A long-term history of women and the sciences in Italian universities

History, like sociology, helps us to grasp and deal with the present. From this perspective the essay offers those involved in equal opportunities in the sciences quantitative data on the history of the relations between women, science and technology in the Italian university between 1877 and 2005. Between 1877, the first year a woman obtained a degree, and 1900, only 224 women obtained a degree in Italy, of which 72 in science or medicine. And yet, in less than ninety years the number of women graduated has overtaken the number of male graduated: this occurred in 1992. What, then, in the course of the twentieth century, through two world wars, fascism, and the processes of industrialisation, was the history of the extraordinary progress which saw women Italian university students pass from exclusion to a majority? What specifically were the relationships between women (students and teachers) and science faculties?