During the early 20th century in
Italy, the role of women and the structure of the family underwent a lot of
change. When the Italian Fascist Party took control in 1922, there was a change
in direction; women industrial workers were no longer accepted, and the party
began a restoration of the traditional female role.
The ideal of women as
mothers and managers of the home became prevalent as the dominating values of
fascism. The party used propaganda in order to promote the importance of family. The
male-dominated Fascist Party had traditional misogynist views. As a result of
fascist thinking about the role of women in the family, women faced poor
treatment in almost all areas of daily life outside the home including
politics, economics, and society. Even more, this type of treatment was upheld
by fascist legislation that served to underline the male’s dominating rank.
This legislation reinforced the patriarchal authority, barred women from paid
wage labor, and took away their choice in decisions about reproduction. Motherhood quickly became associated primarily with the act of making babies
rather than the traditional, maternal values like love, guidance, and care.
Women became like machines. Procreation basically came to define their social
role and the authorities were determined to implement these newly defined roles
for women by suppressing illegitimate sexuality, like prostitution, from public
consumption. In addition, they set up numerous policies and incentives to emphasize
women’s roles as mothers. For example, abortion was considered a crime. The
government also issued family allocations, maternity insurance, birth and
marriage loans, and career preferment for fathers of big families, as well as
organizing special institutions for infant and family health and welfare. Unfortunately, even though these policies to some extent recognized women as
political subjects, they failed to grant real privileges to women.When Mussolini came into power, implementing these
policies, his regime tactics proved to take a lot from women, acting to exploit
them in various ways. This held true especially for working-class and peasant
women.
First, fascists sought greater control over the already traditional role
of the female, particularly motherhood. For example, in 1934, a law was passed
that expanded benefits and coverage for women employed in industry. As a
result, these women were given a two-month paid “compulsory leave.” They were
also guaranteed time off to breast-feed newborns until they were a year old and
the government provided feeding rooms for nursing women working in factories
that employed more than fifty working women so they could breast-feed their
babies at work. Furthermore, women were allotted a lump-sum payment when they
gave birth, which immediately gave them a two-month wage when they had a
baby. Additionally, to offset the costs of big families, the party looked
to make childbearing seem as if it were a service to the state. To do so, the
government set aside a day to honor mothers and distributed various posters
that showed motherhood as a national duty for women. Thus, Mother’s Day came to
celebrate prolific mothers and especially recognize those mothers who had the
most children. Women were constantly reminded of the importance and honor of
being a mother of many children.
The government gave women a lot of
incentives to have large families. However, unlike in liberal states, like
Finland, that extended political rights with social welfare services, Italy did
the opposite. Where the interest was to promote the Italian nation, the welfare
of the infant superseded that of the mother. So, while propaganda insisted
that, naturally, women were only contented in motherhood and that childbearing
was a “biological destiny,” government social services doubted whether women
were naturally the best nurturers and questioned the control traditionally
given to female kinship and community networks over childbirth and infant
nurturing. Consequently, Italian mothers of all classes were made to feel
incompetent, apprehensive, and dependent - that they needed male intervention
in order to make correct decisions about motherhood.
Nevertheless, even with all the
restrictions, there was evidence of women’s resistance to fascist policies.
Even though many remained politically passive, a decline in birth rates shows
that others did not submit to pro-natalist policies. Even when poverty and
prejudices limited the use of the only legally available contraceptive,
condoms, they turned to alternative measures such as makeshift abortions to
stop pregnancies. Although these alternative practices were more
dangerous, it showed that women were determined to maintain a conscious effort
in controlling their fertility in a state that sought to dictate women’s
positions and duties to the state.
In conclusion, it is clear that
Fascism worked to bring women back into their traditional roles as mothers and
managers of the home by means of new legislation and propaganda. The new
fascist policies served to help women, but at the same time exploit them in various
ways that benefited the state.
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