Abstract
AbstractThis article examines discourses and practices around women's drinking in Fascist Italy. The history of alcohol production and consumption in Italy during the fascist dictatorship has only recently received attention; alcohol's gendered dimensions, especially women's drinking, have been hitherto overlooked. While the production of legislation, rhetoric and propaganda on alcohol consumption was dominated by men, women were identified as key constituents whose alcohol‐related practices could make or break the causes of fascist propagandists, ‘anti‐alcohol’ campaigners and alcohol industry associations. The article explains how Italian women were imagined and addressed by regime propagandists, alcohol industry producers and temperance campaigners as (a) simultaneously the principal victims of and responsibility bearers for male excess alcohol consumption, (b) potential ‘crisis‐women’ whose unpatriotic drinking choices (whether English tea, French champagne or American cocktails) denoted their prioritising of fashion over fascist values and (c) gatekeepers of family alcohol consumer practices and consumers of alcohol in their own right. It then moves to examine sources left by interwar Italian women to explore what, how and when they drank. Ultimately, it argues that despite attempts to construct women's drinking in archly nationalistic terms, the discourses and actual practices of Italian women around alcohol consumption operated within profoundly transnational frames.
Highlights
Women as gatekeepers of family alcohol consumptionJust as the Italian anti-alcohol campaigners identified women as a key constituency for temperance propaganda due to their relational roles as wives and mothers, wine and beer manufacturers recognised women as ‘indispensable’ to their cause as the assumed arbiters of family consumer habits
This article examines discourses and practices around women’s drinking in Fascist Italy
Has tended to be problematised, ‘equating idealized femininity with temperance and sobriety’, while construing ‘female alcohol consumption [as ...] unfeminine and unrespectable, with drunkenness in particular associated with physical degeneration and moral bankruptcy’
Summary
Just as the Italian anti-alcohol campaigners identified women as a key constituency for temperance propaganda due to their relational roles as wives and mothers, wine and beer manufacturers recognised women as ‘indispensable’ to their cause as the assumed arbiters of family consumer habits. Three propagandistic pamphlets, sent to the homes of 50,000 Italian families between April 1930 and March 1931, stressed beer consumption as good for breast-feeding mothers and focussed on domestic economy, positing beer as an inexpensive, nutritious drink which ‘greatly reduces daily spending on beverages’.84. They deployed a trope that became ubiquitous in alcohol industry messages directed to women drinkers: the reassurance that beer ‘is not fattening’ Alongside recipes for ‘roast with beer’ and for a ‘plum pudding [in English in original]’, which included ‘half a glass of strong beer’ among its ingredients, the advertorials promised that drinking Italian beer ‘aids digestion and ensures peaceful sleep’.83 three propagandistic pamphlets, sent to the homes of 50,000 Italian families between April 1930 and March 1931, stressed beer consumption as good for breast-feeding mothers and focussed on domestic economy, positing beer as an inexpensive, nutritious drink which ‘greatly reduces daily spending on beverages’.84 they deployed a trope that became ubiquitous in alcohol industry messages directed to women drinkers: the reassurance that beer ‘is not fattening’
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
