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2020-03-07 Simona Cuomo

I Don’t Want to be Celebrated on March 8

It’s March 8, the day on which, since 1922, Italy has symbolically celebrated International Women’s Day, commonly known as the Festa della donna. This day, created to remember women’s economic, political, and social achievements, but also the discrimination and violence to which women continue to be subject, does not cease to provoke contradictory feelings and opinions. In fact, many women say that they don’t want to be celebrated on this day. There are two frequent reasons for this position. The first regards the need to be seen as considered people, not women. It’s the same reason ...

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2020-02-26 Stefano Basaglia

How Work Changes at the Time of the Coronavirus

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has two significant impacts on the organization of work. The first regards the “open space” organization of offices, where workers may or may not have fixed workstations, designed to reduce costs relating to physical spaces and to favor interaction and the exchange of information.[1] The layout of such offices also favors contagion though, and thus the proliferation of diseases. This is true for the Coronavirus, but obviously also for the normal seasonal flu. So in order to address this problem, in the immediate term companies have been forced to limit the movement ...

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2020-02-16 Zenia Simonella

Diversity Management: Apply with Care

On February 4, 2020, the New York Times published an article [1] on the case of the Prada company, that in 2018 was accused of having produced racist advertisements put up in the city of New York, and then removed due to criticism. After a long investigation by the New York City Commission on Human Rights, a formal agreement was reached stating that the company would adopt some measures on the issue of diversity and inclusion: from a financial and occupational standpoint, the company would support ethnic minorities, accept outside monitoring of its operations, and promote awareness of diversity ...

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2020-01-22 Simona Cuomo

Gender Equality in the Professional World

Despite the lively public and academic debate on the question of gender equality in society and the labor market, it is always important to ask if this widespread "sensitivity" is actually translating into concrete results. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020 produced by the World Economic Forum (WEF),[1] Italy saw the largest improvement from 2017 to 2018, going from 82nd to 70th, but in 2019 it dropped down to 76th out of a total of 153 countries. While the positive result for 2018 was due to growth in the area of "Political Empowerment" of women, which maps female participation in ...

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2019-12-23 Stefano Basaglia

Ideas First, Regardless of Gender

On December 11 of this year, Marta Cartabia was elected president of the Italian Constitutional Court. During the press conference held after her election, she expressly stated that being a woman "was not a secondary aspect," that her election represents a "historic step," that she "broke the glass ceiling," and that her female colleagues told her "your election is our election."[1] The media and the political world, on both the right and the left, conservatives and progressives, all celebrated the election of the first woman president of the Constitutional Court, stressing that the event represents ...

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2019-11-25 Zenia Simonella

Obesity: Stigma Becomes Dehumanization

About one month ago, the Italian Association of Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition held an "Obesity Day" (https://www.obesityday.org/), and in the conference organized in Rome on that occasion, presented the "Bill of Rights and Responsibilities of Persons with Obesity." The opening of the Bill is as follows: "The rights of persons with obesity are the same human and social rights as those of persons without obesity." Why did they feel the need to write a "Bill of Rights and Responsibilities of Persons with Obesity"? The main goals of the sponsors were: to enhance people's sensitivity to issues of ...

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2019-11-13 Simona Cuomo

Why Old Age is Harder for Women

"Leave me all of my wrinkles, don't take any away. It took me my whole life to get them." Anna Magnani Longevity, considered a positive phenomenon at the individual level, is becoming critical at the collective level, in both society and the labor market. Ageism is a form of prejudice and devaluation of the individual, based on his or her age; in particular towards the elderly (1). Because of this prejudice, in 2020 being more than 45 years old can represent a stigma in Italian companies, and thus a source of discrimination. Studies in fact stress that ageism translates into managerial practices ...

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2019-10-22 Stefano Basaglia

LGBT Inclusion Beyond Enclave Cities and Large Companies

A recent conference dedicated to LGBT inclusion organized by the University of Bergamo with Parks - Liberi e Uguali and the In Ca’Pacis TdO Theater of the Oppressed offers us a opportunity to reflect on two aspects linked to the management of diversity in Italian companies. A first aspect regards the fact that still today, more than four years after the approval of the law on civil unions, LGBT inclusion regards a minority of businesses, principally large ones, with a global perspective. In this regard, it is important to cite the case of two companies that recounted their experiences during ...

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2019-09-25 Zenia Simonella

The Specter of "Generationalism"

Generations in companies: the issue now occupies a place in the agenda of the media, and obviously of organizations as well. Researchers, consultants, gurus, and journalists question how to manage and favor coexistence between different generations at work. Who are the members of the various generations, and what do they want? What Do Millennials Want at Work? is the title of an August 20, 2019 blog post at Great Place To Work. Reality Bites Back: To Really Get Gen Z, Look at the Parents claimed a Bloomberg journalist in a recent article. "The Reconstruction generation" (1928-1945), "Baby boomers" ...

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2019-07-16 Simona Cuomo

More Women on Boards of Directors: Why Has Nothing Changed for the Others?

It's time to take stock of the results of the Golfo-Mosca law (Law 120/2011), that introduced gender quotas in the Boards of Directors of listed and publicly-controlled companies, dictating that at least one-third of members of the corporate bodies must belong to the less-represented sex. The provisions of the law applied to the three renewals of BoDs after August 2012 (a period usually equal to nine years), and at the end of 2018 it ceased being active for 34 listed companies. Numerous statistics and monitoring show its undoubtedly positive effects. First, the percentage of women board members ...

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