“I had been living in Italy for more than ten years already,” writes Yvonne Scholten, “when I was told that women had been the moving power behind the biggest strikes againt Fascism....” Feminism in Italy is today one of the most active and visible political movements in Europe, but the history of women's political activity in Italy unearthed by Scholten in Donna comprises a century of fighting that has largely been omitted from the books. Donna is thus a landmark document of women's history, as well as a fascinating overview of twentieth-century Italian politics.
Scholten's perspective locates feminism as a world view, and one which has traditionally threatened the Church, the Right, and the Left. Taking off from color cinematography that sets a specifically Italian scene, Scholten goes on to combine rare archival photographs, newsreels, and interview footage to relate the role of women in the Italian Socialist and Fascist movements from the turn of the century to the present. Particularly revealing is her treatment of the women Partisans during World War II when, according to former Partisans interviewed, their work “was not considered underground work - it was ordinary women's work” - for which 3,000 women were shot or hanged. Joyce Lussa, for example, did her “women's work” risking her life as a long-distance courier, giving birth to her child along the way. “The power was with the men...there was respect, and solidarity, but not equality.”