After the war, the female figures represented in literature and films that deal with the experience of the Resistance are mostly built on prejudices and stereotypes, common in the collective, that reflect the cultural and social backwardness of the time. In my opinion most of the literature dealing with that period, so crucial in defining the new identity for the future democracy, both in terms of male and female, or fails to detach itself from a traditional view of women or to restore an image of dignity and recognize the value of his actions.
Those who come from the pages of official and non-neo-realist literature, are most of the time, extras who play their roles of mother, a prostitute, traitor, always in the background without being able to move from the main protagonists on the scene.
Their positions are not considered in the real value but are undervalued compared to the heroic figure of man at arms, the "true partisan." Their choices are motivated by following the usual code of the sacrifice of feeling, of love and solidarity for women.
From the pages never appear independent women, determined to know why they are there, because they are fighting for what and against whom. "Few are those who can live the resistance from the protagonists, in a constructive manner" 1. Women are drawn as irresponsible, naive and carriers of disorder, all feelings that are found in the testimonies of many women who describe the atmosphere inside the male-partisan. From these testimonies from men use the words unreliable and unable to refer to women. When
play a leading role, as Mara's Girl Bebo (C. Cassola) and Agnes Dell'Agnese goes to die (R. Vigano, one of the few women who s'autorappresentarono), they have a price to pay for their choices: Agnes and her femininity Mara 's identity. Agnes is described as an old woman almost asexual, which carries out its duties as a good mother, and all other figures are figures that revolve around all'Agnese dangerous or inaffidabili.2
Mara is built entirely in function of her lover's lives he and his wife due to ideal (for love rather than for its conviction), he, Bebo, which makes it grow, which opens the eyes, it is through him that the girl mature and slightly naive and superficial found itself. But as I reflect this new Mara? "A I" from the title without a name: it is someone's girlfriend, a member of Bebo, a woman dedicated to the sacrifice of herself, which has its own life and living in the time of waiting. Women's "destiny" and not "choice."
The female figures found in the small masters Meneghello, despite the book was written later in the period analyzed here and an author's outsider status that would allow a more detached from conformity retrograde society Venetian not stand apart from the very stereotypical figures who find themselves in the national literature of that time. In the book
from the first page the woman appears inferior with respect to the protagonist and is first described as a sexual object and as a guerrilla fighter with the gun to the neck. Emblematic the verb used in the first opening sentence indicating the action of her and the first term that describes it: "The Simon was behind me, always gave the impression of being behind, like a puppy."
The girl is described according to its physical attributes, not a word about his personal capacity, "her hair was a bit 'ruffled but without lipstick was fresh and beautiful." Simonetta, beside him, hidden in a tent, is described as carefree, but this actually missing, misplaced and without a specific purpose "spiritually absent", not "curious" but "listless", "always sleepy" precarious "at his side," stove ".
Later in the book, the author betrays a lukewarm acknowledgment about his activism, especially when they work together in Padua, "he abandoned his studies and family as such as us, and we did essentially the same job" 4. In
read the full story, become his girlfriend. The great work
set up spontaneously by the women after the September 8, '43, Meneghello describes it thus: "women seemed to want to cover ourselves with skirts, some felt more or less ", reducing that share to a great charitable maternal code," with a moral choice that more intuitively thought out. "
Another figure that appears in the novel is the partisan Marta (Maria Setti in reality), in describing Meneghello recognizes its high value, its multiple capabilities in various sectors by pointing out that his work was central to the company:
"was truly a remarkable woman. It was everywhere, knew everyone [...] was a nurse, teacher, farmer, interpreter, and had always worked for people, families, individuals and groups. " But in trying to define the reasons for his choice after September 8, the author borrows the usual codes of maternal and female solidarity, "now adopted as his daughter and sister, resistance Vicenza en bloc '7. Marta acting continuously stressed "the humility of his almost ancillary functions, which were really essential: elle organized everything from false documents to disguise, performed all the work of the house where he was the whole company - the" double duty "of a strong-mediated contacts and information, procured loans, business travel and arms. The
Marta reappears later in the story when captured will be tortured with electric shocks and cigarette burns and taken to prison, tortured.
Gina is a relay instead, he lives in the mountains, and runs between the various localities from Vicenza carrying weapons and information in the middle of the German raids. Meneghello remembers it only as a sexual object: Gina is a prey, "a beautiful piece of woman in blouse and trousers. Made me think a bit 'at a weight thrower, a bit' at a vitella8. "When the two sleep in the night near the protagonist thinks," every time my eye fell down on the table-lands of the hips and thighs volumes, blood I was made an air .[...] if I arrive to see peace, I want to get a seat, so even bigger, and take it quassù9.
The other female figures that appear are like contour, suitable for the moments of rest, "morose, classmates and friends" party dress sitting on the grass chatting and bring moments of peace and relief to the male fighters.
Another prime example is the description of the moment of liberation at the end of the book. The figure of Simon with his gun on his back that wants to go, entering the city, the chariot of the allies is defined as "irresponsible", reflecting a common opinion of men and then in the memories of many witnesses: the majority of non-partisan fact had a public recognition of their actions from the very day of liberation.
of the female figures that appear in the novel Martin will be recognized only in real life, Maria Setti Broglio.
about her, not available at the moment but only direct source of reconstructions that refer to other testimony, we know that during the Resistance took part in armed conflicts on the Grappa and the rolling plateau as Toni Giuriolo. In December of '44 was imprisoned and tortured, he could, pretending to be mad, to return freely. Took the silver medal for valor.
interesting as the writing of women is on the brink, in the representation of self, between "what differs" and "what has been described by the dominant culture (S. Stanford Friedman). Anna Bravo to describe the spontaneous mobilization after 8 September '43, women backflushes to register the "mother" for P. Morris, analyzing writing Days of true G. Zangrandi, she explains their actions by denying their femininity and describe, in guerrilla actions, like "to be asexual."
Some women are quiet for a long time.
But that silence is that you must dig, because sometimes these women "are not silent by choice or lack of appropriate word," but because "they lack the audience." The need for narrative models, according to organize the narrative of the experience of listening is crucial to the social availability.
Ida D'Este, partisan Venetian, find a way to reprocess what happened back in Cross , diary-testimony, published in 1953, through the code of Christian sacrifice, her neighbor for education. In Cross back Ida says - and it is said - the three periods of his life-watershed: the experience of rolling in the partisan struggle, imprisonment and detention at the palace Giusti in Bolzano.
The style is bare, sharp, concise, far from rhetoric.
The fact is all filtered through a distorting lens, that of sacrifice, the only code that allows it to describe themselves as active protagonists of history.
Ida seems to know each other only in the sacrifice for the good of others, typical sentiment of renunciation of Christianity. To this image of "woman-sacrifice" seem to draw and identify the lack, at present, other codes of feminine self-representation as possible. It almost seems that the missing words to describe all those experiences, which until then had been closed to women. Without references (before the period of which she was leading the women could not even figure out publicly with a lot of courage to move on the same footing as men) Ida s' imagine if you do not live and not using a pre-existing code, simple suitable in some way to explain to herself and others that the roles had not changed, that what he had lived did not reside nothing exceptional, in that all these sufferings had not been a single woman who dealt with the war, torture and concentration camp with its own strength and resources, but had taken the cross on his back always assisted by God at that time , in the '40s and '50s, for a woman who had experienced the skin experiences that were once reserved only for men was somewhat inconceivable to think otherwise. The men used them in the process of reconstruction of memory, the traditional codes, such as those carried naturally in mother's sacrifice for the humble. It is not unlike Ida, speaking a common alphabet for most to understand, and above all not to lose to be understood.
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