Women's Rights
Pubblicato da : res publica : quaderni europei: luglio 2026
No one doubts that women's rights must be respected.
However, the issue, it seems to me, is another one: are women's rights and duties the same as men's?
If we consider any human society, we see that its members perform different functions, to which correspond different duties (above all) and different rights. Within the family, parents and children do not have the same roles, and therefore they have different rights and duties. In a factory there are managers and workers; in an army, officers and soldiers; at school, teachers and students; and so on.
So the question, as regards the two sexes, is this: do men and women have the same functions and therefore the same duties and rights?
In the past there was no doubt: women fulfilled the most important function, bearing children and therefore caring for them and for the home; men took care of everything else: earning a living, providing for the family, defense, and so forth. The maternal role was all-encompassing because infant mortality was extremely high, human communities were constantly on the verge of extinction, and it seemed immoral for a woman, instead of devoting herself to the desperate effort of ensuring her children's survival, to concern herself with anything else.
Then the world changed. Infant mortality has virtually disappeared, and women have become available to perform other functions as well.
In my opinion, however, the question at this point is whether the natural instinctive pattern according to which women take care of children and men take care of everything else has been completely overcome or merely weakened.
The real question underlying the entire issue of equality is whether differences in roles depend on explicit or implicit social norms, or on the objective and natural differences between men and women.
According to feminism, such differences do not exist: they would be no more significant than having blond or brown hair. Are only the sexual organs different? Or is the entire body different? And together with the body, are the way of thinking, sensitivity, and behavior also different, especially in relation to the opposite sex?
Then there is the family and parenthood: raising and educating children is the most important function for ensuring the continuation—and the best possible continuation—of human life.
Someone has to take care of children, and this is why women often struggle to reconcile work and motherhood. Having a job that is not too demanding is one thing, but achieving real professional success and building a career requires total commitment, which is not compatible with the demands of motherhood. Giorgia Meloni says she is a mother, but in reality, if she is engaged in politics, she cannot personally fulfill all the daily duties of motherhood: she must delegate those responsibilities to another woman. One cannot suspend a Cabinet meeting because a child has to be put to bed.
Although it is constantly and everywhere asserted that there are no differences between men and women, in practice judges generally award custody of young children to their mothers. Regardless of laws and ideologies, this reflects the belief that, by nature, women are the ones who primarily care for young children, while fathers support and complement them.
There is no doubt that the maternal instinct is among the strongest in nature, that for many women becoming a mother represents their greatest joy, and that they feel devastated if they are unable to do so.
This does not mean that mothers always act wisely: they can make mistakes in raising and educating their children.
For example, they often continue to see their son as "their little boy"; the traditional conflict between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law is a familiar example.
The father's relationship with the child is somewhat different.
The child plays with the father, goes out with him, learns many things from him; but when frightened or distressed, the child usually calls for the mother.
Unfortunately, not all fathers truly take care of their children, whereas mothers always do.
This is part of human nature and, more generally, of the nature of all mammals.
One may then ask whether women can do everything that men do, just as men can do everything that women do.
A man can perform virtually any job that women usually do, and vice versa (except where exceptional physical strength is required), because human beings are highly adaptable. The point, however, is that men and women tend to have different inclinations and interests and therefore, generally speaking (only generally speaking), perform better at certain tasks than at others. This is why, in real life, children are usually entrusted to their mothers after a separation, and women are generally excluded from extremely demanding jobs such as mining. Are these merely prejudices, or is reality contradicting ideology?
We see that the population has grown dramatically in poor countries such as Nigeria, while it is declining in the wealthy West. It seems to me that this is a consequence of the structure of our society, which makes motherhood more difficult: it takes time to become financially secure, people marry later, and children often interrupt careers. Yet I also observe that when a woman finally succeeds in having a child, often close to menopause, she may become completely absorbed in caring for that child, even to the point of seeming obsessive.
We constantly hear that women earn less than men. However, this is not necessarily the result of discrimination: no employment contract establishes different pay according to sex. The point is that women, on average, tend to choose less demanding jobs, which are therefore less highly paid, because they also bear the demanding responsibilities of motherhood. Likewise, in general, more crimes are committed by men than by women—not because men are inherently worse, but because they occupy different social roles.
So I ask myself: was a woman happier when she devoted herself exclusively to raising children, or is she happier today as a doctor or an engineer, even if she can no longer devote the same amount of time to her children? Does happiness not consist in fulfilling one's own nature?
And is taking care of children—and therefore of the home—really an inferior task? Were not our grandmothers the true queens of the household, the ones who actually directed family life, leaving grandfathers with the sole responsibility of providing financial support?
I do not claim to have the answers. But taking it for granted, as though it were self-evident, that there are no natural differences between men and women seems to me to be an oversimplification.