With this project MANIFESTO12, an online art and culture magazine, intends to open its doors to all those women who enter the world with the desire but also the will to offer a significant contribution to human thought. A column that will host research, opinions and comparisons offered by more or less well-known women and young people who intend to approach the world of culture in all its forms.
The sectors involved will be different: from art to literature, philosophy, history, theatre, cinema, economics.
Furthermore, women engaged in school, research and humanitarian activities up to new technologies will be able to find space.
Below is the speech by Elisabetta Righi Iwanejko, Secretary General of the San Marino-Italy Association, who offers us her opinion on the "Planet of Women" as a woman who has always been involved in the culture and institutional and social activities of the Republic of San Marino.
Women have always conquered their role in politics on the field as they have done in professions, economic activities, culture and science.
The possible model Women and Politics presupposes a comparison of knowledge and experience, of culture for men and women which must translate into respect for the person!
Over time, our Republic has demonstrated the preparation, courage and determination of our women, the originality of their ideas in the most varied fields, the enormous contribution they can make to the material and civil progress of our country system. A much abused and declaimed term that demands respect for the elaborated specificities and for the quick and stubborn action of actors and economic subjects.
I am firmly convinced of the consideration that "the female resource" is the greatest that San Marino has at this moment; that primarily feminine qualities - balance, innate moral sense, predisposition to change - are absolutely necessary for the recovery and development of any economic, cultural or political activity.
But, apart from the acknowledgments and fine words that are never denied in similar circumstances, I must state that the women-politics problem has remained practically unsolved, there have been no calls; I consequently assume that, in terms of politics, thought is always the one that assigns women roles of service, of subjection to the powerful of the moment and not of protagonism.
Women have grown up, they distinguish themselves in studies and in literary activities, they occupy prominent positions in business, in public administration, they are successful freelancers, they animate the new tools of communication and politics, which should be the plus ultra of all these activities, which should be the science most attentive to what changes and grows in society, politics is instead deaf to the call "woman", inert in the face of the phenomenon that most marks and characterizes our years.
I was hoping for a new signal launched by the general elections of November 2012. Instead, the results have not generated any change. And in the recent elections in November 2016, there was only a slight increase in female representation in Parliament.
The first observation after some time that I feel like expressing is the lack of attractiveness of local politics often engaged in eternal debates, inconclusiveness, exploitation, in short, characterized by the ingredients that have nourished San Marino politics for years now and which I believe are in stark contrast to the concreteness of the female character and the urgency of short, medium and long-term projects that make it possible to regain trust and credibility towards the institutions in the eyes of our community and beyond our borders.
It is very easy to understand why a woman of value prefers any other professional, business or even just humanitarian activity to politics.
Since her domestic experience, women are used to looking at results, to proceeding by objectives: and if politics has no objectives, if it does not lead to results why should a woman commit to it?
Another topic: women have no time to waste. In 90 percent of cases, once they have finished work, they have to take care of the family. If a man can devote his free time to politics, a woman can hardly do it; it is different to choose between the cinema, the restaurant and politics and instead having to take on a third and onerous commitment.
Then I see the growing gap between politics and the members of our community, the growing inability of politics to understand and keep pace with civil society. But women grow up in civil society: why deal with an activity that does not have clear defined guidelines?
In short, there are many justifications but there is one point on which it is necessary to clarify, which women, all women must understand: that if they do not come forward, if they do not find the strength and courage to try their hand at this ugly policy that San Marino offers today, they will never take a step forward, the positions of power that so many women have conquered in France, Germany and America, in the Scandinavian countries and in many parts of the world, not least Turkey, will forever remain a mirage.
The scenario we are facing is not unfavourable: the impoverishment of the values of the traditional parties, the growth of less ideological movements which are necessarily more attentive to public opinion, automatically create interesting spaces for a significant participation of women.
Why don't we talk about "values and virtues" to give more strength to women's voices, today too fragmented, too individual, devoid of that unity that alone can break through the wall of deafness that our political institutions still block?
I believe that the one that indicates merit and consequently method is the right path!
As long as the best among us are presented by the press and by TV as exceptions, extraordinary phenomena, or not considered at all by the media because the veto is imposed by the upper levels ignoring the enormous mass of sacrifices, of study, of commitment, of all the female world that is behind those successes, women will not make progress.
Men are masters of lobbying also aimed at defending sometimes not noble interests.
We too do some good lobbying: because our country, in order to get back on the straight path, needs us and we must be there and be aware that growth also depends on our commitment.
We must give body and substance to the hopes and ambitions of a country that wants and can emerge from the crisis. I've never believed in wonders or magic wands. I believe in results built on correct principles, concrete assumptions and daily work. And I believe in a real and equal democracy, in a country in which everyone - each starting from their own possibilities, abilities and aspirations - have the opportunity to make their own contribution.
When we no longer talk about gender but about people, merits and talents, then San Marino can be called a modern democracy. It is undeniable that the presence of women in decision-making processes is qualitatively significant when it brings new logics. Otherwise, it is a mere perpetuation of the system of power. It should be spontaneous, placing trust and esteem towards women and those who value and respect them.
There is certainly no shortage of intellectually autonomous women in San Marino who also bring their "being women" to power: pragmatism and desire to achieve, clarity of language, independence of judgment. This is the real challenge of our age, to change the values and practices of power, to change the decision and management model, to assume the power to decide and to influence, to direct choices and strategies, in companies and in the country .
At that point, it will no longer be necessary to maintain Indian reservations or day after appointments because the best women will "make it" on their own and "will be" the ones who will make proposals and not promises.
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