The Italian Communists, the Women’s Question, and the Challenge of Feminism

Abstract

The period from 1968 to 1970, in so many respects a social and political watershed throughout Europe, marked the emergence of a women's movement in Italy. The Italian movement was patterned initially on the model of the American and, to a lesser extent, the British, French, and West German women's movements. However, feminism in Italy was always conditioned by its development in a country with, a long and vigorous tradition of left-wing politics, a militant mass workers' movement, and Communist and Socialist parties which, together, regularly won over a third of the votes cast in national elections.