Migrant women’s associations in Italy did not simply emerge from informal networks. The Filipino and Cape Verdean women’s associations in Rome are examples of the results of multiple factors that contributed to the strategy of self-organization established by migrant women with the intention of empowering themselves. An awareness of their unique position as women from mostly-female migrant groups, a lack of institutional bodies prepared to assist them, and the leadership of individual women were key aspects in the formation of the first migrant women’s associations in Rome. Gender and nationality were the main components of migrant women’s organizing in the first mostly-female migrant groups.