Noi donne

Italian feminist magazine

Noi donneFormer editors|

* Fidia Gambetti
* Maria Antonietta Macciocchi

|

Categories| Feminist magazine
Frequency| Monthly
Founder| Valentina Palumbo
Founded| 1944
First issue| July 1944
Country| Italy
Based in| Rome
Language| Italian
Website| Noi donne
ISSN| 0029-0920
OCLC| 29807409

Noi donne (Italian: We Women) is a monthly feminist magazine published in Rome, Italy. It is one of the most significant feminist publications in the country.[1]

## History and profile

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Noi donne was illegally published between 1937 and 1939 in Paris by the Italian women exiled there before its official start in 1944.[2][3][4] Its publication was possible only after the liberation of Rome[5] and the first issue appeared in Naples in July 1944.[6][7] The founders led by Valentina Palumbo[8] and Adele Cambria were communist women.[9] In the period between 1952 and 1953 the number of the pages was 48.[10]

The headquarters of the magazine was moved from Naples to Rome.[2] From 1945 to the 1990s it was the official magazine of the Unione Donne in Italia (UDI; Union of Italian Women).[2][7] The Union was closely connected to and financed by the Italian Communist Party (PCI).[11]

Noi donne is circulated monthly, and its website was launched in 2004.[2] It was previously published on a weekly basis.[12][13] The magazine was funded by government funding which temporarily ended in the late 1993.[6]

The magazine sold nearly 300,000 copies in 1952.[10] In the 1970s Noi donne enjoyed higher levels of circulation.[14]

## Content and political stance

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Noi donne was not established as a magazine targeting bourgeois Italian women.[15] Instead, its target audience is women on the left.[3] Maria Casalini claimed that the magazine was instrumental in introducing Italian women to the political arena of democratic Italy.[5] However, at the beginning of the 1950s its focus was on entertainment, daily life and culture.[15] Later, the magazine again began to cover articles on politics, social change, culture, women's equality, violence against women and health.[2][16] Noi donne also features articles on cinema.[17] In addition, it frequently attacked mainstream women's magazines in Italy.[18]

In 2001 Newsweek described Noi donne as a popular semifeminist magazine.[19] In addition, it was less feminist than other magazines such as Effe and Differenze.[13]

## Editors and contributors

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The editors of Noi donne have been women.[3] Maria Antonietta Macciocchi, an Italian politician and writer, served as the editor of the magazine[15][20] from 1950 to 1956.[21][22] She replaced Fidia Gambetti in the post.[22] Bia Sarasini was the cultural editor during the 1990s.[23]

Among its collaborators have been Lea Melandri,[6] Ada Gobetti, Camilla Ravera, Nadia Gallico Spano, Anna Maria Ortese, Marguerite Duras, Giovanna Pajetta, Umberto Eco, Gianni Rodari, Ellekappa, Franca Fossati, Pat Carra, Roberta Tatafiore, Cristina Gentile, Ida Magli, Mariella Gramaglia, Bia Sarasini, Silvia Neonato, Anna Maria Crispino, Nadia Tarantini, Patrizia Carrano, Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, Valentina Savioli, Adriano Sofri, and Rosi Braidotti.

## References

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1. ^ Gaia Pianigiani (14 September 2016). "Italy's 'Fertility Day' Call to Make Babies Arouses Anger, Not Ardor". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
2. ^ a b c d e "noidonne (Magazine, E-Zine)". Grassroots Feminism. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
3. ^ a b c Penelope Morris (2007). "A window on the private sphere: Advice columns, marriage, and the evolving family in 1950s Italy". The Italianist. 27 (2): 304–332. doi:10.1179/026143407X234194. S2CID 144706118.
4. ^ Roy Palmer Domenico (2002). Remaking Italy in the Twentieth Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 132\. ISBN 978-1-4616-6613-4.
5. ^ a b Mark Seymour (2010). "Steel Capsules and Discursive Monopolies. "Noi donne" and Divorce in Italy, 1945-1965". Storica Mente. 6 (10). doi:10.1473/stor77.
6. ^ a b c Franca Fossati (Spring 1994). "A new phase of reconstruction". Connexions (45): 16–19.
7. ^ a b Jessica L. Harris (2017). ""Noi Donne" and "Famiglia Cristiana": Communists, Catholics, and American Female Culture in Cold War Italy". Carte Italiane. 2 (11): 97–98. doi:10.5070/C9211030384.
8. ^ ""Noi donne", da Manduria per la Puglia". La Voce (in Italian). 27 December 2015. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
9. ^ Penelope Morris (2006). "The Harem Exposed: Gabriella Parca's Le italiane si confessano". In Penelope Morris (ed.). Women in Italy, 1945–1960: An Interdisciplinary Study. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. p. 126\. ISBN 978-0-230-60143-7.
10. ^ a b Mitchell V. Charnley (September 1953). "The Rise of the Weekly Magazine in Italy". Journalism Quarterly. 30 (4): 477. doi:10.1177/107769905303000405. S2CID 191530801.
11. ^ Nina Rothenberg (November 2006). "The Catholic and the Communist Women's Press in Post-War Italy—An Analysis of Cronache and Noi Donne". Modern Italy. 11 (3): 285–304. doi:10.1080/13532940600937053. S2CID 144034180.
12. ^ Stephen Gundle (November 1999). "Feminine Beauty, National Identity and Political Conflict in Postwar Italy, 1945-1954". Contemporary European History. 8 (3): 359–378. doi:10.1017/S0960777399003021. JSTOR 20081717. PMID 20120560. S2CID 35672081.
13. ^ a b Andrea Minuz (2015). Political Fellini: Journey to the End of Italy. New York; Oxford: Berghahn Books. p. 121\. ISBN 978-1-78238-820-3.
14. ^ Carl Ipsen (2016). Fumo: Italy's Love Affair with the Cigarette. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p. 162\. ISBN 978-0-8047-9839-6.
15. ^ a b c Wendy Pojmann (2013). Italian Women and International Cold War Politics, 1944-1968. New York: Fordham University Press. p. 93\. ISBN 978-0-8232-4560-4.
16. ^ Virginia A. Picchietti (2002). Relational Spaces: Daughterhood, Motherhood, and Sisterhood in Dacia Maraini's Writings and Films. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 143\. ISBN 978-0-8386-3896-5.
17. ^ Giuliana Bruno (1989). "The Image (and the) Movement: An Overview of Italian Feminist Research". Camera Obscura. 7 (2–3): 31. doi:10.1215/02705346-7-2-3_20-21-28.
18. ^ Dalila Missero (2019). "Playboys and the Cosmo Girls: Models of Femininity in Italian Men's and Women's Magazines and the Popularization of Feminist Knowledge". AboutGender. 8 (16): 90. doi:10.15167/2279-5057/AG2019.8.16.1103.
19. ^ Susan H. Greenberg (23 April 2001). "The Rise of the Only Child". Newsweek. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
20. ^ John Francis Lane (21 May 2007). "Obituary: Maria Macciocchi". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
21. ^ "Maria Antonietta Macciocchi". MEMIM Encyclopedia.
22. ^ a b Stephen Gundle (2000). Between Hollywood and Moscow: The Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass Culture, 1943–1991. Durham, NC; London: Duke University Press. p. 95\. ISBN 0-8223-2563-2.
23. ^ Steven Heilbronner (19 June 1994). "Lawyer Works To Change Italy's Rape Law". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 15 October 2016.

## External links

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* Official website