The feminist movement rose out of the general atmosphere of disruption and protest of the late 1960s. Despite its economic boom beginning in the mid-1950s, by the late 1960s Italy had one of the highest inflation rates of all the European nations, and worker's wages continued to fall way behind. Women joined with workers and students in the New Left critique of the status quo which challenged the traditional leftist Communist Party (PCI) and the Christian Democratic Party (DC). Spurned by widespread worker discontent strikes abounded, reaching their highest numbers in the years of 1968 and 1969. In the "Hot Autumn" of 1969 five million men and women participated in strikes and millions of hours of labor were lost. As women workers joined in the strikes they were frustrated by male dominance in the organizing roles: "women participated but men made the strike decisions" (Birnbaum 1986, 80). In reaction to frustration with male-run and organized protests as well as with women's issues being under-represented, women began marching in their own sections of the strikes with banners addressing women's needs both in the arenas of work and the home. The chaotic environment of the late 1960s, filled with protest and challenge, not only provoked women to "join in the fight" but also created an impetus for women to "speak for themselves," to self-represent their particular demands as opposed to being part and parcel of general worker or student discontent. In addition to participating in the forming of parties which represented the New Left such as the PDUP (Party of the Unified Proletariat for Communism) and the PR (Radical Party), women began to claim some of the main themes of the New Left for themselves, and to recognize their relevance in addressing women-specific issues. As participants in the New Left movement, which emphasized the "need to bypass the normal routes of institutional politics by substituting for them direct action and strong mobilizing tactics" and "openly questioned the validity of the existing party system" (Ergas, 260), women began to push these themes further, to use them as a basic vocabulary to build their own frame. Through incorporating the New Left ideas of anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarianism, and anti-imperialism and applying them to women's rights and women's concerns as oppressed individuals within a male dominated system, this new frame called for liberazione, signifying "a radical transformation of society" (Hellman 1989, 21). On March 8, 1969, women organized the first annual "international woman's day" in which the predominant theme, reflecting the general atmosphere of protest and proclaiming women's distinctive role within it, was women's liberation. Women carried banners, many with some variation on the following theme: "non c'e rivoluzione senza liberazione della donna. Non c'e liberazione della donna senza rivoluzione" or "there is no revolution without liberation of women, and no liberation of women without revolution" (Birnbaum 1986, 80) 

Political happenings such as the anti-divorce referendum led by the Christian Democratic Party in 1974 (which was voted down by 59% of the national electorate) and the rejection of the 1976 legalization of abortion bill in parliament by the DC and the Neo-Fascist Party, served to further galvanize and solidify the feminist movement's autonomy and identity as an alternative, extra-political movement which represented the only true voice of women. In 1975 the movement adopted pink as it's color to distinguish itself from the red of the New Left, and established its own symbol of a touching of index fingers and thumbs which replaced the New Left's symbol of a clenched fist.

In addition to acquiring an ideology based upon New Left theory, through their participation in the New Left movement women had developed leadership skills and gained access to political and organizational resources. These organizational abilities aided women in forming collectives and consciousness raising groups in which the new feminist ideology was espoused, demanding recognition and the denunciation of the "'consumeristic' exploitation of women both as housewives and as sexual objects; the 'imperialism' and the 'chauvinism' of male values; the 'authoritarianism' of male-female relations in the family, in politics, and in all other places of social interaction..." (Ergas 1982, 262). The feminist movement would accept "no existing sex roles, the emphasis of liberation struggle was on finding 'new ways of being' for women, not on enabling women to become equal to, i.e. like men, or acting as they do in society" (Ergas 1982, 262). Thus in utilizing liberation as their frame the women of this new feminist movement were not only calling attention to their literal oppression within the male dominated society, but also condemning the male methods of ordering and running society itself. As Hellman states of the autonomous feminist movement: 

It challenged the organization of private life into families, the organization of public life into political parties, the delegation of leadership to others, the authoritarian structure of the schools and other public institutions, and the separation of life into public and private spheres. Above all, those who shared this perspective saw women's traditional role in the family as a stabilizing mechanism and an economic contribution essential to a capitalist system. Thus, the liberation movement's attack on sex role divisions was posed by feminists as an attack on one of the foundations of capitalism, and, therefore, as a revolutionary act (Hellman 1989, 22).

