famong the largest European cities streets dedicated to women represent only 9 percent of the streets named after people. This is what emerges from the investigation Mapping diversity, conducted by the European Data Journalism Network. The study examined 145,933 streets in 30 major European cities in 17 different EU member or candidate countries. On the project website, a series of interactive maps allows you to explore Europe street by street, to discover those (few) female stories that have gained toponymic recognition.
Streets dedicated to women, in Europe they are only 9% (less in Italy)
Already in 2021 a project carried out by OBC Transeuropa and Sheldon.studio for EDJNet, the network of independent newspapers and data journalism units, had mapped the Italian roads. The aggregated data on toponymic gender gap can be found on Mapping Diversityan interactive digital map that matched the archive of streets and squares built by OpenStreetMap with the names on Wikidata after which those streets and squares are named.
From Stockholm to Milan: who are the streets dedicated to?
Today, a new investigation has widened the range of analysis to Europe. If the gap has started to narrow in some of them, progress is very slow. Even in the city with the smallest gap, Stockholm, streets named after men account for more than 80 percent of the total.
The percentages of streets named after women in the Italian cities examined are low. TO Milanout of 2677 streets dedicated to people, 94.2% are dedicated to men. The site allows you to explore the 135 dedicated to womenfrom the philanthropist Laura Ciceri Visconti (1768-1891) to the revolutionary philosopher Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), from Maria Callas (1923-1977) to the architect Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992). Among the names of women, that of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the most present.
The other most common are female saints, with the exception of Queen Margherita of Savoy. Among the non-saints and non-aristocrats, the first in the ranking for quantity is the writer Grazia Deledda (10 streets in total named after her). It’s better, but just a little, a Romewhere 7.1% of the streets are named after women, in Turin, 5.4% in Palermo 8.1%, a Genoa 8.2%.
Female toponymy, there is still a long way to go
In Italy, it is active “female toponymy”an independent research and activism group born in 2012 on Facebook, which then turned into an association: surveys the gender imbalance in the names of streets and squares. But it also organizes exhibitions, activities in schools, and promotes various campaigns. Every March 8, for example, it asks all the municipalities of Italy to name three streets after three female figures.
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