Women and the Great War: Femininity under Fire in Italy (Italian and Italian American Studies)

This book examines women's experiences along the Italian Front during World War I to understand how the war affected cultural ideas about femininity. Drawing on both wartime discourse about women and the voices of individual women living at the Italian Front, Allison Belzer analyzes how women participated in the Great War and how it affected them. The Great War transformed women into purveyors and recipients of a new feminine ideal that emphasized their status as national citizens. Although Italian women did not gain the vote, they did encounter a less empowering form of female citizenship just after the war ended with Mussolini's Fascism. Because of the Great War, many women seized the opportunity to participate in a society that continued to recognize them as guardians of the nation. Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction: Women and War....Pages 1-12 Prologue: The Great War....Pages 13-20 Front Matter....Pages 21-21 Becoming Italian....Pages 23-44 The Other Army....Pages 45-73 Front Matter....Pages 75-75 When the Home Front Is the War Front....Pages 77-91 Adventurers....Pages 93-121 Civilians....Pages 123-155 Front Matter....Pages 157-157 Postwar Femininity and the Liberal State....Pages 159-176 Italian Fascism and the Donna Fascista ....Pages 177-188 Back Matter....Pages 189-271