  This document gives some quantitative facts about the role of women in
Italian astronomy. More than 26% of Italian IAU members are women: this is the
largest fraction among the world leading countries in astronomy. Most of this
high fraction is due to their presence in INAF, where women make up 32% of the
research staff (289 out of 908) and 40% of the technical/administrative staff
(173 out of 433); the percentage is slightly lower among permanent research
staff (180 out of 599, about 30%). The presence of women is lower in the
Universities (27 out of 161, about 17%, among staff). In spite of these
(mildly) positive facts, we notice that similarly to other countries (e.g. USA
and Germany) career prospects for Italian astronomers are clearly worse for
women than for men. Within INAF, the fraction of women is about 35-40% among
non-permanent position, 36% for Investigators, 17% for Associato/Primo
Ricercatore, and only 13% among Ordinario/Dirigente di Ricerca. The situation
is even worse at University (only 6% of Professore Ordinario are women). We
found that similar trends are also present if researchers are ordered according
to citation rather than position: for instance, women make up only 15% among
the 100 most cited astronomers working in Italy, a percentage which is however
twice that over all Europe. A similar fraction is found among first authors of
most influential papers, which cannot be explained as a residual of a lower
female presence in the past. We conclude that implicit sex discrimination
factors probably dominate over explicit ones and are still strongly at work.
Finally, we discuss the possible connection between the typical career pattern
and these factors.
