Introduction: women, the bulwark of democracy -- "An essential way of life": the political awakening of women militants -- Gender roles in Italy's elections and constitution -- Legge noce for working mothers: "madonna tempesta" -- The Merlin Law against the Case Chiuse: taking the state out of sex, putting the sex in citizenship -- Both the rights and the duties of citizenship: the Cocco Law for access to all public careers -- Conclusion: the legacy of the lost wave and constitutional rights feminism
Summary
As Italy emerged from World War II, the first women entered the national government. The 45 women who became parliamentarians when Italian women were first entitled to vote in 1946 represented a ""lost wave"" of feminist action, argues Molly Tambor. In this work, Tambor reconstructs the role that these female politicians played in Italy's new democratic Republic. They proved critical in ensuring that the new Constitution formally guaranteed the equality of all citizens regardless of sex, translating the general constitutional guarantees into direct legislative rights and protections. They used
