Le donne nel regime fascista

by Victoria de Grazia, Stefano Musso (translator)

"Il libro va segnalato per un duplice merito: è un libro di storia, sorretto da un’ampia documentazione di prima mano, ma è anche un’analisi sociologica e antropologica assai penetrante di aspetti e problemi della vita quotidiana che nei manuali di storia restano generalmente in ombra o sono dati per scontati." Franco Ferrarotti, "Il Sole 24 ore"

"Estremamente ricco di suggerimenti e stimoli, innovativo per l’approccio complessivo al tema e per le soluzioni metodologiche adottate, il libro di Victoria de Grazia viene a colmare un vuoto nella storiografia italiana e impone nello stesso tempo un salto qualitativo agli studi su donne e fascismo."
Silvia Salvatici, "Italia contemporanea"

Genres: History, Italy, Nonfiction, European History, Politics, Gender, 20th Century

379 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Caterina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vorrei che l'anziana contadina piemontese, madre di nove figli che nel 1983 ha detto "se fossero gli uomini a partorire, le famiglie avrebbero al massimo due figli" diventasse la mia nuova migliore amica

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can see that the author really investigated. I read this for university, it was worth it. I am currently living in Italy so I was very interested in how women lifes changed after Mussolini came to power and to see how diferent was the situation comparing with my own country, Spain, which was also under a fascism regimen. I would love to read the same type of book but with spanish women.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read de Grazia’s great book on the spread of American-style consumer capitalism in Europe in the early/mid-20th century, so was excited to pick this one up. She situates Italian fascism’s policies towards women as existing in a luminal space between the ideology’s misogyny, women’s efforts to make political space for themselves, and processes of modernization that both pre- and post-date the fascist era. For all of its totalitarian pretensions, the fascist state was never able to control and/or eliminate civil society the way Hitler or Stalin could. But it could promise just enough to the more bourgeois women’s groups to get them hopelessly entangled with the regime while eliminating any ability to act independently. More radical groups were quashed along with the left more generally.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff here. The Italian right believed itself to be in demographic decline (despite the numbers showing otherwise- their real problem was male labor migrating away) which put pressure on women to be mothers. Anglo-American consumption habits were both a lure and a threat, a level of living the regime wanted to be able to promise but also resented, in part because of the way it allowed women more independence from the home. Some bourgeois Italian feminists attempted to create a “Latin Feminism,” feminism that “respected Italian tradition,” which basically amounted to them getting their cut of power without sharing it with women of the lower orders, but even that didn’t hold the fascist regime’s interest. All told, a fine historical work tracing the delicate networks of continuity and discontinuity in women’s politics before, during, and after the fascist regime. *****

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

How Fascism Ruled Women is an examination of the ways in which Italian women experienced Mussolini's dictatorship. De Grazia analyzes the influence of contemporaneous changes in Italian social structure on the sexual politics of the dictatorship and compares the Italian situation to that of other European nations during the inter-war period. She focuses on Mussolini's emphasis on maternity as the sole role for women, a view which stemmed from his overriding concern with issues of population, and his government's subsequent creation of agencies to monitor family life. The author posits an odd correspondence of reiterance of traditional values with the development of modern state-oriented ideologies and institutions.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very deep and detailed book, covering many aspects of fascist life for Italian women under Mussolini rule. Hope to add more later...

[Left_coast_reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

In How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922-1945, Victoria De Grazia details the myriad and conflicting ways in which Italy's Fascist regime sought to control women.

The main takeaway for me is the contradictory nature of Italian fascist ideology and politics as it related to women. Mussolini initially said that he would give women the right to vote, but quickly ditched this once the dictatorship was firmly entrenched. The regime repeatedly emphasized that a woman's obligation to the state and race was to have children. They wanted women to stay at home. But by appeasing big business and attempting to rapidly industrialize, the regime kept wages low. This meant that two incomes were required to raise a family and pushed many women to find paid work.

The regime banned abortion. But by denying women access to contraceptives and sex education, the regime increased unwanted pregnancies and thus, public support for abortion. Low wages and food poverty (especially during WWII) discouraged many families from having children. This, the regime's efforts to control women's bodies had almost no impact on birthrates.

Italian fascism was caught between modernizing and pushing women backwards, industrializing and fetishizing rural life, sending men off to war but not wanting women to fill any job vacancies (even setting caps on percentages of women employed in certain sectors), wanting to intervene in family planning without angering the Catholic church.

