This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Derounian, Flora Title: Representations and Oral Histories of Working Women in Post-World War Two Italy (1945-1965) General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. Representations and Oral Histories of Working Women in Post-World War Two Italy (1945-1965) Flora Derounian A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts in the School of Italian. September 2018 Word Count: 79,955 Abstract: This thesis studies representations and oral histories of women’s work in post-World War Two Italy in films and interviews. It focuses its enquiry on three sectors: rice weeding, made-to-measure fashion, and religious work. The thesis is organised into three distinct sections on mondine, sarte, and religiose. Each section is divided into three parts, including a brief contextual introduction, a chapter on filmic representations, and another on oral histories. Drawing on theories of cultural and collective memory, this thesis asks how women’s work is remembered and why. The goal of this research is to assess how women’s work interacted with wider social and political currents between 1945 and 1965. Dedication and Acknowledgements: Perhaps unsurprisingly, this thesis on women and their value has been supported, inspired, critiqued, and shaped by a host of undeniably fantastic women. My first thanks is to Danielle Hipkins who encouraged me to write a proposal, and continued nourishing my interest and knowledge from afar with her own research. My own supervisors, Professor Catherine O’Rawe and Dr Ruth Glynn have my sincere gratitude for their sustained and consistent attention, insight, and encouragement. My supervisors, as well as a number of other colleagues I have met over the past four years, have shaped the kind of academic I intend to be. On this subject, I cannot overstate the enormous inspiration and contribution of my colleagues at the University of Gloucestershire. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks and admiration to Dr Jon Hobson for his open-hearted and cake-proffering generosity, for showing me that sincerity can mean the world. I would like to thank Pauline Dooley, Dr Charlie Parker, and Dr Louise Livesey for showing me what a feminist office can look like; fun, ironic, supportive, and endlessly knowledgeable. Thank you also to Dr Brian Frederick and Dr Andrew Stafford for being wonderful colleagues. Similarly, those at the University of Bristol, and in particular Dr Rhiannon Daniels, Andrea Zhok, Dr Tristan Kay, and the incredible Dr James Hawkey, have all been models of the kind of teacher and colleague I would like to be. Thank you to the generous researchers I met along the way: to Micaela Gavioli for her friendship and generosity, to Cristina Ghirardini for her knowledge, to Elena Corradi for her enthusiasm and incredible networking skills. Thank you to my interviewees for trusting me and telling me. Thank you for your life advice, I will not forget it. My gratitude and love is also owing to my amazing friends. The Italian crew, Drs Amber Phillips, Stefania Placenti, Sarah Culhane, and Michela Prevedello, and Drs (forthcoming) Amy King and Marta Balzi. The gossiping, writing, lunching, crying, laughing, gelato-eating, helping, sharing has been so meaningful and sometimes a little bit life-saving. Thank you to Nader for distracting me with mango tea and other exploits. Thanks to Tsvety for hanging out in housecoats. Thanks to SHE choir and particularly Hilary for being all the best bits of Feminism and 90s pop hits. Thank you to my beautiful friends Emma and Alice in Paris for endless conversations, laughter, and wine in Le Smoke. Thank you to Anneliese for being the best in every sense. Thank you to Tara for being my oldest and best friend. For getting us kicked out of GCSE French and for not being that interested in PhDs. Thank you to Alberto Del Favero, two-time dissertation dedicatee, sempre nel cuore, sempre nella ciccia. Thank you to James Derounian, my colleague-next-door, my best friend, my dad. Thank you to Linsey Derounian, my confidante, my companion, my analytical side. You are my anchors, the hands at my back, the voices at the end of the phone. Words will never be enough to tell you how much I love and admire you. Thank you finally to the person who would probably prefer not to be named. Thank you for the perspective, the rigour, the escape, the adventure, the love. This thesis has you on every page, not just Chapter 1. Author’s declaration: I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the University's Regulations and Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and that it has not been submitted for any other academic award. Except where indicated by specific reference in the text, the work is the candidate's own work. Work done in collaboration with, or with the assistance of, others, is indicated as such. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author. SIGNED: ............................................................. DATE:.......................... Special Instructions regarding video clips: Chapters 4 and 6 include instructions to watch short video excerpts from interviews (eg. ‘[See video Zuzolo Nazis]’). To access this footage, please: - Follow the link to the shared Onedrive folder – o For Internal examiner: <https://uob- my.sharepoint.com/:f:/r/personal/fd14960_bristol_ac_uk/Documents/PhD/Intervie ws/Excerpts?csf=1&e=tbqCYF> o For external examiner <https://uob- my.sharepoint.com:443/:f:/g/personal/fd14960_bristol_ac_uk/EsU1jJ9CtK9Fnba2M zvLWA0BSSPNdAj3L8wexBJHOlA6Ng?email=dtreveri- gennari%40brookes.ac.uk&e=ImK7Lf> - Select the appropriate folder and video excerpt and watch online or download. Contents: Introduction 1 Section 1: Mondine 24 Introduction to Mondine 25 Chapter 1 - Mondine in Film 30 Chapter 2 - Mondine in Oral History 61 Section 2: Sarte 87 Introduction to Sarte 88 Chapter 3 – Sarte in Film 94 Chapter 4 – Sarte in Oral History 121 Section 3: Religiose 145 Introduction to Religiose 146 Chapter 5 - Religiose in Film 151 Chapter 6 - Religiose in Oral History 184 Afterword 211 List of Figures 216 Filmography 218 Index of Interviews 220 Bibliography 222 Themed Bibliography of Selected Works 237 Introduction L’Italia è una repubblica democratica fondata sul lavoro. (Assemblea Costituente, 1946) Work empowered and regenerated the male citizen. (Bonifazio, 2011, p. 163) La presenza politica delle donne, ovvero il carattere politico del loro agire, non viene in genere riconosciuto come tale né dai contemporanei né dagli storici, e spesso neppure pienamente dalle stesse protagoniste. (Rossi-Doria, 2000, p. 361) If post-World War Two Italy was a Republic founded upon work, working women have been largely erased from this legacy. By that, I mean that the working woman has rarely been celebrated or studied for her identity as labourer or professional. This thesis redresses this absence: by looking at films and oral histories, it reveals and argues that working women are instrumentalised, sexualised, or problematised both in cultural materials and in their own recollections. It is not only cultural materials produced in the postwar period, but also contemporary scholarly enquiry which fails to remember or study women workers. In the above quote, Anna Rossi-Doria points out the erasure of women’s participation in the anti-fascist Resistance, but this is symptomatic of the erasure of women’s work more generally. Historian Laura Ruberto notes how work ‘ordinarily performed by women […] (paid or unpaid) is not usually discussed in labour histories’ (Ruberto, 2008, p. 4). This thesis is not a labour history, although it draws upon and augments historical knowledge of women’s work. Rather, this thesis provides comparative analysis of filmic representations and oral histories of working women. Its aim is to respond to a threefold shortcoming regarding working women in this period: an absence of their representation in cultural productions, an absence of their own voices, and an absence of critical scholarship. It is important to look at working women in this period because they both shaped and represented the postwar nation, and as such produced new and controversial models of femininity and nationhood. I say that there is an absence of representations of working women because this thesis was inspired by a search for working women in films made between 1945 and 1965. Having read Stephen Gundle’s chapter on ‘The Rise of Professional Beauty’ in his book Bellissima (2007, pp. 58-80), which underlines the emergence of new professional opportunities for women through beauty contests, I began to see 1 portrayals of such aspiring female professionals.1 Where, then, are the other working women? If, ‘although actual numbers did not rise, many women were doing more visible types of work’ (Willson, 2010, p.