give everyone the chance to compete with the same conditions, then it is up to each person to demonstrate their value or their ability, their competence". Equality "is not a concession, it is a right and it is a right that has been denied for too long
The courage of our freedom was the key
"I have never shared the view,' Meloni said, 'that women, in order to assert themselves, must blend in or even imitate men, use the same patterns, think in the same way, I think it is the exact opposite. And 'I have never thought that there are women's politics, I am convinced that there is instead a female vision of politics which is something quite different, that is, no one will ever convince me that there are issues for women and issues for men, any issue needs a composite sensitivity and therefore obviously also a female point of view, but it is a completely different approach'.
A woman, the premier continued, "is not only a woman if she thinks the way some women think she should think, to support this as I still see it done in a surreal way at times is in my opinion the furthest thing from the defence of equality because we did not fight to be free not to go from being told what we could think or do by males to being told what we could think or do by ideological dogmas, the courage of our freedom was the cornerstone of our affirmation, if we lost it we would simply go backwards". "Freedom and merit is what we have to defend and guarantee if we want women's clout to grow" along with "services that enable women to compete on equal terms, to not have to choose between a child and a profession, to not be discriminated against because they are or because they might even become mothers, to earn less, to have a career simply because they are women".
With the women's vote, an indelible democratic character to the Republic
"That vote, what happened in 1946, gave the Republic, as the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella also recalled in his end-of-year speech, and I thank him for this, an indelible democratic character, setting out a path that is still underway towards full equality". Thus Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaking at the event '1946-2026 Votes for women. Democracy turns eighty" at the Foro Italico in Rome. The Prime Minister quoted "Anna Garofalo, a volunteer nurse during the Second World War, a pioneer of women's journalism" who "in her book The Italian in Italia, was able to describe in extremely effective words" the first women's vote, writing that "the ballot papers that arrive at our homes and invite us to do our duty have a silent and peremptory authority, we turn them over in our hands and they seem more precious than the bread card, we clutch the ballot papers as if they were love cards". Words 'of one who was aware that from that moment on, Italia would never be the same again'.
