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Women in Italy

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Through Italy, Discrimination and Roman Empire

Lab · Class 6–12The Constitution of India

History

Women in Etruscan society

The Etruscan civilization was an ancient civilization of people inhabiting Etruria (most of modern-day Tuscany, northern Lazio, and northwestern Umbria) in ancient Italy. The Etruscans had a common language and culture; they formed a federation of city-states.

Women were respected in Etruscan society more than their ancient Greek and Roman counterparts. Today only the status of aristocratic women is known because no documentation survives about women in other social classes. Etruscan women were politically important and dominant in family and social life. Their status in Etruscan civilization differed from their Greek and the Roman peers, who were considered to be marginal and secondary in relation to men.

Women's roles and images evolved during the Etruscan period. Affluent women were well-groomed and led family lives within society, where their role mattered politically and administratively. Tanaquil and Velia Spurinna were among the women who played leading roles in Etruscan politics. In the final phase of Etruscan history, women lost much of their independence amidst conquest by the Roman Republic, and their status became that of Roman women.

Women in ancient Rome

Freeborn women in ancient Rome were citizens (cives), but could not vote or hold political office. Because of their limited public role, women are named less frequently than men by Roman historians. But while Roman women held no direct political power, those from wealthy or powerful families could and did exert influence through private negotiations. Exceptional women who left an undeniable mark on history include Lucretia and Claudia Quinta, whose stories took on mythic significance; fierce Republican-era women such as Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, and Fulvia, who commanded an army and issued coins bearing her image; women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, most prominently Livia (58 BC-AD 29) and Agrippina the Younger (15 AD-59 AD), who contributed to the formation of Imperial mores; and the empress Helena (c.250–330 AD), a driving force in promoting Christianity.

As with male members of society, elite women and their politically significant deeds eclipse those of lower-status women in the historical record. Inscriptions and especially epitaphs document the names of a wide range of women throughout the Roman Empire, but often tell little else about them. Some vivid snapshots of daily life are preserved in Latin literary genres such as comedy, satire, and poetry. The poems of Catullus and Ovid include women in Roman dining rooms, at sporting and theatrical events, shopping, putting on makeup, practicing magic, worrying about pregnancy — all, however, through male eyes. The published letters of Cicero show his interactions with his wife Terentia and daughter Tullia, and his speeches disparage the various ways Roman women could enjoy a free-spirited sexual and social life.

The one major public role reserved solely for women was in religion: the priestly office of the Vestals. Forbidden from marriage or sex for a period of thirty years, the Vestals devoted themselves to the study and correct observance of rituals which were deemed necessary for the security and survival of Rome but which could not be performed by the male colleges of priests.

Women in Pre-modern Italy

During the Middle Ages, Italian women were considered to have very few social powers and resources, although some women inherited ruling positions from their fathers (such in the case of Matilde of Canossa). Educated women could find opportunities of leadership only in religious convents (such as Clare of Assisi and Catherine of Siena).

The Renaissance (15th–16th centuries) challenged conventional customs from the Medieval period. Women were still confined to the roles of "monaca, moglie, serva, cortigiana" ("nun, wife, servant, courtesan"). However, literacy spread among upper-class women in Italy and a growing number of them stepped out into the secular intellectual circles. Venetian-born Christine de Pizan wrote The City of Ladies in 1404, and in it she described women's gender as having no innate inferiority to men's, although being born to serve the other sex. Some women were able to gain an education on their own, or received tutoring from their father or husband.

Lucrezia Tornabuoni in Florence; Veronica Gambara at Correggio; Veronica Franco and Moderata Fonte in Venice; and Vittoria Colonna in Rome were among the renowned women intellectuals of the time. Laura Terracina of Naples was the most published Italian poet of the 16th century. Powerful women rulers of the Italian Renaissance, such as Isabella d'Este, Catherine de' Medici, or Lucrezia Borgia, combined political skill with cultural interests and patronage. Unlike her peers, Isabella di Morra (an important poet of the time) was kept a virtual prisoner in her own castle and her tragic life makes her a symbol of female oppression.

By the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Italian women intellectuals were embraced by contemporary culture as learned daughters, wives, mothers, and equal partners in their household. Among them were composers Francesca Caccini and Leonora Baroni, and painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Outside the family setting, Italian women continued to find opportunities in the convent, and now increasingly also as singers in the theatre (Anna Renzi—described as the first diva in the history of opera—and Barbara Strozzi are two examples). In 1678, Elena Cornaro Piscopia was the first woman in Italy to receive an academical degree, in philosophy, from the University of Padua.

In the 18th-century, the Enlightenment offered for the first time to Italian women (such as Laura Bassi, Cristina Roccati, Anna Morandi Manzolini, and Maria Gaetana Agnesi) the possibility to engage in the fields of science and mathematics. Italian sopranos and prime donne continued to be famous all around Europe, such as Vittoria Tesi, Caterina Gabrielli, Lucrezia Aguiari, and Faustina Bordoni. Other notable women of the period include painter Rosalba Carriera and composer Maria Margherita Grimani.

Women of the Risorgimento

The Napoleonic Age and the Italian Risorgimento offered for the first time to Italian women the opportunity to be politically engaged. In 1799 in Naples, poet Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel was executed as one of the protagonists of the short-lived Parthenopean Republic. In the early 19th century, some of the most influential salons where Italian patriots, revolutionaries, and intellectuals were meeting were run by women, such as Bianca Milesi Mojon, Clara Maffei, Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso, and Antonietta De Pace. Some women even distinguished themselves in the battlefield, such as Anita Garibaldi (the wife of Giuseppe Garibaldi), Rosalia Montmasson (the only woman to have joined the Expedition of the Thousand), Giuseppina Vadalà, who along with her sister Paolina led an anti-Bourbon revolt in Messina in 1848, and Giuseppa Bolognara Calcagno, who fought as a soldier in Garibaldi's liberation of Sicily.

