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IX International Conference on Social Communication The Value of Diversity. Towards a new gender culture Milan, IULM University, November 18, 2013 Keynote address by Salvatore Natoli (Unrevised text by the author)

My reflection is meant to provide a sort of framework for the specific topic you will be addressing, which appears as the subtitle of the meeting, that is, gender difference. I will reflect on difference, and on difference in relation to another very important term, which is equality.

If you think about it, equality can conflict with difference. How can we make difference compatible with equality?

In the relationship between equality and difference, there is also gender difference. It should be noted that gender difference has long been equated with that of human nature. Human nature is one and therefore gender difference has almost been covered, equated with the uniqueness of human nature. The universality of human nature has obscured this difference. But not only has it obscured it, but in some cases, and the long history of gender demonstrates this, not only has it been obscured but equality itself has been denied. If the equality of nature has not been denied, certainly equality in terms of rights has been denied.

The long history of Western humanity has seen the female gender essentially equated with the male gender, therefore without a specific identity or, when it had one, with an identity that was defined as secondary to that of the man, if not in terms of nature – in some cases there were debates “whether or not women had a soul” – certainly in terms of equality of rights.

And when we say right, we are essentially talking about public law. The fact that women within the family context had great power, that there was a great matriarchy in the history of Western culture is well known. But this invisible force that held history together did not become visible in the public dimension. And to get an idea of the power of the feminine, just remember the mother of Rocco and his brothers in Visconti, a strong element that holds everything together. So, men are equal (let’s start from this assumption) by virtue of their common humanity. Therefore equal before the law, holders of the same rights, obliged to the same duties. Now, equality formulated in this way is relatively recent, it has appeared only recently, and it is by no means universal. Indeed, there are regions of the world still structured according to hierarchies, and if not for castes certainly for classes: the difference between manual professions, servile work and cultural elites. Even today, in essence, in the world space, we see an equality that has not been achieved.

And so a first reflection: equality is a discovery or a conquest that is fairly recent; in reality, contrary to what is believed, the culture of differences precedes that of equality.

It precedes it by a long way. But how does it precede it? It precedes it against equality, because humanity first knew differences and, much later, equality.

All those prejudices that still exist today arise from the fact of a pre-existence of differences over equality. But what were the differences before equality? They were differences conceived in terms of hierarchy and value. Humanity was not one, there were successful men, superior men… Just remember the great research of a great comparativist like Dumézil, who spoke of the three great social functions: Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus, the priestly dimension, the warrior dimension and the servile dimension: three types of humanity. The priesthood is the relationship with the divine, war pertains to command on earth, servitude as an element to feed and reproduce the species.

There were differences, and how! And heavy ones. Women, in this system of differences, were at a very low level: either associated with the lord, and therefore valued in relation to the lord, or equated with the servant as such.

Now, in that society of differences there was very low social mobility and within the same society and culture, between different human subjects, the differences were much more accentuated: not only the differences within the same society (priests, warriors, servants), but the difference between societies external to each other, the difference, for example, between the civilized and the barbarians, the humans and the less human.