“La giovane nella famiglia. Consigli di una vecchia nonna”. Women’s Writing and Writing for Women in Nineteenth-Century Italy

The period following Italian unification was characterized for women by the start of long drawn-out battles for the conquest of full citizenship, on both a social and political level. This period saw the emergence of certain leading figures, among whom were numerous writers who, at least in the early years, still often expressed contrasting views with regards the “female issue”. Such contrasts in my mind can be traced back to the complex transitional stage between the Risorgimento struggle, which saw the active participation of women as leading speakers in political debate in salons, in the streets, and on the barricades, and the post-unification period that saw women return to the privacy of the home.