According to the latest Global Gender Gap report, which analyzes the breadth and scope of the gender gap around the world, Italy has fallen sixteen places by 2023 compared to 2022, slipping from 63rd to 79th place out of 146 countries; thus proceeding, gender parity will not be achieved until 2154 (the same year projected in 2022)1. This paper aims to explain, on the basis of analyses made during a long research on the history of women in Italy2, the reasons why the seventh power in the world is still in many respects a macho and patriarchal country. If equality is not yet a reality and feminism is not yet a legacy of the past, it is due, first of all, to three factors, work, political participation and motherhood.