Speeches

Madam President, honourable guests, ladies and gentlemen, I feel it is my duty to speak in this House on International Women's Day for myself, for my daughter and for all women in Europe and around the world. I feel it is my duty to remind my daughter and all the girls that none of us has a predetermined role in society, that there are no subjects or professions for which we are not brought or we do not have the right to be passionate. I feel the duty to intervene, as an Italian representative, to remember that in our country for the first time at the head of the government there is a woman, Giorgia Meloni, who in just 16 months has implemented concrete policies for women's rights: It is enough to think of measures to support working mothers, aid for companies that hire women or the doubling of funds for anti-violence centres and this is not a point of arrival, but simply a point of departure. I would like to say in this Chamber, with all the strength possible, that International Women's Day must increasingly become a day of pride and awareness of what we are able to do and not a day against men, nor a day of mere claims obtained through alleged pink quotas, as is often understood on the left. This must remain one of the unchangeable elements of our Europe, where Christian roots and equality between women and men are the cornerstones of society, a society in which having women at the helm of the highest political and institutional offices is now normal: Roberta Metsola, Ursula von der Leyen, Christine Lagarde and hopefully many more in the years to come. As our Italian poet Agostino Degas says: “Please note, for March 8th we leave mimosas on trees and we give women every day what never withers: tenderness, love and respect.