Abstract

The essay starts from an analysis of the recent Community anti-discrimination Directives (2000/43 and 78) and from articles (21 and 23) from the EU Charter of Fundamentals Rights declared in Nice in 2000 which resumed the argument; it considers the wide-ranging extent to which the concept of forbidden discrimination is now assigned, and recognises affirmative actions to fight discrimination within the reached latitude of the principle and its confirmed forecast, with the relevant contribution of the construction of an alternative European social model to the mercantile and free-trade policies. The second part of the writing proposes a reflection, firstly on the original experience and of the analysis of sexual discrimination as seen by women, and then in the context of a double, sexual and racial, discrimination, on the persistent centrality - as a controlling compass of the conflicts which result from these multiple forms of possible discrimination - of the principles underlying "heavy words" such as the dignity and respect of any person, formal and substantive equality, solidarity, freedom. To conclude, in the wake of a recent philosophical speculation, proposed for the theoretical and practical surmounting of the sexual contraposition (the "aporia" of citizenship), and also founded of the recognized "public" value of the female sphere of emotions and spiritual life, the essay indicates a path, that of reciprocal public recognition, to try and give a solution for modern societies, tackling problems which range from the well-documented migratory waves, to differences unrelated to sex.