Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

History

Committee Chair

Mark Tauger

Committee Member

Joseph Hodge

Committee Member

Brooke Durham

Committee Member

Joshua Arthurs

Abstract

This thesis aims at investigating the national discourse around women in the Italian Social Republic (RSI) in three distinct spaces: urban, family, and rural. During the RSI, women were primarily constructed as one of three symbols: exemplary wife and mother, militant woman citizen, and woman soldier. The re-emergence of the urban, working-class woman was accelerated by the socializzazione program and the crisis the Italian nation faced. The RSI saw a shift away from family planning and a new emphasis was placed on family assistance and care of the existing young. Finally, during the RSI, rural spaces, central during the 1930s for the Battle for Grain and the Battle for Births, fell outside of the direct control of the Fascist state. Power only extended as far as their bayonets reached. As a result, Fascist power was concentrated in the urban centers and the rhetoric surrounding rural areas shifted, both in response to the retreat from the demographics campaign and the lack of direct state control. The national discourse around women in the RSI highlights the tensions between change and continuity, and the tensions between militant and domestic expectations for women.

Download

Share

COinS