The interview is interrupted immediately because Professor Ilaria Capua, a world-famous scientist and virologist, needs to close the window of her hotel room: “Excuse me, speaking of the things I deal with: two tiger mosquitoes have just come in.” There’s a break (we don’t know what happened to the mosquitoes) and then we start talking about his book Don’t Give Up. Resistance manual for the affirmation of female talent. Through a series of stories, some of which happened to her and some to other women she met, the scientist offers a handbook of virtues that she calls “resistosphere”: perseverance, determination, resourcefulness, resilience, curiosity, self-esteem and tolerance.
The cover of the latest book by scientist Ilaria Capua
Virtues to be dusted off when the unfortunate woman meets the troglodyte on duty on the road to her professional success, such as the “magnificent” rector who expects to receive a tart as a gift from every new teacher, because “someone has to pass on the culinary traditions of this great country!”. “Troglodyte male” is a definition that Capua borrows from the writer Francesco Piccolo to whom the book is dedicated: «Reading his writings, he made me understand that certain male behaviors which appear to us to be troglodyte, are not necessarily linked to malice, to a desire to prevail. Maybe these men are convinced that they are simply being funny, but that doesn’t mean we women have to accept these behaviors or, even worse, feel guilty because of them.”
Can you give an example?
«Motherhood. However you experience it, you are always wrong. Either you had children too early, or you had them too late; either you only did one, or you did too many, or you didn’t do them at all. The truth is that we are a zero-growth country that needs many new young Italians. So women who have children should be paid double, not humiliated.”
You have worked a lot abroad. Are women more valued outside Italy?
«The gender gap exists almost everywhere. What scares me about Italy is that it doesn’t accept not only gender diversity, but cultural diversity. All the research groups I directed were made up of people from all over the world. In Italy, if you see a black person wearing a hospital gown the first thought is that he is a stretcher bearer, not a doctor. To return to women, beyond any consideration, there is a purely economic fact. We spend around 9 billion a year to educate young girls. In the biomedical field, there are many more women enrolled in Medicine, Veterinary and Dentistry than men, but few of them manage to reach top positions in their respective professions. There is a huge waste of female talent.”
Ilaria Capua with her team of researchers. The professor, who became famous for her studies on avian influenza, fought to make the results of scientific studies on influenza viruses in the public domain as much as possible in order to join forces in the event of epidemics
Among the virtues of the “resistosphere” you indicate resilience. Have any burning failures happened to you too?
“Certain. Publications that were returned to the sender and which I then had to put back. Or even even abandon. However, while in Italy failure is seen as a mark of infamy, in the United States if a small company, a startup, has not managed to survive this is considered a strength. The important thing is to try and then, if things don’t go well, don’t make a tragedy of it, learn from your mistakes and try again. Then some very painful personal failures happened to me: friends who distanced themselves from me because I promoted the use of vaccines during the pandemic.”
You report the episode of a manager who, faced with a colleague’s firm reaction to his appreciation, blurted out: «It was just a compliment! We can’t joke anymore, we can’t say anything to you women anymore!». If a man tells you that you are a beautiful woman, do you take it as a compliment or as harassment?
“Depends. In the book I also report the episode of US President Donald Trump who during a summit on peace in the Middle East described Giorgia Meloni as “a beautiful young woman” and no one said anything. What would have happened if President Ursula von der Leyen had called Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez “a handsome man”? I mean that in a similar context one is there for one’s professional merits, not for external ones, and therefore certain appreciations are out of place. But why exactly did you ask me this question?”.
Because I was interested in understanding whether with this firmness on the part of women there is no risk of losing the taste for courtship, for romance…
«If after work a colleague offers me a coffee, asks me out for dinner and perhaps adds that I have nice eyes, this can please me and then I am free to answer yes or no to his proposal. But in my book I talk about the affirmation of female talent and in this context the external appearance is irrelevant.”
After many years of working in the United States he decided to return to Italy, where he now teaches at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna. Why this choice?
«For many reasons. The first is that I recovered the reputation that had been stripped from me, after the accusations of being an international virus trafficker turned out to be totally unfounded. Then, with Trump’s second presidency and his denialist policies, I believe that the conditions for being able to do research freely are no longer there. And so, having recently turned 60, I believe that my wealth of knowledge can be more useful here in Europe. Finally, my daughter told me that she did not want to continue her studies in the United States.”
Do you think your daughter will be able to see a truly united Europe?
«I believe in it and I work hard every day. Also because I married a Scotsman, therefore a non-EU citizen.”