The Christian Democratic Party (DC) although it remained steadfastly anti-divorce and anti-abortion, began to shift its traditional frame on women's issues to some degree in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. In response to pressures from women within the party, most particularly of their women's flanking organization the CIF (Centro Italiano Femminile), and in an attempt to retain their traditionally large base of women voters, both of whom were becoming more and more influenced by the frame of the autonomous feminist movement, the DC expanded and liberalized its policies on women in both the public and familial spheres. Traditionally having defined women's appropriate roles in the public realm as limited to the carriers of serious moral, social and civic responsibilities, meaning participation in such activities as volunteerism, or charity work, the DC expanded its frame to incorporate women as workers, supporting such bills as the equal pay act, and equal access to all professions. In evidence of their approval of women's equality within the home the DC supported the equal family rights law, passed in May of 1975, which spelled out equal rights for husbands and wives in choice of domicile, control over family finances, and education of children (Birnbaum 1986, 104). 

Drawing upon the stance of the autonomous/extra-political women's movement (that of women as different from men) and the platform of the Italian Communist Party (that of women as workers with equal rights),the Christian Democrats created their own new unique platform pertaining to women: that of wages for housewives. The wages for housewives theme incorporated women's unique role as housewife, distinct from men, and simultaneously presented the housewife as a worker who deserved equality of pay for her skills and labor. Thus, ironically, the Christian Democrats began to use the autonomous feminists' own theme of women as different from men (that which rejected capitalist society and called for women to claim their own unique power outside of the existing (male dominated) political and societal structures), to further credit their own traditional stance of women's unique strengths and abilities as wives and mothers. Furthermore, the DC began to use this premise of women's special power as wives and mothers to criticize the current economic system requiring women to work outside the home, stating that women "...are not permitted to fulfill the roles from which they derive their strength and contribute most to the nation" because they cannot "function as good mothers when the economy forces them to work" (Beckwith 1981, 232). In this sense the DC reflects the feminist theme of renouncing the "corrupt and oppressive" outside world, urging women to reject it and reclaim their unique power as wives and mothers. (Of course in so doing the DC/CIF is seeking to confirm women's traditional roles as wife and mother, while the feminist movement challenges these roles.) Secondly, and somewhat contradictorily, the DC adopted the frame of women as equals to men as workers outside of the home, which echoed the theme espoused by PCI/UDI women of emancipation. Thirdly, the DC began to redefine the family itself, and the women's roles within it, as a form of economic work. Curiously, as the DC began to describe the family as a refuge from the corrupt outer world of the economy, it simultaneously began describing the family as an "organization" and women's roles within it as "work" which deserved to be paid, like any other job in the public sphere of the workplace. The family was no longer presented as the "the mainstay of patriarchy and social authority, but rather as an 'organization for providing services, the satisfaction of needs, a place of consumption, and a compensatory refuge from the outside world" (Beckwith 1981, 232). This view of the family as an "organization" with women "workers" within it manifested in the CIF/ DC "wages for housewives initiative" conference held in Padua in 1972, and in the "wages for housewives" bill presented by the DC to parliament in 1979.

In the atmosphere of worker's strikes and protests in the late 1960s, the women active within the Italian Communist Party (PCI), most significantly those of the UDI (Unione delle Donne, the PCI women's flanking organization), continued their identification as workers and fought for equal rights with men in the public sphere. The women of PCI/UDI often framed their goal as emancipazione : to make women equal to men (equal to here was interpreted by many feminists as dissatisfactory because it connoted being "like men") meaning that each has equal status under the law. The PCI in conjunction with the UDI led the way in drafting bills relating to women's rights in the workplace as well as within the family: the PCI began to "promote itself as the party best equipped to deal with women's issues, such as family rights, day care provisions, and equality in employment, particularly equal pay" (Beckwith 1981, 236). This frame of "emancipation" in relation to women's public and workplace roles was viewed by cultural feminists as "limited and reformist" while their own theme, that of "liberation", was seen as radical and revolutionary, moving beyond the public sphere to incorporate the personal and psychological (Hellman 1989, 21). 

