Socialist-Catholic Alliances and Gender. Work, War and the Family in Milan and Lombardy, 1914-21

Catholic women's mass associations were...much larger than those of the Socialists, as were the numbers of women in 'white' as opposed to 'red' unions. Nevertheless, the PPI and CIL (the Catholic unions federation) leaderships were almost completely male-dominated, and no strategic role was given to Catholic women at the top of the Church's social movement. It was far easier to this Catholic alliance strategy to succeed. They were working with the status quo, within paternalistic and oppressive family structures. Socialist tactics went completely against the grain, and put into question the whole idea of male domination and the value of traditional female roles. The key question for this study is what did these very different ideologies and ways of treating the problem of women's organization and oppression mean for the gender alliance in Lombardy and Milan during and after the war? [Author]