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This paper engages with the topic of anti-feminist, anti-gender backlash in contemporary Italy in three steps. Firstly, it reviews some recent research examining the various ramifications of anti-feminist and anti-gender discourse in the Italian context. The role that the Catholic Church has played in championing the crusade against gender, most visibly by fabricating the so-called ideologia del gender (gender ideology), is addressed extensively together with the analysis of a cluster of heterogeneous men's groups involved in backlash efforts to endorse and spread anti-feminist sentiments. The focus then shifts to younger generations' struggles with making sense of and negotiating their own gendered presence in the twenty-first century Italian postfeminist context. Finally, by directing attention to the still precarious and marginal status of Gender Studies as a disciplinary field in Italian academia, the paper seeks to re-assert the relevance of Gender Studies, and to enliven the debate on the full academic institutionalisation of the field in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the Spanish case as a departure point, this paper explores a variety of causes for the slowdown in female employment growth in Italy over recent years. The paper analyses the peculiarities of the Italian labour market, with a higher propensity to inactivity than in other countries, as well as the generally low educational levels among the Italian population and the pervasive presence of the black economy. It goes on to examine institutional and political features, such as the organisation of social policies, the political weakness of feminism, the role of the Catholic Church, family networks and the North–South duality (which is particularly extreme with regard to gender equality). The features studied relate to each other in a logic which could account for the divergent paths of the social position of women in Italy and Spain. The article is based in Labour Force and Multiscopo surveys, as well as on interviews with Italian social policy experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether the memories of women's movements that grew out of the Italian Resistance to the Nazi-Fascist Regime during the Second World War have left any legacy to women teachers in early childhood education. The article focuses on the case of internationally renowned and high-quality schools for young children, the municipal schools of a northern Italian town called Reggio Emilia. In contrast to much of the literature on gender and early childhood education, this paper reveals that many women teachers in these schools think of themselves as agents of social change, and that this is tied to their memories of the Italian Resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary anti-gender movements mobilize against gender and sexual equality for which feminist and LGBTQI+ movements have been advocating for decades. We propose the term 'contentious gender politics' to capture this clash of opposing movements concerning bodily integrity, kinship structures, sexual morality, and institutionalization of gender equality. Existing literature has recognized the transnational character of anti-gender movements and identified matching tactics, frames, and allies across different countries. We examine how these transnational movements used similar campaigns to 'localize'. Localization is conceptualized in this research as the process of adapting frames and tactics to different national contexts. To do so, this study examines the diffusion of social movements and anti-gender campaigns by comparing anti-gender movements in Italy and Croatia through critical events between 2013 and 2019. We demonstrate that the localization of these anti-gender movements occurred through a three-step pathway: first, by adapting frames and tactics of left-liberal civil society and progressive movements; second, by forging alliances with existing right-wing parties; and third, by embedding its agenda within formal political and administrative bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the goals and achievements of women members of organizations active within the city and province of Naples in recent years to detect how they acted in their local context to promote community health and wellbeing. Therefore, 39 representatives from feminist-oriented associations were interviewed to depict the effectiveness of women's activities and their social impact. The textual materials, obtained by their transcripts, were categorized according to the ecological well-being model. The interviews revealed that whilst the active involvement of women in associations served to empower their wellbeing at both individual and relational levels, their action had poor effects on the collective context to which they belonged. This research, therefore, offers some useful indications regarding the actions of women in active groups and the related individual wellbeing, but at the same time, highlighted their potential ineffectiveness in having a transformative role at the collective community level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to provide a picture of Italian gender geography in order to better understand the discipline's key achievements and development. Rooted in a lively tradition of feminism stretching back to the 1970s, Italian gender geography has faced cultural and academic resistance while achieving a number of milestones. There is still much to be done if the multifaceted theme of gender is to be fully engaged by Italian geography. However, seminars, national and international congresses on gender geography themes, and the dialectic encounter with international gender geography have stimulated the domestic debate since the new millenium. Italian gender geographic voices may be self-perceived as limited and isolated but are continuously engaged in the struggle to overcome the many structural and cultural constraints imposed by Italian society and academia. This article tries to review Italian gender geography's history to look forward and encourage new agendas and projects within a larger academic audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the relationship between space appropriation and women’s writing and publishing activities, in the context of second-wave feminism in Milan. From the early 1970s onwards, Milan’s feminist movement – which arose from the conjunction between transnational, national and local factors – engaged in a variety of translating, writing and publishing projects. In fact, Milan was one of the first Italian cities to publish translations of foreign feminist texts. More importantly, it was the site of the earliest feminist theoretical production in Italy. The article argues that, at different points of the decade, the empowering act of writing, publishing and circulating feminist knowledge reflected a search for a more profound consciousness of the female self which was intricately connected to the (symbolical and material) appropriation of women-only spaces in the city. In particular, it discusses three different expressions of this interaction between physical and discursive space: the feminist publishing house Scritti di Rivolta Femminile, the Libreria delle donne di Milano and the 150 hours monographic courses in the Affori neighbourhood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Italian women’s movement of the 1970s was one of the largest and most diverse in Europe. However, after the movement's decline in the late 1970s, scholarly interest in women studies and in the history of second-wave feminism has primarily been upheld through the creation and promotion of women's archives, documentary centres and libraries. More recently, new generations of women have engaged in battles for women's rights, debates about gender issues and feminist scholarship, relying increasingly on new media technologies and social media. It is tempting to conclude that the generation gap that so often marks the relationship between different feminist generations is enhanced by such a technological divide. This article, instead, challenges this assumption by studying the case of an information-based organization that was created in the early 1980s by a group of local feminists in the Italian city of Bologna, and which adopted a strongly digital approach to historical scholarship in the early 1990s. What is the impact of a similar, digital approach to women's history on the nature of historical scholarship and the shape of the archive? Can the digital break through academic hierarchies and institutional barriers, and give a voice to those who have long remained outside of official historiography? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses electronic resource management, library schools, and continuing education.

