My goals in this book have been threefold: first, to explore the experience of women under Mussolini’s dictatorship: second, to study the creation and impact of fascist sexual politics in the light of broader changes in Italian society during the first part of this century; and, last, through comparisons with other European nations, to highlight how an avowedly fascist régime handled the entry of women into the age of mass politics in the wake of World War I and during the hard times of the 1930s.

This book thus proposes a double scope, as a synthesis and an interpretation. More than an exhaustive account of all of the multifarious patterns of state meddling, social custom, and sexual behavior, it is intended to provoke questions, invite comparisons, and stimulate research.

[…]

Class differences among women were as sharp as ever under the fascist régime, and the fascists exploited the diversity of social mores and sexual behaviors to isolate upper‐ and lower‐class women from one another. The régime’s social provisions mainly affected women of the lower classes; for abnormalities in the condition of their families were most likely to attract busybody social workers, and they were the most needy and had the fewest alternative sources of aid.

But no matter how highly placed the women were, or how personally secure, none were impervious to the antifemale policies of the régime. Keeping in mind class distinctions, along with differences of age and geographical provenance, I have sought here to document how official policies, reinforced by stereotypes circulated through the mass media, standardized public discourse about women.

(Emphasis added.)