The Aftermaths Of Defeat: The Fallen, The Catastrophe, And The Public Response Of Women To The End Of The First World War In Bulgaria

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the Italian women's movement after World War I with particular reference to the experience of the Milanese feminists, who were the leading group in Italy at that time. It seeks to uncover the contradictory links between nationalism, interventionism and feminism during the immediate post-war period by looking at the struggle for women's rights conducted in the pages of the journal Voce Nuova (New Voice). The Italian feminists' involvement in the war effort was more a strategy to achieve recognition of female citizenship than a capitulation to the pressures of patriots or warmongers. All of the main women's organisations based in Milan supported the radical suffragist project of Voce Nuova . Ancona had in fact always held a coherent position on the liberal wing of suffragism, and rejected all forms of nationalism and racism. Keywords:feminism; interventionism; Italian women movement; Milanese feminists; nationalism; Voce Nuova ; World War I