Economic empowerment as a tool to fight violence against women

When faced with a violent relationship, women’s difficulty in accessing well-paid, non-precarious professional roles can trigger a dynamic of dependence on their partners, generating a coercive mechanism capable of limiting their personal freedoms. This is why SDA Bocconi has always supported women’s economic empowerment as a fundamental tool in the fight against all forms of violence.

On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, SDA Bocconi would like to reaffirm its commitment to supporting women’s professional growth by incentivizing highly qualified pathways and promoting women’s empowerment in every productive sector.

As SDA Bocconi Associate Dean Rossella Cappetta points out, “today more than ever, we want to relaunch our role in supporting women’s workplace engagement and their ability to hold managerial roles in companies. In fact, we are deeply convinced that economic dependence on the partner is one of the hindering factors to the termination of violent relationships. So, here we have it that women’s economic empowerment is a key lever in the fight against violence, and the training of the skills necessary for work stands as a starting point for a structured and lasting process of change”. Therefore, in 2023 the School will also relaunch an initiative designed specifically for women, offering them a 20 percent discount on the tuition fee for all Executive Open Programs, including Online On Demand.

At the same time, over the past several years, SDA Bocconi has been promoting the #EMBAWOMEN strategy, through which the Executive MBA aims to close the gender gap by pursuing two very specific goals: to increase the presence of women in classes and to optimize the impact that the EMBA can have on their careers. In this regard, the School has achieved some significant milestones that go beyond the EMBA. Transversely across all courses and master’s degrees, in fact, the presence of women in the School’s classrooms stands at 45 percent. This is not only a number, but an invitation to continue on the path of rights and gender equality, in order to jointly build a future that is increasingly open, fair and free of any form of discrimination.

SDA Bocconi School of Management