As the feminist movement began gaining force in the early to mid 1970s, its influence upon the women actors within the UDI and PCI became more pronounced. By the mid-seventies the PCI began expanding its frame on women, addressing issues of women's sexuality, reproductive rights, and male-female relations. The PCI initiated the drafting of the bill for women's health clinics (birth control information) which passed into law in 1976. As one feminist PCI member observed, this change reflected the "the growing influence of the (autonomous) feminist movement as the slogans and watchwords of feminism came into common use" (Hellman 1989, 21). This change became evident in the Communist Party's use of the phrase emancipation and liberation as well as the acceptance by the party of "feminism's critique of women's role in capitalist society, if not all of feminism's critique of the traditional left itself" (Hellman 1989, 22). The turning point, many agree, came in February 1976 at the Sixth National Conference of Communist Women when Geraraldo Chiaromonte, a member of the Secretariot and Directoriate of the PCI "'extended a hand to feminists'" through employing the term of "liberation which had hitherto been used by communists only in a derogatory sense, and by undertaking an autocritica, a self criticism, of the limits of the Communists' previous conception of the woman question" (Hellman 1989, 22).

At the fourteenth party congress in 1976, the head of the PCI, Berlinger, publicly acknowledged that the party had been inattentive to feminist issues and recognized the role of women within the party in bringing women's issues to the forefront. He stated that although the party had made progress "thanks to the commitment, the spirit of initiative, of our female comrades...we are still far from having organically incorporated the women question in the daily activities of the whole party, in our work programs, and in our issues for study" (Berlinger as cited in Beckwith 1981, 236). At the fifteenth party congress held in March of 1979, the PCI gave even greater attention to women's issues including "more radical or explicitly feminist issues" such as increased participation of women in party leadership positions and in party parliamentary elections, as well as increased efforts in "strengthening party ties with social movements such as the autonomous feminist movement, issues of sexuality and male-female relationships" (Beckwith 1981, 236) At the fifteenth party congress Ugo Pecchoili, a member of the PCI Central Committee and Directorate and a senator since 1972, acknowledged that the feminist movement was responsible for persuading the PCI to adopt some feminist positions and show concern for the status of women within the party (Beckwith 1981). He reiterated the importance of how Communist women were a strong component of the party and admitted that the party had been most active on women's issues in response to feminist pressure "when women had initiated the political debate" (Beckwith 1981, 237).

The actual theses of the 1979 Communist Party's fifteenth congress not only reflects the influence of the autonomous feminist movement on party policies, but acknowledges this influence and declares a desire to further a working relationship between the autonomous feminist movement and the party. The theses illustrate a commitment to addressing women's roles within the party, in society, and in personal life. Women's sexuality and relations with men are pointed to as a party concern moving beyond the previous, simpler notion of women as workers with equal rights to men as workers: "The worker's movement must grow in its capacity to struggle for a rapport between men and women, founded on respect and equality; for a family based on common responsibility; for a society which, in its diverse manifestations, confronts the major problems of the masses of women" (Beckwith 1981, 237). In support of a partnership with the feminist movement the theses stated the following :"...in order to win the liberation [note the use of the cultural feminists' term!] of women [who] are in a state of subjection and inferiority, a democratic movement is necessary, one which has the strength to bring not only economic and social change, but civil, cultural, and behavioral change as well" (Beckwith 1981, 237). Most importantly the theses proclaimed:

a commitment of the worker's movement to a family which confronts, within the family and in society, the issues of housework and the 'refusal of women to be considered sex objects'; signaling our own political action, [which is] gathering strength from the new subjectivity of the masses of women, and the transformation of the relationship, accepted as given until now, between family and society and between male and female roles (Beckwith 1981, 237). 

Thus at the fifteenth party congress the PCI significantly amended its frame which the cultural/autonomous feminist movement had been so critical of, moving beyond emancipation seeing women as equal to and side by side with male oppressed workers, to one of liberation, which acknowledged women as equal and as having specific demands and needs in the arenas of sexuality, relations with men, and reproduction. It was in this fifteenth party congress that the PCI admitted that the woman question was not "automatically resolvable by overcoming class conflict" (Beckwith 1981, 237). By the late 1970s the autonomous feminist movement had made its mark within the PCI: liberazione was accepted and utilized as the frame pertaining to women.

