Molly Tambor. The Lost Wave

Historical accounts of Italy during the 1950s have long focused on foreign relations and Cold War politics with less attention directed toward domestic politics. This trend has occurred for two reasons. First, the prevailing assumption has been that little independent policymaking took place because of Italy’s frontline position in the battle against Communism and the Christian Democrats’ (CD) close relationship with the United States. Second, it is often argued that CD-led coalition governments succeeded, in the name of anti-Communism, in stifling the expectations triggered by the resistance experience and the defeat of Fascism; hence no significant political and social change would seem to have occurred in those years. Such historical narrative holds some elements of truth. However, as Molly Tambor argues in her insightful book, this picture of the 1950s as a stagnant decade is not entirely accurate, at least as far as women’s rights are concerned. During those years, Italy’s parliament approved several laws that addressed blatant forms of women’s discrimination in the workplace and society.

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