Pink quotas”: as solution of gender balance in the Italian political system. Is it enough?

Taking distances from the uniqueness of the relationship between gender belonging and political representation role, the article focuses on political action of elected women in different Italian municipalities, and also on how their institutional role is solicited, or not, by equal opportunities issues. Without taking for granted women political participation as addressed to equal opportunities goals, the paper try to understand if these goals come into the personal political experience, which are the sense and meanings conferred to gender difference through the ideological and values orientations guiding the acted representation, if it is perceived as a commitment for equal opportunities or it takes the form of self-representation, totally free from aims of anti-discrimination claim and, at the same time, oriented to a wide and generic meaning of equal opportunities.