Abstract

National legislatures and European institutions increasingly pay attention to the improvement of gender balance among administrative and supervisory bodies of companies and it is a more and more common opinion that female participation in corporate direction could favourably contribute to entrepreneurial activity. This stance has already inspired several statutes setting aside (in some cases temporarily) a certain percentage of total available boardroom positions of listed companies and publicly owned corporations for candidates from the less-represented gender, in order to start a process of participation at decision-making that - it is to be hoped - will be followed spontaneously. The following essay exposes and interprets Italian law concerning gender equality on company boards, taking account of the latest European initiatives and rules and regulations passed by other countries on the same matter, and seeing it from the point of view of the intellectual movement in which arguments and beliefs, that are grounded in these rules and regulations, have developed.