Most people remember the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini for his obsession with Ancient Rome, bombastic speeches, raised-arm salutes, torrid love life and hatred of socialists. What has passed almost unnoticed was his contempt for women, and the Handmaid’s Tale-like regime he tried to impose on them.

A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism
CAROLINE MOOREHEAD
(Chatto & Windus, 416 PP, £20)
Tablet bookshop price £18 • Tel 020 7799 4064

Most people remember the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini for his obsession with Ancient Rome, bombastic speeches, raised-arm salutes, torrid love life and hatred of socialists. What has passed almost unnoticed was his contempt for women, and the Handmaid’s Tale-like regime he tried to impose on them.

The Duce called all leftists traitors but reserved a special place in hell for educated, left-wing women – “hags” and “prostitutes”. In the Fascist state, girls were to be taught self-abnegation and fecundity. Adult women were there to reproduce. Single or childless women were stigmatised, their child-bearing counterparts showered with awards and – to push them out of the workplace and back into the home – women’s wages were cut.

Some women became devoted votaries of the Mussolini cult, and were even more fanatical than the men. Others, especially those who had received a good education and enjoyed careers in the old Italy, were thoroughly embittered. These women received the news of Mussolini’s deposition in a royal coup in 1943 with special joy.

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