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Journal of Women's History 15.3 (2003) 143-147



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Women's Political Organizations in the Transition to Democracy
An Assessment of the Spanish and Italian Cases

Ana Prata Pereria


Narrow definitions of democracy, politics, and citizenship are of little use for understanding the place of gender in the process of democratization. Paying more attention to the study of Southern Europe's emerging social movements prior to the transition to democracy rather than merely during and after it is central to understanding women's roles in democratization processes of that region. Although women were part of political parties, associations and social movements both before the overthrow of undemocratic regimes and also at the dawn of democracy, their presence is rarely accounted for in scholarly analyses. Even if their presence in the political realm tended to be less institutionalized, women's grievances were part of the discourse and debate that went on during democratization. Their participation made a difference in the democratization of Southern Europe.

Here, I compare Italy and Spain, southern European countries that experienced authoritarian rule and were predominantly Catholic. However, they experienced democratization at different historical moments and in different political contexts. Italy initiated its democratization process in the post-World War II context, while Spain had to wait thirty years until the third wave of democratization (initiated in Portugal) reached the other side of the Iberian Peninsula in 1975. 1 The difference in timing of the democratization process of these two countries is important in understanding their distinct experiences on the path taken toward democracy, and the role of women in democratization. Of course, differences in political socialization of men and women in both countries are the result of general socialization processes in which school, work and the church played crucial roles as key spheres of socialization that shaped and defined the contours of that differential and the contours of existing gender inequalities both in interest and in access to the political realm. However, my focus here is on gender and political organization at two different moments of democratization.

I want to emphasize that the contrasts in timing, organizational forms, and political context (domestic and international) help explain the different characters of democratization and women's participation in the two cases. The political context of the transition to democracy in Italy was [End Page 143] shaped by the specific political constellation and the international context of postwar Europe, with its international pressures to democratize. In Spain, by contrast, the democracy movement lived in constant fear of a reactionary coup, which led women's organizations to work closer with political parties that were democratic, but not explicitly feminist. Three historical and organizational factors are in operation: the different stages of international feminism at the moment of transition, the greater radicalism of the Italian movement because of its extra-parliamentary strategy, and the debate in Spain around the "double militancy" question.

In Italy, the climate at the end of the World War II, with the victory of the democratic forces against the totalitarian oppression, was one that favored the diffusion of individual rights. As Tiziana Agnati pointed out, "women paid their tribute in the war and in the resistance against fascism—but only in part were beneficiaries." 2 It is true that the new constitution gave women full citizenship rights, but "private law" proved to be more resistant to democratic pressures. Nonetheless, the right to vote was extended to women in 31 January 1945 and was received as an inevitability. It did not lead to any public debate and even the campaign surrounding it did not have much impact. 3

If the changes in the realm of political rights seem favorable to women in the dopoguerra, the same cannot be said about other spheres. Still, according to Lesley Caldwell, testimonies by the generation of women militants of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, collected later in the wake of the second-wave feminism, have "begun to cast a somewhat different light on the apparent failure to challenge both the...

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