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All four of the main women’s organizations discussed in this book are still active today–the Unione Donne Italiane, the Centro Italiano Femminile, the World Movement of Mothers, and the Women’s International Democratic Federation. Each continues to be active in the promotion of gender equality and reflects some of the current preoccupations of worldwide women’s movements. In 2003, the UDI changed its name from Unione Donne Italiane [Union of Italian Women] to Unione Donne in Italia [Union of Women in Italy] to account for the important changes in Italy’s demographics, which includes the influx of large numbers of migrant women.1 The association has recently pursued several campaigns to include: the 50/50 initiative to require that political parties’ electoral lists include at least 50 percent women; the Relay [staffetta] against Domestic Violence; and the Friendly Images project to promote a positive image of women in the media.2 The Centro Italiano Femminile has been a principle organizer of several programs focusing on professional training for young women. Migrants, development, and globalization have also been of central interest to the CIF, which in 2008 and 2010 held its national conventions on related themes. In 2010, the UDI and the CIF cooperated together on an internship program, “Archiving Gender Difference,” in which twenty female students interested in working in libraries and archives were selected to participate in a project to digitalize archival documents . The UDI and the CIF benefited from the assistance to help preserve their records, and the women interns gained valuable experience and built their résumés.3 In 2004, the World Movement of Mothers was granted General Consultative Status at the United Nations, a higher level than its previous “Category B” Status, which means it can now send its own representatives to the UN, attend and speak at meetings of the Economic and Social Council, and distribute its own circulars. The organization is also involved in a European Commission project called the Family Platform to Conclusion The Results of Women’s Cold War Political Activism 184 conclusion which it is contributing a report, “The Realities of Mothers in Europe.”4 And although the Women’s International Democratic Federation suffered from the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, it reconstituted itself in 1994 and is now based in São Paulo, Brazil. The association continues to tackle highly politicized problems. In 2007, its international congress, “For a World of Peace, Sovereignty, Work, and Equality,” focused on its long-standing intertwined interests of peace and women’s rights, this time centered on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ongoing struggle of the Palestinians, and women’s needs for security and stability within each of these difficult contexts.5 It is highly significant that these four historic women’s organizations have survived a myriad of challenges since the late 1960s and have outlasted a great number of the women’s groups that emerged after 1968. In particular, many of the Italian feminist collectives that sprang from the student and workers’ movements lasted just a few years. They, like their predecessors, certainly affected legislation, pushing through, for example, a divorce law in 1970, access to abortion in 1978, and anti–sexual violence legislation in 1985.6 Despite all the negative attention on the women of the latest Berlusconi government, Italy’s gender laws today are well in line with those of the other European Union countries and are perhaps even more advanced in the area of maternity benefits. Yet, female political participation in the Italian Parliament, which stands at 17 percent, lags behind that of the other original European Union members.7 It should be pointed out, however, that this is the same percentage of women who currently serve in the U.S. Congress. Attempts are now being made to increase the female presence in business, a sector in which Italian women have typically fallen behind their counterparts in the rest of the European Union. According to a law passed in late June 2011, beginning in 2012, all private companies listed in the stock market as well as those with public holdings must include at least 20 percent women on their administrative councils; that number will increase to 33.3 percent in 2015. In its commentary on the law, the UDI noted a certain similarity to its own 50/50 campaign, but Pina Nuzzo, the UDI’s archival director...

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