Despite the incorporation of the feminist liberation frame in the area of sexuality, birth control, and male-female relations, the PCI's stance on abortion, though it supported legalization, was not one of pure self-determination of the woman. The DC of course remained adamantly opposed to abortion, despite opening and expanding its frame on many women's issues. What remains impressive however is the powerful influence that the extra-political feminist movement had on cultivating a pro-abortion stance within the PCI (albeit in moderated form), and the role that the movement played in the DC's abstention from voting on the bill in 1978. 

The abortion controversy in the years of 1975 to 1981 in the context of the framing of the issue by the autonomous feminist movement, the PCI, and the DC, yields the following: the autonomous feminist's frame and the frame of the DC on the issue remained consistent, and the PCI's frame changed significantly in favor of the feminist frame due to the influence of the feminist movement and the activism by the UDI women (who were often responding to the influence of the autonomous feminist movement). Despite the consistent anti-abortion stance of the DC, their abstaining from the vote on the pro-abortion bill in 1978 was a significant factor in the bill's successful passing through parliament. As will become clear in the discussion below, the reason for their abstention stems from a combination of their response to feminist pressures, and a manifestation of their compliance to their working relationship with the PCI. The limitations that the PCI placed on the bill (which displeased the feminists) were strategic in part to maintain their working relationship with the DC, and to ensure that the DC followed through with their word of abstaining from the vote. Thus the limits placed on the bill, resulting in a somewhat confounding frame which incorporated themes of self-determination and morality, were a result of an attempt to appease the DC, as well as the more traditionally Catholic members of the PCI party itself. 

In February of 1975, the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional several articles of the legal code (introduced under Fascism) governing abortion. Thus the ensuing legislative confusion made it imperative for parliament to establish a new law (Ergas 1982, 265). The Socialist and Communist Party's initial proposals in response to the Constitutional Court's decision attributed the decision making power on abortion to a committee of medical specialists who would be required to "certify that serious harm to a woman's life would ensue from pregnancy and childbirth" before permitting the woman to have an abortion (Ergas 1982, 265). These fairly weak reform proposals engendered a mobilization campaign led by the autonomous feminist movement, as well as a significant reaction within the UDI, ultimately leading to its declared its independence from the PCI on this issue, and its initiation of an alternative proposal which would become the final bill voted on in parliament 1976 and again in 1978.

In addition to the abortion issue serving to galvanize mobilization within the feminist movement, it also provided a unifying theme for the movement, a basis for "internal cohesion" and a process of female identification that favored recruitment (Ergas 1982, 266). In addition to the abortion issue creating a concrete issue to organize around, it provided the feminist movement with a distinct opportunity for an us verses them frame, with us being women's solidarity and they being the male-dominated government. In many ways abortion functioned as a "'breakthrough"' issue for the feminist movement: as the "only component of the abortion campaign that was ideologically equipped to underscore the sexual antagonism revealed by the official party system's proposals, and as the strongest center of women's organizational capacity, the feminist movement came to represent one of the main points of reference for women, whether or not they had other political affiliations" (Ergas 1982, 266). 

By the summer of 1975, women's collectives began to form and expanded into all areas of social life including neighborhood communities, work places, and schools. Neighborhood collectives established women's health centers in several cities (Ergas 1982, 267). In October 1975, Turin's coordinating committee held a national meeting in Bologna and a series of initiatives were decided upon, culminating in a national pro-abortion demonstration to be held on December 6, in Rome. It was decided that the march would be "separatist" and that banners would carry only the names of women's organizations. UDI and PCI women's commissions officially refused to participate although some Communist women did participate as represented by one woman who carried a banner stating: Sono del PCI eppure sono qui which means: I am of the Italian Communist Party but I am here also (Ergas 1982, 267). The predominant slogan concerning abortion espoused at the march in which over 50,000 women participated was "aborto libero, gratuito, and assistito" which signifies the following basic points: that the woman would be the only decision maker, and that the state recognize abortion as a form of necessary health care, subsidizing it and making adequate provisions in medical facilities (Ergas 1982, 271). The summary of the feminist frame on the abortion issue was the right of all women to self-determination. 