The Kingdom of Italy (1861–1925)

Between 1861 and 1925, women were not permitted to vote in the new Italian state. In 1864, Anna Maria Mozzoni triggered a widespread women's movement in Italy, through the publication of Woman and her social relationships on the occasion of the revision of the Italian Civil Code (La donna e i suoi rapporti sociali in occasione della revisione del codice italiano). In 1868, Alaide Gualberta Beccari began publishing the journal "Women" in Padua. In the late 19th-century, the women's movement organized to campaign for women's rights, such as the Lega promotrice degli interessi femminili in 1880 and the Associazione per la donna in 1896.

A growing percentage of young women were now employed in factories, but were excluded from political life and were particularly exploited. Under the influence of socialist leaders, such as Anna Kuliscioff, women became active in the constitution of the first Labour Unions. In 1902, the first law to protect the labour of women and children was approved and limited women to twelve hours of work per day.

By the 1880s, women were making inroads into higher education. In 1877, Ernestina Puritz Manasse-Paper was the first woman to receive a university degree in modern Italy, in medicine, and in 1907 Rina Monti became the first female department chair and full professor in an Italian University.

The most famous women of the time were actresses Eleonora Duse, Lyda Borelli, and Francesca Bertini; writers Matilde Serao, Sibilla Aleramo, Carolina Invernizio, and Grazia Deledda (who won the 1926 Nobel Prize in Literature); sopranos Luisa Tetrazzini and Lina Cavalieri; and educator Maria Montessori.

Montessori was Italy's first female physician and developed the Montessori education method, which is still in use today. She was part of Italy's change to further give women rights, and she was an influence to educators in Italy and around the globe.

Under the Fascist regime (1925–1945)

Women's rights suffered a setback under the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini, with fascist ideology dictating procreation as a woman's duty.

Women were directed to fulfill the role prescribed to them by party ideology via the Fascist women's organizations, such as the Massaie Rurali (MR) and the Sezione Operaie e Lavoranti a Domicilio, for rural and urban working-class women respectively under the Fasci Femminili. Girls were included by the creation of youth groups for girls, separated by age class, such as the Piccole Italiane (for girls age 8–12) and the Giovani Italiane (13–18).

Initially, Fascism had an ambivalent view on women's position, and Mussolini promised the leader of the Fascist women, Elisa Majer Rizzioli, to introduce women's suffrage. However, he only introduced municipal suffrage in 1925 and then abolished free elections altogether, making also the municipal suffrage meaningless. After an unsuccessful attempt of the Fascist women to become autonomous in 1924, they were efficiently deprived of all real political influence within the party: after 1930, the Fascist women organizations did not even have a leader, the leadership post of the Fasci Femminili being first left vacant, and from 1937 divided between several people.

The role of women in Fascist ideology was foremost to demonstrate her patriotism and supporting her country by giving birth to children which she would raise to become soldiers or mothers who in turn would support expansionism. While girls were not banned from studying, the cost for women students were raised to discourage it; and while women were not banned from working, certain restrictions were introduced to prevent women from being placed in authority over men in the professional life, such as banning women from certain leadership positions in the educational system which could have given them authority over male colleagues.

In 1927 the Jewish Women's Union Associzione delle Donne Ebree d'Italia (ADEI) was established and committed itself to feminism, anti-fascism, as well as Zionism. The ADEI was founded by Berta Cammeo Bernstein and Gabriella Falco Ravenna.

A series of laws tried to force Italian women back to their roles of wives and mothers. Any political activity by women was harshly repressed; in 1930 antifascist activist Camilla Ravera was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The only woman to whom some political prominence was given during the early Fascist period was Margherita Sarfatti; she was Benito Mussolini's biographer in 1925 as well as one of his mistresses.

The racial laws of 1938 inflicted another blow to women's empowerment in Italy, since a large percentage of the few Italian women to have academic positions were of Jewish descent, from Anna Foà to Enrica Calabresi.

More than 50,000 women, mostly in their twenties, took part in the Italian resistance movement during the Italian Civil War, when Italy was under German occupation (1939-1945). Their mass participation increased the involvement of women in Italian political life.

The Italian Republic (1945–present)

After World War II, women were given the right to vote in 1946 Italian institutional referendum. The new Italian Constitution of 1948 affirmed that women had equal rights. It was not however until the 1970s that women in Italy scored some major achievements with the introduction of laws regulating divorce (1970), abortion (1978), and the approval in 1975 of the new family code.

Famous women of the period include politicians Nilde Iotti, Tina Anselmi, and Emma Bonino; actresses Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren, Monica Bellucci and Gina Lollobrigida; soprano Renata Tebaldi; ballet dancer Carla Fracci; costume designer Milena Canonero; sportwomen Sara Simeoni, Deborah Compagnoni, Valentina Vezzali, and Federica Pellegrini; writers Natalia Ginzburg, Elsa Morante, Alda Merini, and Oriana Fallaci; architect Gae Aulenti; scientist and 1986 Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi-Montalcini; astrophysicist Margherita Hack; astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti; pharmacologist Elena Cattaneo; and CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti.

In 2022, Giorgia Meloni became the first female Prime Minister of Italy.

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