Political arrests of women under fascism: gender and the special tribunal in Italy 1926–1928

Abstract

This article analyzes the spatial and temporal patterning of women’s arrests for political crimes during the first period of the fascist regime in Italy from 1925 to 1927. A key element of the fascist dictatorship was the creation of the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State. A focus on the Special Tribunal opens a window on the fascist gender political because this court focused exclusively on political crimes. Using archival data and spatio-temporal analytic techniques this research indicates a complex pattern. Women were arrested at far lower rates than men with very little spatial clustering. Also, the cases of arrested women were dismissed or transferred to the ordinary criminal courts at a much higher rate than those of their male counterparts. Overall, the Special Tribunal seems to have been more lenient with women than with men, although those women whose cases remained in the tribunal seem to have been treated much like the men in terms of sentencing and incarceration. Women and men were both subjected to long periods of surveillance after they were released from court or prison. Once arrested, both women and men might spend many years in prison, exile, or under surveillance irrespective of whether they were judged innocent or guilty. This was an important moment for Western history because this new model of society and state has been consequences also in others totalitarianism raising questions about the treatment of women in other authoritarian regimes in twentieth century Europe and beyond.