An essay is presented examining the influence of "Now You Can Go," a series of film screenings, performances, and forums held in London, England in 2015 dedicated feminist thinking, art, and activism from 1970s and 1980s Italy. Information is provided on the Italian feminist movement with particular attention given to the inspiration of poet and art critic Carla Lonzi and her book "Vai Pure."

The author looks at the challenge of conducting ethnography in migration-related detention centers. Topics discussed include the definition of migration-related detention as the removal of liberty of migrants because of their irregular status, the study being done on border control operations in the Identification and Expulsion-CIE of Ponte Galeria in Rome, Italy, and the power struggle between the author and police staff over access inside the CIE.

In the text, we will try to give an account of the experience of collaboration in a Public Ethics course in the degree course in Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Verona. The course in Public Ethics has had, as its main theme, the reflection on the distinction between public and private. We will begin with consider the national context and then the one of Verona, characterised on one side by a strong feminist presence, on the other from being inserted into a cultural environment with an equally strong presence of the Catholic and conservative. After investigating this peculiar coexistence, we would like to highlight our reactions and those of the students. In particular, we will focus on emerging resistances and on amazement in front of the issues and the history of feminism by many male and female students. Finally, we use the points that emerged during the course to rethink our position as feminists and as researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the transnational, national and local origins and contexts of the Wages for Housework campaign in 1970s Italy and the Padua-based group Lotta Femminista (Feminist Struggle) which coordinated it. The significance of the campaign and its legacy in Italian and transnational feminism are critically assessed. The origins of the campaign as it emerged in early-1970s Italy are traced by looking at the transnational activist trajectories of its two protagonists, Selma James and Mariarosa Dalla Costa. Further, the reasons why the campaign found relatively more support in Italy than elsewhere are explained by looking at the lack of women's financial independence due to rising unemployment and relatively low wages. The local context is placed at the centre of attention, as the ideological origins of Wages for Housework are traced in operaismo (workerism) and autonomist thought and practice, which were influential in radical-left and feminist milieux in the industrial area of Porto Margera and Padua around 1970. The article demonstrates the need for an understanding of 1970s feminisms that is fully cognisant of the interplay between transnational transfers and local recontextualisation, and presents an approach for doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural outcomes of social movements have rarely been explored by scientists, except by very few scholars, even though cultural modifications were actually considered one of the most important goals by the activists. These kinds of outcomes are usually not direct, nor do they have short-term effects; they produce long-range effects that could involve other social spaces and could also produce unanticipated consequences. The principal aim of this work, after a concise theoretical overview on the relationship between social change and social movements, is to investigate through a narrative and qualitative approach the outcomes, successes, and failures of the feminist movement in Sicily. Particular attention will be paid to the relationships between stated goals and achieved outcomes, the unintended and unexpected outcomes of the purposive goals and actions of the activists, and the current social representation of women that in part stems from the feminist struggle. The results of the interviews will be analyzed also in light of some statistical data on the condition of women in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At the beginning of the twentieth century the female Scouting movement in Italy had only a few members, because of some traditional preconceptions about character training, open-air activities, sport and affiliation to youth groups as elements having no bearing on girls’ education. During the Second World War and the years after it, Italian women entered a period of ’female self-promotion’. The birth and renewal of Scouting groups became part of female efforts to achieve equality and self-fulfilment. Thus, although the Italian female Scouting movement was brought back to more traditional female models by the Church and moderate conformists, the new progressive stances could not be neglected. Actually, female Scouting education was tied to traditional women's competences, but at the same time girl scouts acquired a new awareness of their rights and role in society, leading them at the end of the 1960s towards a ‘feminist-liberal’ trend. The aim of this study is to analyse how female involvement in the Scouting movement contributed to women's self-fulfilment and to their cultural and political equality in twentieth-century Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on the role of feminist intellectuals as public figures in contemporary Italy. It contains an overview of Italian feminism, comments on the interaction of feminist intellectuals with public institute, discusses the public space in which feminist intellectuals operate and provides an interpretation of women's politics that distinguishes Italian feminism informed by the theory of sexual difference.