Women’s Suffrage and Gender Equality in Piero Gobetti

di Noemi Crain Merz
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 49 (2015), p. 107

The article analyses the attitude towards the political rights of women in Piero Gobetti’s articles, mainly in the journals Energie Nove and La Rivoluzione Liberale, which he edited in the years 1918-1920 and 1922-1925. While supporting women’s suffrage in principal, Gobetti’s stance towards gender equality was ambivalent; his journals rarely touched upon the issue of women’s right to vote, even when the question was eagerly debated in parliament. Although he strongly advocated women’s intellectual education, he was far from promoting a change in traditional gender roles. The article likewise examines the ambiguous attitude of the young women in Gobetti’s circle, who were ambitious in pursuing their goals in education and in their professional lives but were nonetheless averse to committing to the suffragist battle. Key words: Piero Gobetti; La Rivoluzione Liberale; Italy; women’s suffrage; gender equality; antifascism.