What do we mean by gender equality in the workplace? An equal number of women and men among employees? Half of leadership roles filled by women and half by men? Are we sure that splitting everything in half or guaranteeing gender quotas in recruitment is enough to overcome the gender gap? The answer is no: discrimination goes beyond quantitative data, beyond mere numbers, and to understand what really goes on in companies, we need to seek qualitative data, often telling a whole different story.
We spoke about this with Donata Columbro, interviewed at the end of what she describes as “a very busy time”, namely the presentation of her new book, Perché contare i femminicidi è un atto politico (Why counting femicides is a political act) (Feltrinelli, 2025). “These are not easy topics to spread awareness about, and intellectual work often has the problem of appearing too abstract, but this tour has helped me to see the practicality of what I do. And I feel that people's attention to the issue has changed and improved, which gives me even more motivation to continue my work.”
Please, tell us about the work you do.
I work as a journalist, mainly focusing on inequality and discrimination explained by data. Lately, I have also been given the definition of “data humaniser”, and I identify with this term as I describe the process that leads to the production of data, that is, I disseminate statistical culture. However, I am also an activist for open and public data with the onData association, and sometimes these two aspects combine. Last but not least, I have a feminist approach to data, a lens through which you can view all of my work: for example, looking at how data can fuel inequalities within society and between people, and how power dynamics come into play in the production, analysis and dissemination of data.
What do we mean by “data”?
Often people expect data to be readily available for our use, interpretation, manipulation and reporting. In reality, the process of creating this tool to depict the world is very complex, and for me, data is something we can observe, something that exists, something we can perceive, and something that someone decides at a certain point to measure or quantify and then categorise. The act of “deciding” is important; in other words, human intervention in creating a link between that phenomenon and a whole series of actions and relationships, including those with the community that may be involved. Take climate change, for example: there are measurements that can be taken without encountering human beings and others that must involve those who suffer the consequences of certain phenomena.
Why is data so important, then?
Quantifying or measuring a phenomenon renders it visible and interpretable. I consider data to be the basis for initiating discussions. It is not exhaustive, and I do not believe that measuring the world or a phenomenon, i.e., a quantitative interpretation, is an end point. It can, however, be a starting point to ask questions and seek answers by other means. Nevertheless, having standards to evaluate and compare phenomena on a local, national or international scale is useful in order to understand what can be done to improve the lives of communities and the people who belong to them, and at the same time to be better, more informed and more aware citizens.
Speaking of bringing phenomena to light, where do you think we stand on the gender gap in Italian companies? Do we have enough data? Are we doing enough to collect it?
I believe that efforts to raise awareness on discrimination are making progress. I am thinking of the reports coming from INPS (the Italian National Social Security Institute) on gender policies in Italy, and the creation of tools such as equality certification, forcing companies to measure what is happening within their own organisations, even on parameters that they may not have considered before. But we must keep our focus on why we are doing this, otherwise the data itself becomes the goal, when it should never be.
What do you mean?
Whenever I chat with people at my meetings and events, they often tell me how all the activities that public institutions and companies put in place to achieve gender equality risk making women's workload even heavier. There are organisations that obtain gender equality certification at the expense of women, who have to set up working groups and initiatives and carry out measurements to prove that they are being discriminated against, thus taking time and effort away from their own careers. For example, who ends up receiving the most lucrative funding? Often men, because they can devote their time entirely to it and do not have to be “distracted” by engaging in gender equality initiatives. Therefore, yes, it is essential to measure the gender gap, but in the meantime, we may be missing the point of who should be involved in closing this gap and what is happening in the meantime.
What could be the solutions?
