Since today everyone has to write on Women's Day I will too, but I have never been able to make the rhetorical guns that I see everyone do. I would like to get practical, and ask myself "why is it still so far back in Italy". Let me be clear: there are no places where life is a paradise for women, for the simple reason that there are no places where life is a paradise for men: the suicide rate among men is about three times higher. high compared to women.

But if we go to some specific issues, the answer is found, and it is "custom".

In Italy the feminist movements really arrive with 68, which arrives late in Italy, in the 70s. The trouble with 1968, as well as with the feminist protest, is that if you look at any “committed” comment, they will all explain to you that the main effect of these movements was to upset customs .

Which is true. But it's also THE problem.

In fact, the left that has absorbed women's demands is not a political movement or a social force, but a phenomenon of custom . As such, it does not aim to change society or change politics or change the economy, but to change customs . And here is the problem. The Italian left, and with it the feminist movements, have changed customs, but not society. The problem is that the "intellectuals" of the left cannot distinguish the two. Let me give an anecdotal example.

I moved to Germany with my family when my daughter was still small. If I'd worked on it and knew how to juggle, my wife obviously didn't. The first meetings with the Arbeitsamt had shown a great variety of opportunities, ranging from training courses, to intensive language courses (at a very low price), up to "Ausbilfung", ie training periods in the company. But there was a problem: when it went well they took half a day, if not all.

Problem. In Italy this would have condemned my wife to be a housewife. But then it turned out that kindergartens around keep children late. The elementary schools have OGS, a service that allows children to use the school even after class, with a number of other teachers who make them play or keep them busy in GA or supervise them. The gates of the high schools (here you enter at ten) keep open all afternoon and do not drive high school students into the street at one and zero zero. And in case of an emergency, there were public tagesmutters, paid for largely by the state.

Done like this, the thing changed a lot. Because in this way, with the help of a little, the intensive German courses (6 hours in one day) and then the training courses and the Ausbildung part-time were there. In fact it worked.

Here the basic problem arises. Let's imagine that Germany joins Sweden and makes a law on women's quotas in political parties. The problem is not that parties should put a female leader for every female leader. The problem is that women would have TIME to do politics.

Changing society means giving women THE MEANS to engage in politics. (in this case time). Changing costumes only means filling parties with rich women, who may have nannies, or housewives without a job with a wealthy husband.

There are therefore two types of policies:

• social. When you give women the means to be in politics, or profession, or whatever.
• of costume. When you give some women a chance to do everything, and others nothing.

In the case of the costume change, apparently women can do everything. But the question is “can ALL women do everything?”. Of course, the very bourgeois wife who has a nanny who goes to pick up the children from school will certainly be able to leave the housewife's job to the maid and devote herself to politics and (by making this law on quotas) it will almost seem that in the PD there are as many women as men. But that wouldn't be true: in terms of opportunity, things wouldn't be like that.

This is the problem of the left, and even more so of the radical left: being phenomena of custom, they believe they can change society simply by changing customs.

These days, I read on the various social networks of the Popular Front of Judea , that we must stop saying "my" wife – forgetting that "whose" does not always indicate the property, there may be a man's ailments, the Bunsen burner does not belong in Bunsen, Michelangelo's Pieta was not by Michelangelo, and so on.

But even if it were not the complete destruction of logical analysis, stopping saying "my wife" would not be a social change: it would be a change of morals . And all the hypothesized changes of customs (we must say mayor or mayor, we must open the door to women or not, we must give way or not), being changes in customs, cannot affect politics or society. It will change the lives of the most prominent people, as in any change of customs. But nothing more.

And that's why some nations have Merkel and von der Layen, others don't.

I already know that you are skeptical: "but how, do you mean that kindergartens and OGS and high schools open until late are enough?". Probably a whole series of additional things are needed, of course, ranging from university subsidies for girls who get pregnant (apartment & subsidy), and a whole series of measures that give THE MEANS to do things, of course. In 70 years of the welfare state there are many things, which already start with girls (courses like Starke Mädchen that have a certain impact on resilience (who has daughters knows how critical the problem of resilience is) and so on.

