Esposa y madre ejemplar: la maternidad en los noticiarios Luce durante el fascismo (1928-1945)

Abstract

For more than twenty years, Italian fascism tried to impose the traditional roles of "motherhood and housework" to women as if that was a genetic truth. For fascists, a woman's principal obligation was procreation: to produce new warriors for Italy. Therefore, Mussolini's regime established a pro-birth politics, advertising women as a vital national resource. In this work, I'll give especial attention to the way fascism carried away these new tactics, how the pro-birth measures were established in the Italian society, and the way the rigid sexual politics aimed to drive women away from public life and condemn them to early motherhood. I'll analyze the Luce news bulletins made during fascism which are relevant to these social measures. I'll also study the campaign which started in 1928 and found in Luce the ideal vehicle to carry it's message to the people.