Even the university, in Italy, is a man's business

In recent days, a slew of news, allegations, and research has come to light, shedding light on the minority situation of women in Italian universities, systematically fraught with prejudices and harassment, from sponsorship letters onwards. There's something for everyone: from the case in Turin, involving former director of the school of forensic medicine Di Vella (under house arrest for threats, stalking, and sexual violence) and an anonymous aesthetics professor, suspended for harassing doctoral students, to the research conducted by Audinga Baltrunaite, Lucia Rizzica, and Alessandra Casarico of the Bank of Italy, who reviewed letters sent over the last 10 years by professors from across Europe to two Italian research centers to sponsor doctoral students.

Male-Dominated Universities: The Data

Let's start from the beginning. According to a 2021 study carried out by the National University Council, women graduate more than men. However, when it comes to accessing the highest ranks of the academic career ladder, such as becoming doctoral candidates, research fellows, associates, and professors, the statistics flip, and the majority goes to men. Some examples: at Sapienza University of Rome, in 2018, out of 59 department heads, only 17 were women. At the University of Bologna, in 2019, women accounted for only 16% of department heads. So, this isn't a new problem. Baltrunate, Rizzica, and Casarico's research may start to explain the reasons behind these differences. The researchers collected letters and CVs from 8,000 doctoral candidates who applied for an academic position in Italy. From the analysis - including linguistic analysis - of this dataset, interesting and significant data emerged.

Prejudices Against Women

The data speaks volumes. First and foremost, it's worth noting that these sponsorship letters are predominantly written by male professors for male students. Female students, in fact, often have female mentors, who therefore find themselves in lower ranks and do not have the opportunity to influence the careers of their proteges. It's a vicious cycle, almost a loop. If no one listens to women, if no one promotes them, then these women won't be able to guide and assist others. Moreover, men in these documents are described with adjectives like "brilliant" or "intelligent," while women are diligent and hardworking. These are age-old stereotypes that portray men as proactive and full of initiative, and women as hardworking and team players, which permeate all aspects of life, from home to work to interpersonal relationships, as highlighted in a 2023 Istat study. These stereotypes also have negative effects on salaries: it's the gender pay gap.

Testimonies from Turin

In short, women don't feel supported or assisted in their climb up the academic career ladder. And we haven't even begun to address the worst. Following the case in Turin, which revealed how some professors abused their positions of power and authority to harass their female students, the anti-violence center at the Einaudi campus in Turin has received over 138,000 reports of harassment from female students. Furthermore, the collective Studenti Indipendenti along with Non Una di Meno Turin distributed a questionnaire, revealing even more cases. Now, it's expected that the wave of complaints will spread throughout Italian universities, and in the meantime, protests are occurring in Turin, Monday morning, at Palazzo Nuovo.

What Needs to Change? Everything

The ultimate goal is to highlight the underlying inequality in the treatment of women and men in the university and academic environment and reject the rhetoric of bad apples. It's not enough to just remove the men personally involved in the complaints; the system needs to be changed at its core. Because at the core of the linguistic difference in letters for the early careers of doctoral candidates interested in economic professions and at the core of harassment lies the same thing: an abuse of power endorsed by the entire field, fueled by the presumed superiority of male academics and men in general, in the complicity of decision-makers, and in the silence of the victims, scared of repercussions. And that needs to end.