In 1976, in response to both external feminist pressures such as the Rome demonstration, as well as action on the part of the UDI women, an amended, more liberal, pro-abortion bill was proposed by the PCI to the Parliamentary Committee. This modified bill was initiated by the women of the UDI in response to the prior, more strict proposal of the PCI (as described above). The bill was defeated due to its joint rejection by the Christian Democrats and the Neo-Fascist parties, engendering another extensive mobilization/protest among women. A nationwide demonstration was staged on April 3, again organized and coordinated by the feminist movement, this time with participation of the UDI and the Republican, Socialist, and Communist parties. 

In response to the external pressures from the feminist movement, as well as the internal activism of UDI and PCI women, the pro-abortion bill was again brought before parliament in 1978. The Christian Democratic Party, daunted by the widespread protests following its rejection of the bill in April of 1976, as well as heeding its working relationship with the PCI which had begun following the June 1976 elections, abstained from voting on the bill. Since the 1976 elections, the new leadership which emerged within the Christian Democratic Party aimed at re-legitimising the party as a popular force (Ergas 1982). Due to falling popularity, a loss of votes (which I would argue began with their anti-divorce referendum which was voted down by a 59% majority in 1974), and the widespread protests following their rejection of the 1976 bill, Zaccagnini, the new party secretary, steered the party way from stances which could provoke widespread opposition. To "...to avoid a repeat of the reaction that had been aroused by the joint vote with the Fascists in the spring of 1976, the Christian Democrats decided to abstain from the final vote in Parliament on abortion, thereby enabling the new legislation to be approved in 1978" (Ergas 1982, 271).

It is important to recognize that the success of the bill was a result of a combination of factors: the external pressure and protest of feminists, the internal activism of the UDI, the moderated form of the bill which appeased the Catholic members of the PCI (as well as enabled the DC to abstain from voting on the measure without too much offense), and the DC's literal abstention from voting (which was a result of its necessary alliance with the PCI and its fear of another disruptive protest by the feminist movement). The feminists were disappointed in the limitations attached to the bill and yet without those limits, the bill may not have passed at all. Many feminists naturally denounced the PCI's alliance with the DC and yet without it the PCI very well may not have been able to exercise the clout to get the bill passed through parliament. 

The legal right for a woman to obtain an abortion was passed. A review of the framing of the bill in its final form (which had been initially drafted by the UDI women) is as follows: the bill did allow for women's self-determination but required the authorization of a physician, and allowed for the physician to conscientiously object (on moral grounds) to granting authorization. It also utilized the term "social circumstances" (replacing the "serious risk to a woman's health" which had been in the early drafts of the Communist and Socialist bills), as sufficient motivation for abortion. This phrase created a loophole through which it could be expected that the abortions would actually be made free "...without compelling the authorities to accept fully the principle of self-determination" (Ergas 1982, 272). Lastly women of teenage years were required to obtain parental consent and a clause indicated that the physician authorizing the abortion ought to "consult the 'presumed father of the conceived' unless the mother specifically objected" (Ergas 1982, 272). Despite the final decision to be left in the hands of the individual woman many feminists felt that it invoked only "partial character of women's rights to self-determination...that the process of seeking approval was a yoke to be passed under" and that it was, in this way, "a symbolic tribute to patriarchy" (Ergas 1982, 272).

In speaking of framing strategies in reference to the abortion issue, the feminist frame remained fixed from its outset in beginning of the mid-1970s and was consistent with the overall theme of the autonomous feminist movement: women's complete self-determination with no strings attached compliments the general feminist theme of complete liberation from "male-dominated" political and social structures. The feminist movement's frame on abortion served as a clear issue, a concrete stance that the movement could organize around and utilize in confrontation with the existing political structure at large. The feminist frame on abortion rights, projected in the form of protests and demonstrations, greatly influenced the final framing of the bill which became law in 1978. It was the women of the Italian Communist Party and the UDI, the women activists within the political structure, who employed framing strategies which incorporated many of the feminist demands on abortion and appeased the Catholics within the party, culminating in a final and successful frame of compromise. The final framing of the legalization of abortion bill in 1978 also proved to be successful with the public at large as demonstrated in 1981, with the overwhelming rejection of the new anti-abortion bill proposed by the Democratic Christian Party in conjunction with Papal approval and the Italian right-to-life movement. The Italians voted to uphold the 1978 bill in a national referendum by a 70% majority: thereby rejecting both the DC's bill and also the alternative bill of the PR (Radical Party), which proposed the feminist stance of complete self-determination.