Italian women found ways to cope, mostly by working extremely hard at home, at work, or both. Many former charity workers accommodated the regime by working in new social services. Perhaps ironically, some women authors achieved great popularity during this time. Some of them sought the respect denied them in politics through the arts, although their creativity was limited by government censorship.

Overall, the complex and often inconsistent positions of the dictatorship are confusing. The author struggles to draw strong, clear conclusions, weighing everything down with caveats and counterexamples. I learned a lot from the book, but found myself ready to move on to a new one as I neared the end.

[Jerra Runnels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading her views on women and fascism in Italy, and how women’s roles changed under Mussolini’s power. DeGrazia is very thorough in her writings, especially dealing with motherhood, growing up, and the state of women and politics during the changing time period. I had to read this for a grad level history class, and it was a good read. Very interesting although somewhat repetitive at times when discussing politics and women’s role in fascism during the first two chapters. The book kind of just ends. I would have liked more of a wrap-up or conclusion to her very in-depth look at the topic. So much is written about Hitler’s reign and politics, it was good to see a totally different view since I always kind of grouped Italy with Germany. The two were so different. Even though it is a somewhat dated book, it is still highly relevant as DeGrazia is so well respected in her research and writing. Recommend this book!

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinating topic. Poorly executed.

[Kraig Puccia · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Victoria de Grazia’s book, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922-1945, she draws on a wide array of sources such as memoirs, novels, images, songs, popular culture, published government statistics, and archival reports to examine the status of women under fascist rule and understand how they were integrated into the national identity. From its early roots fascism had adopted a patriarchal hierarchy that glorified the male form and hyper-masculinity. Through this book, de Grazia analyzes the experiences of women in a regime that promised modernity yet reverted to a very traditional and conservative understanding of family structure and gender roles that denied women any form of emancipation. De Grazia makes the situation of women ever more apparent through the state’s use of propaganda and their role in commercial culture such that women were limited to familial roles as well as social actors. De Grazia writes:

“Italian women had enormously different experiences of maternity as well… they seemed to have had only their sex in common. Yet, they were divided even by that. The emancipated city dweller with two or three children or even none was separated from the peasant woman with a family of six or more not only by class, education, and tradition, but more profoundly by the single fact of life that ostensibly bound them together - the act and consequences of childbearing.” (de Grazia, 12-13).

This book speaks to the broad experiences of women under fascism but addresses the various elements and distinctions between them such that de Grazia does not oversimplify the subject through generalizations. Despite this, fascism tried to unite all women under one image, making maternity a cornerstone of the ideal Italian woman, linking childbearing to a patriotic sense of duty that was in service to the state. Even the creation of Mother’s Day in Italy was meant to emphasize, and co-opt, the celebration of the Virgin Mary, playing on religious and cultural themes, but also the fact that Her son, Jesus Christ, sacrificed himself for the greater good (de Grazia, 71). In this manner, motherhood became an important aspect of fascism as it was a way of the state assigning an arbitrary purpose to women and including them in the national identity and mobilization of the nation but also maintained a social hierarchy that maintained the “natural” order of the sexes. The various cults that sprouted regarding motherhood, fertility, and even state subsidized childcare is evidence of this shift.

Furthermore, she covers the extent to which women were involved in the resistance movement towards the end of the war in her last chapter, “There Will Come a Day.” Following the ousting of Benito Mussolini in 1943 the resistance began to grow rapidly, such that by 1945 there were 250,000 volunteers, 70,000 of which were women, and 35,000 of those women were in combat roles (de Grazia, 273-274). The success of the resistance, and the high levels of participation amongst women, is highly emblematic of their importance and the disdain they had for the fascist regime. Although Italian society was still largely patriarchal at the time, women found a means of political expression and social mobility through their participation in the resistance.

Women have long been an integral part of political movements throughout history, despite often being in positions without any political rights themselves. Women have always been, and will continue to be, an incredible force of nature and vehicle of positive progress for humanity.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lacks a proper introduction and conclusion, but de Grazia makes up for it in an excellent work of scholarship which chronicles the twists and turns of the inherently contradictory fascist understanding of the world and gender in particular. Whilst the fascist state demanded that women confine themselves to traditional gender roles, it also demanded their mass mobilization and devotion to the state in ways that opened it up to political criticism and weakness in how it treated gendered issue. De Grazia focuses each of her chapters on a specific aspect of women's issues and relationship to the fascist state, and makes an excellent contribution to Italian historiography and the historiography of fascism.

[Madison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you for the help!

[Lily Schaffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for school

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The vocabulary on this one was insane