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Women in the Resistance | ||
In addition to taking part in partisan activity, women also volunteered to work in the Women’s Groups for Defense and for the Assistance of the Freedom Fighters (gruppi di difesa della donna e per l’asistenza ai combatenti della liberta) or GDD. The GDD collected food, money and clothing, which they washed and mended. These were activities that a woman around the world at the time were participating in to support their countrymen; the difference in Italy is, if these women were discovered supporting the Partisans in even these ways, they would be arrested and sometimes tortured or killed. The women in the GDD also played a key role in motivating other women into public activism and recruiting them to participate in various Resistance functions. After the war, 200,000 Italians were registered formally as active members of the Resistance, of which 55,000 were women. After April 1945, Italian women began to participate in the politics of their country in unprecedented number. Fifty percent of the women elected to the postwar Parliament had a partisan background. The gains Italian women earned through their courageous work with the resistance resulted in them acquiring a seat at the table of Italian politics that they retain today. |
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