Women and the Reinvention of Politics - Feminism in Italy (1966-1983)

"This is the first in-depth study of the feminist movement that swept Italy during the "long 1970s" (1968-1983), and one of the first to use a combination of oral history interviews and newly-released archive sources to analyze the origins, themes, practices and impacts of "second-wave" feminism. While detailing the local and national contexts in which the movement operated, it sees this movement as transnationally connected. Emerging in a society that was both characterized by traditional gender roles, and a microcosm of radical political projects in the wake of 1968, the feminist movement was able to transform the lives of thousands of women, shape a transformation of gender identities and roles, and provoke political and legislative change. More strongly mass-based and socially diverse than its counterparts in other Western countries at the time, its agenda encompassed questions of work, unpaid care-work, sexuality, health, reproductive rights, sexual violence, social justice, and self-expression. Thecase studies detailing feminist politics in three cities (Turin, Naples, and Rome) are framed in a wider analysis of the movement's emergence, its transnational links and local specificities, and its practices and discourses. The book concludes on a series of hypotheses regarding the movement's longer-term impacts and trajectories, taking it up to the Berlusconi era and the present day"--

List of contents

Introduction 1. Contextualising Italian Feminism 2. Women, “Wounded Emancipation”, and the Crisis of Patriarchy (1945-69) 3. Feminism of Difference: A New Movement and Politics (1968-83) 4. Sexuality, Reproduction, and Self-Help Clinics in Rome 5. Work, or the Question That Never Went Away: Trade Union Feminism in Turin 6. Naples: The Unfinished Revolution 7. Feminism, the End of the First Republic, and “Berlusconism” (1980s-90s). Conclusions.

About the author

Maud Anne Bracke is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Glasgow.

Product details

• Authors: Maud Bracke, Maud Anne Bracke, Maud Anne (University of Glasgow Bracke, Bracke Maud Anne
• Publisher: Routledge Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.09.2014
• EAN: 9780415734028
• ISBN: 978-0-415-73402-8
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 240 mm x 20 mm
• Series: Routledge Research in Gender and History; Routledge Research in Gender a; Routledge Research in Gender and History; Routledge Research in Gender a
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > 20th century (up to 1945); Non-fiction book; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Sociology, European History, HISTORY / General, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, HISTORY / Europe / Western, HISTORY / Europe / Italy, Feminism & feminist theory, Gender studies: women, Feminism and feminist theory, Gender studies: women and girls, History and Archaeology, HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century / General