In speaking of the Italian women's movement as a whole it becomes clear that the autonomous feminist movement invoked a tremendous effect on both the Communist Party and the Christian Democrats in regards to their approach to women's issues. Because their focal point of action was outside of the existing political structures, the women of the feminist movement were able to maintain complete freedom and control over their framing of women's issues. They exhibited powerful influence over the processes concerning women's rights within the political structure but never compromised their own frame. The abortion issue illustrates this perfectly: the feminist movement presented the frame of women's legal right to an abortion through self-determination and voiced their frame through protests, marches, and in the forums of collectives and consciousness raising groups. The strength of their movement influenced internal political processes, and the members of the political parties wrestled with the feminist pro-abortion frame, adjusting it to incorporate the broader support required for its successful passing through parliament in 1978. 

As the focus of this paper was framing strategies, I did not directly discuss the importance of voting power and elections. However it is important to note that many of the framing adjustments which were made in reference to women's issues within the political structure, as in the Communist Party and the Christian Democratic Party in particular, were not solely in response to the new and alternative frames being voiced and projected by the autonomous feminist movement through mobilization and protest, but also a result of the literal pressure exhibited through voting procedures. To clarify, although the feminist movement was generally extra-political in the sense of operating outside of the political sphere, many women of the feminist movement did exercise their voting power as a lever, alternating between active participation in voting and withdrawing in order to further their cause. 

Following are some examples: in the case of the DC's anti-divorce referendum in 1974, 59% of the national electorate went to the polls to decisively reject the referendum, many of them being feminist women. This resounding rejection had a ripple effect, further galvanizing the activism of the autonomous women's movement and producing direct pressure on the DC to open up and embrace more progressive policies concerning women in an attempt to retain its electoral base of women. The DC proceeded to approve the equal family rights law in 1975. 

However in regards to abortion, the DC remained adamant in its opposition, rejecting the 1976 legalization of abortion bill in the early spring of 1976. This engendered massive protests and mobilization of women, as well as the DC's low percentage of votes in the elections in June of 1976 (support for the DC had not been that low since 1946). This low percentage of votes then necessitated the DC to enter into working coalition with the PCI. This coalition with the PCI, combined with fear of further protest that their rejection caused in 1976, caused them to shy away from voting on the abortion bill in 1978, allowing it to pass. 

In regards to the Italian Communist Party, many feminists voted for the party in the 1976 elections in support of the its initiatives regarding equal family rights laws as well as reproductive rights. The large turn out of women supporters served to swell the PCI's numbers in parliament: the PCI obtained 33% of the votes, a very close second to the DC's 35% (its lowest number since 1946- as noted above) again probably due to its anti-divorce referendum in 1974 and rejection of the 1976 abortion bill. In the 1979 elections however, the feminists withdrew much of their support from the PCI, due to disappointment with the PCI's alliance with the DC, and the limited format of the 1978 abortion bill, causing the PCI to sustain a loss in the elections. This in turn engendered the PCI to break off its working coalition with the DC, as well as extend overtures to the feminist movement in its fifteenth party congress of 1979, in which it for the first time, fully acknowledged the feminist stance of liberation. Thus one begins to understand the complexity of social and political change, the necessary, combined importance of mobilization, protest, elections, and framing in making change happen. 

Beckwith, Karen. (1981). Women and Parliamentary Politics in Italy, 1946-1979. In Penniman, Howard R. (Ed.), Italy at the Polls, 1979: A Study of the Parliamentary Elections. London: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Reseach. 

Birnbaum, Lucia Chiavola. (1986). Liberazione delle Donna. Middletown. Wesleyan University Press.

Ergas, Yasmine. (1982). 1968-79: Feminism in the Italian Party System: Women's Politics in a Decade of Turmoil. Comparative Politics, April, 252-275.

Hellman, Judith Adler. (1989). The Originality of Italian Feminism. Italian Studies, v 7, 15-23.