Marginalised and discriminated communities and individuals often have to take on the task of telling their own stories, collecting evidence and producing data, because no one else will do it. So, a necessary first step is to improve data production at a systemic level. But we also need to investigate different types of discrimination, understand the consequences for those who are excluded and those who continue to enjoy privileges, and understand who really makes the decisions in companies. For example, Jennifer Guerra explains this well in her book Il femminismo non è un brand (Feminism is not a brand) [Einaudi, 2024, ed.]. Many managerial positions have been created for women, so we have a very high number of female managers, but they are involved in micro-management; that is, they have a huge workload but are not really involved in decision-making. Therefore, observing the distribution of power is much more difficult than simply counting how many women are in positions of power. Another example concerns those companies that support many gender equality initiatives but then schedule important meetings at 6 p.m., when people with family care responsibilities, often women, cannot attend. These are mechanisms designed to exclude or that in any case exclude certain people, who therefore end up not being able to deal with important issues. Such data is also referred to as “thick data”, which is not easy to measure, as it is collected from grassroots accounts and in secure environments. Yet, if no attention is paid to data quality, there is no desire for real change, only an interest in obtaining certification. Again, the data should not be the goal; that is, the aim should not be to have 50% women in the company but to ensure an equal distribution of both rights and duties within the company. Flipping the situation around, I also think of the deprivation of the right to care for those who hold senior positions and therefore have to stay at work until 8 p.m., giving up participating in their children's lives. If we start to see this as a denial of a right, the whole perspective changes. In this sense, the goal is no longer gender equality but fairness in general. There is no simple solution; it is a matter of questioning the race for KPIs.
In terms of percentages, in Italy women account for 36% of management positions, but only 18% have executive contracts. Based on your experience, do Italian companies view these figures merely as numbers to be increased, or is there a genuine commitment to equality and a real understanding of its importance?
It depends. Certainly, some companies care about diversity and therefore implement initiatives aimed at men as well as women. And this is perhaps the deciding factor. For example, there is a difference between organising initiatives for mothers or for parents. Maternity is automatically recorded by companies because employees who get pregnant apply for benefits and the data is collected, while fathers do not always request parental leave, and the data is lost. However, if a company is interested in parents as a whole, it may find that it is dealing with a larger population that has rights to exercise. Or, again, it is possible to see whether the company guarantees remote working days, which allow the flexibility necessary for those with care responsibilities, or what family benefits are provided. This is why data is important, also as an indicator of the work being done, but if the company only focuses on closing the gender gap, it risks missing everything else. In recent months, I have come across companies that have a trusted advisor, a person outside of human resources with whom to discuss sensitive and specific situations. This is another factor that is not mandatory in gender equality certifications, but if it is present, it demonstrates openness to dialogue, specific training and a willingness to work differently.
How much of this type of evolution is up to companies and how much should be up to institutions?
Certainly, companies can do a lot because they have the opportunity to accelerate processes that are much slower in institutions. For example, a company can decide that parental leave for its employees who become fathers should last three months. From an institutional perspective, I believe that we also need to work on cultural change. When we published the report Sesso è potere 2025 [Sex is Power, 2025, edited by info.nodes and onData, editor's note], which investigates male dominance in the approximately 128,000 positions of power in Italy in the political, economic and media spheres, I was amazed by the number of comments we received. In spite of our transparent and data-based work, people were convinced that if women are in this situation, it is because having power is not in their nature, they do not want to take risks and cannot be forced to do so. These are ideological positions that have been disproved by years of study, yet they persist. It is clear that we need to work, from a political and public perspective, in a different direction, one that does not keep men and women in their traditional roles, which are not natural, and understands that society is built on the values we give ourselves. So, if a woman wants to become a company executive or go to the International Space Station, the first thing to ask her should not be “What will you do about your children?” Rather, policies must be put in place to support that choice, from nurseries to family bonuses to pay for childcare, in order to facilitate women's entry and permanence in the labour market.
This is also a necessary step from an economic perspective, given that, as Confartigianato explains, if the female employment rate in Italy were to align with the European average, GDP would grow by €154.7 billion, equal to 7.4 percentage points. In short, we have the data and the reasons... all that's missing is cultural change?
No, it must be a political change, as the low percentage of women in the labour market has existed for years, and no government has ever really included the issue of female employment in its programmes in a meaningful way. The data is there, but unfortunately it is very difficult to make political decisions based on data. Yet the consequences are felt at various levels. For example, among the benefits are GDP growth but also a reduction in gender-based violence. This is because a woman who works is better empowered, whereas it is more difficult for her to leave a violent relationship if the perpetrator is the same person who supports her financially. Or consider the initiatives to increase the number of places in nurseries with the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan), announced with much hype and then lost due to the failure to move projects forward, spend money and meet deadlines. It is easier to issue proclamations and create one-off policies, such as bonuses, which are not structural and therefore do not really help families in the long term. So, yes, we need a cultural change, but we also need political action, money and the will to tackle the problem in a concrete way over the years, which has not been done so far.
Cover: Donata Columbro © Pasqualini, Musacchio/MUSA