77 years have passed since then decree of March 10, 1946 which enabled women of at least 25 years of age to be able to vote and be elected in the first administrative elections in postwar. Nevertheless, women’s suffrage was the fruit of many battles that began in the second half ofnineteenth century and who saw the alternation of phases and successes before the great obscurantism of the fascist era. But when exactly women Italian Are they beginning to claim the right to take an active part in political life? In fact, in Lombardy during the Austrian domination of a woman rich and their asset managers could express their electoral preferences at the local level through legal guardian and in some municipalities they could even be elected, just as in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and Veneto they could participate in local political elections even though they could not be elected.
The situation after the unification of Italy did not improve, but, on the contrary, even worsened: in fact, the non-participation of women in political life, also because the position of women, especially in the South, was extremely backward. Thus, after the Unification, the Lombard women, boldly defining themselves Italian citizens, submitted a petition to the House in which they declared their right to vote. Various renewal bills suffrage women, which was disputed why
However, at the end of the nineteenth century, the situation began to change: the first conquest occurred in 1890 with a law that gave women the opportunity vote and be elected to the boards of charitable institutions. Thus began the path, certainly difficult and long, which was supposed to lead women to the desired goal. conquest universal suffrage. Among the first women who fought for the right to vote for women was Anna Maria Mozzoni, the most consistent proponent of suffrage in 19th-century Italy. In my work Women and social relations 1864, wrote that a woman should protest against her current state, call for reforms and demand the right to vote. Her determination and her battles, however, did not lead to any results, and after her, women’s suffrage will not be discussed for a long time. At the beginning of the twentieth century, another woman would fight for the right to vote for women: Maria Montessori.
The famous philosopher and teacher made an appeal in which she invited Italian women to enter political electoral rollsbecause no law explicitly prohibited women from suffrage. There were many women signed on the electoral rolls, especially teachers, nurses and midwives. Even a socialist. Anna Kulishoff sided with the right of women to vote, but did not achieve results, like the founder of the Popular Party, Don Luigi Sturzo, who met with fierce opposition from Pope Pius X. Sacchi’s Law he introduced the first gender equality through the qualification of women for all professions, but the advent of fascism forced women to retreat in terms of rights in general and therefore also in matters of suffrage. After the first discoveries in the first years – in 1925, the law N. 2125 (known as “Women’s Vote”), which for the first time makes Italian women electric in the administrative field, even if it greatly limits the circle of electric women who must meet certain requirements – Mussolini in 1926, with the reform of mayors, she excluded women not only from political life, but from many professions.
War and the important role of women during Resistance they made a difference. Alcide de Gasperi and Palmiro Togliatti turned out to be in favor of extending suffrage to women: this is how the decree was formed De Gasperi-Tolyatti, better known as the Bonomi Decree, which finally extended the right to vote to women. The first women to vote were women heads of household in 1944. Free Republic of Carnia, a politically autonomous entity made up of partisans. In the same year, Laura Lombardo Radice was commissioned to write a pamphlet entitled “Italian Women Have a Voice”: the battle was won. In the elections of June 2, 1946, for the election of deputies to the Constituent Assembly, women also participated both as electors and as candidates. After long battles, the women finally found themselves at the polling stations.
Source: Elle