The figure of women during Fascism

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.