But this is not the left that exists in Italy. We are talking about the Scandinavian one.

Yes, of course, yes Italian leftists will tell us that here and there they too had these ideas, but in the end they stopped in parliament, and therefore no: they change their customs, it is your cocks to change society, they tell you. (with the same principle they make you gay marriage but then if the neighbors cut your tires it's your cock, and so on).

And here's the thing:

• the laws on costume change only the customs: then you have the pink quotas while the women do not have time because the social services are not there, you have the laws on gay marriage but then the gay couples do not find a home, in short: there is all that is needed to change customs , but not to change society.
• Society laws change society, and customs change as a side effect: we could give pink shares to companies by imposing the board of directors on 50% of women, and we would get companies with wives, lovers, aunts and cousins ​​inside. Or we can give women the same time as men – in that case, ALL women will start looking for something to do. Or to create it.

But the Italian left have always been a phenomenon of custom and never social phenomena or political phenomena. The left in Italy is not involved in politics, it is customary. Consequently, they are unable to change society, only to change customs.

The “liberal” discourse has grafted onto the 1968 stratum, which was already a customary phenomenon that arrived from the USA. What is the difference between a social left and a "liberal" left?

Let's take an example: if I say that in the US 100 people own more than 70% of the income, the social left will say that they must be taxed and the income must be distributed.

The liberal left, on the other hand, will say that of those 100 people, 50 must be women, of which 16 are lesbians, and at least 30 must be black. Customs will change, because we will see people of color and women at the top, but society will remain just as unjust .

This is due to the fact that the US cannot, by political tradition, use real welfare tools, which limits the action of the American left to "nudging", that is, to a "soft" push towards society, addressed to change. In the US, the left can ONLY change customs, hoping that this will push society on new tracks. And they obtain as a result the blessed nothing that is obtained also in Italy, with the difference that the "neighborhoods" are born. Then in the USA you can have gay marriage, but not so much because the US hosts are more tolerant: it is only because you will end up in a "neighborhood", in a gay neighborhood where no one will deny you the house because you are a gay couple.

Why doesn't this work in Italy, and generally in Europe? Because here the bridge is missing, the link between politics and young people, that is, those who can change their customs . In fact, a change of costume always starts with young people. But the problem is that if in the USA the stars of music and cinema and TV push for a change of customs, in Italy and in Europe in general this no longer happens.

The European left, that is, was able to obtain costume changes among young people in the period when the stars of music, entertainment and TV went on TV to give scandal, changing costumes. BUT today, when the world of entertainment is caged by the level playing field, no artist wants to miss the launch of the disc because an electoral campaign starts, and therefore the artists remain "politically neutral".

And with Finocchiaro and Livia Turco you don't make us a role-model for young girls.

And so let's go back to the "costumes" again.

• the left, with regard to women, has always been a phenomenon of custom, but it has never changed the underlying society, nor the underlying economy, much less politics.
• in recent years, due to delusional censorship laws on a level playing field, the Italian left has alienated the chain of youth consent, preventing singers from taking sides for fear of being silenced.

In practice, today the left does not know that it has to change society because it has always recognized itself as a phenomenon of custom , and as if that were not enough it no longer has the ability to change customs.

And as a result, it has become a useless tool. The price of which is paid by the categories that the left wanted to represent.

And it is for this reason that the women's question in Italy is so far behind.

Because it is seen as a phenomenon of custom and faced as such.

Feel free to change the suffixes to the words, write the words * using the asterisk, and maybe you will change the customs.

And no, saying that you change "the culture" when you are just changing costumes will not change anything. It remains useless.

And here we are at another point: the left is so used to changing costumes, that they really think they can change everything only through "language" and "symbolic gestures" (red shoes, asterisks, demonstrations and more), while it is completely out of their hat the idea that you have to do things like "reserve resources for welfare" or "use the state to materially change someone's real living conditions". They believe that "change the language", "change the culture", "speak differently", "avoid certain terms", "show more women in power", are the change they seek, while in the end they are things that will change only the costumes .

Changing society is a different matter. Symbolic words and gestures are almost irrelevant.