Le massaie rurali. Appunti sul lessico politico-amministrativo del regime e sulla cultura fascista

Abstract – The paper traces the history of the Italian phrase massaia rurale (‘rural housewife’) with which during the Fascist regime it was indicated every member of the Fascist organization which brought together the women of the campaign (not only countrywomen, but also wifes of land owners, farmers, sharecroppers and day labourers). The section “Massaie rurali” of the National Fascist Party was born officially in 1934 and took the place of the “Federazione nazionale delle massaie rurali” (‘National fascist federation of rural housewives’), an organization that depended on the National Fascist Confederation of Agricultural Unions and not directly by the Fascist party. The “Federazione nazionale fascista delle massaie rurali”, in turn, had taken over from the “Unione della massaie di campagna” (‘rural housewives union’), organization comprising aristocratic, bourgeois and peasant women, was born in Lombardy in 1919. The progressive appropriation of the “Massaie rurali” by the Fascist regime is part of the process of fascistization of society that characterized Italy in the Thirties. The section “Massaie rurali” became very famous especially after 1935, when with the start of the international sanctions against Italy they became a central element in the autarkic turning point imposed by the regime, which wanted to make of all Italian women, and of housewives rural in particular, a symbol of economic self-sufficiency of the country