With reference to source 9.14 and your understanding of the historical context, assess the
value of the source to a historian studying life for women in Fascist Italy.
Both the content and provenance of the source make it valuable to a historian studying life
for women in Fascist Italy. The source displays some of the first-hand, contemporary
opinions of women living in Italy in 1937, providing the historian an insight into what life
was like for a proportion of Italian females under the Fascist regime.
The content of the source is useful to a historian studying life for women in Fascist Italy
because it presents their opinions on having children, something widely encouraged by the
Fascist regime. The results of the survey cited in the source detail how young women
“regarded babies as burdensome” and “considered one or two children at best”. This is
interesting as it presents the failure of Mussolini’s “Battle for Births”, a policy introduced ten
years prior, in 1927, that was designed to encourage and pressure couples into getting
married and having more children so that Mussolini’s target population figure of 60 million
could be attained by 1950. The “Battle for Births” encompassed a wide range of policies,
including the outlawing of contraception and the introduction of penalties, such as the
Bachelor’s Tax, to enhance the number of babies conceived. Despite the regime’s stringent
efforts, the “Battle for Births” can be concluded as a failure, as exemplified by the source, as
the birth rate continued to decline between 1927 and 1936, only beginning to slightly
increase after 1936. The source is therefore valuable to a historian studying life for women
in Fascist Italy as it presents how young women had little interest in having children,
insinuating that they were preoccupied with other aspects of their life.
Furthermore, the content of the source is useful to a historian studying life for women in
Fascist Italy for it concludes detail of women’s reasons for study. The source states that
women “studied in order to qualify for a job”, presenting how young women aspired to get
a job, either out of want or necessity. This challenges Mussolini’s ideals for Fascist women
as he wanted to limit the number of women in employment in order to maximize their child-
bearing potential. Mussolini favoured the conservative belief that a women’s role was to be
a mother and housewife, not a worker. Mussolini tried to bring his ideal to fruition by
excluding women from certain jobs from the mid-20s, and imposing a limit of 10% on state
jobs for women in 1933. Women in Fascist Italy, however, were not discouraged from
getting jobs, and in 1936, still made up 33% of the workforce. The source is thus useful to a
historian studying life for women in Fascist Italy because it can be said to either reflect the
progressive attitudes of young women- they had higher aspirations for themselves than just
having children- or, alternatively, the economic struggles within Italy that forced even the
women from the “professional classes” to work out of necessity.
The provenance of the source is also useful to a historian studying life for women in Fascist
Italy. Firstly, the date of the source is valuable to a historian studying life in Fascist Italy. By
1937, Fascist youth organisations had been firmly established as part of Mussolini’s
indoctrination of the youth; he strived to create a new generation of loyal youth, who were
dedicated to the ideology, and who would help to preserve it in the future. There were
separate organisations for boys and girls; the organisations designed for boys aimed to
create militaristic young men prepared to fight for Mussolini and Italy, whereas the
