Articles for DWF
Books reviewed by DWF
Articles for DWF
The times and methods of "sentimental education" in the Italian
Feminine Catholic Youth Movement, 1979, n. 10-11, pp. 126-145
The article tells, in its analysis of the literature sent out to members, how the catholic Gioventù Femminile affected Italian society, at a time when the memory of feminism was still alive. The aim of this organisation, founded in Milan in 1918 as a branch of Catholic Action, was to reconstruct a social image of woman which would then become the national image.
There was certainly comfortable co-existence with and acceptance of fascism to guarantee political space for this operation, but what was new and very important was the weight given in this new "sentimental education" to the ancient virtues of women. The formalising of women's sentiments, open hostility to any form of intellectual emancipation for women, education towards their "detachment" from politics, were all stages in the campaign of the Gioventù Femminile. While maintaining that it stood "outside" politics, the Gioventù Femminile in fact played its own quite special political role.
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Dissatisfied female souls, 1982, n. 22. Suppl., pp. 67-73
The author questions the presence and disappearance of the women's movement, as it recurs through history, by analysing frequently used words (such as 'destiny', 'soul', 'dissatisfaction', 'uneasiness') which open the way to new research fields and a different identification of historical periods.
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Debate, 1982, n. 22. Suppl., pp. 91-100
Polda Fortunati, Laura Mariani, Antonella Picchio, Annarita Buttafuoco, Michela De Giorgio take part in the debate on this section.
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Books reviewed by DWF
DE GIORGIO Michela, Le italiane dall'Unità a oggi. Modelli culturali
e comportamenti sociali, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1992
rev. by Laura Fortini, 1993, n. 17, pp. 79-81