Serena Dandini says Gen Z shows more conservative attitudes than grandparents' generation on women's protections.
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Italian television presenter, author, and women's rights activist Serena Dandini has sounded the alarm over what she describes as a troubling generational retreat on women's rights, warning that younger women are not carrying forward the battles their predecessors fought and won.
"Some achievements are taken for granted, but young people from Gen Z are more conservative than their grandparents," Dandini said, speaking to La Repubblica.
Dandini argued that the danger lies precisely in complacency — that decades of hard-won protections are increasingly treated as permanent fixtures rather than fragile gains that require active defense. She cautioned that rights left unguarded can quietly erode.
Her broader message, framed around the concept of overcoming fear, was an appeal to solidarity across generations and genders. Women's rights, she insisted, are not a sectional interest but a foundation of universal human rights — and their defense is a collective responsibility that belongs to everyone, not only to women themselves.
Italian activist Serena Dandini warns that Gen Z women are adopting more conservative attitudes toward women's rights than their grandmothers' generation, treating decades of hard-won protections as permanent rather than fragile gains requiring active defense. She argues that complacency and unguarded rights risk quiet erosion of foundational protections.
If young women disengage from defending reproductive rights, workplace equality, and legal protections their grandmothers fought for, those gains could weaken in your workplace, healthcare access, and legal standing. Dandini's warning suggests that rights you may assume are settled could face rollback if the next generation doesn't actively maintain them.