Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:21:15.683Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The realization of totalitarian demography II: Quantitative and qualitative population management

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2009

Carl Ipsen
Affiliation:
Indiana University
Get access

Summary

Institutionally, the Fascist regime depended on the midwifing and medical professions in its programs of infant and maternal care. On an individual level, the general quantitative population policy depended specifically upon women, and ironically it was Fascism, with its emphasis on virility and the male domination of society, that first sought to engage women on a large scale in the life of the Italian nation. We can even speak of a Fascist women's policy whose essential points were: the discouragement of female wage-earning activity outside the home in the interest of lowering male unemployment, the more or less private entrusting of women with responsibility for Italian demographic expansion, and the more or less public call for female volunteerism in the area of infant and maternal care. These tasks constituted women's role in the national struggle, and Mussolini himself made the analogy when he stated that “war is to men what motherhood is to women” (Mussolini, vol. xxvi, p. 259 [26 May 1934]).

This policy can be construed as a simple attempt to reaffirm the traditional female role of child bearer and carer. The institutional aspect, however, as well as the appeal to a higher collective good were novel and constituted an invasion of the private sphere which carried with it various implications. The Fascist regime sought to mobilize the female masses both as prolific mothers and as volunteer social workers, and this mobilization seems to have led to a degree of political consciousness-raising. For the call to demographic action required either compliance or refusal, and this refusal, apparently widespread, might also be interpreted as a form of resistance.

Type
Chapter
Information
Dictating Demography
The Problem of Population in Fascist Italy
, pp. 145 - 194
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×