Abstract
This chapter explores the way that motherhood was represented and debated in Italian magazine advice columns of the 1950s, a time of burgeoning success for the illustrated magazine and also the period that saw the emergence of the stereotype of mammismo. A study of four contrasting magazines, Grazia, Famiglia cristiana, Noi donne and Epoca, it discusses not only the normative prescriptions of some publications, but also the ways in which advice columnists attempted to establish a genuine dialogue with their readers and, to varying degrees, to respond to their interests and anxieties. It also gives an insight into the prevalence of mammismo in popular discourse, and, in Epoca and the writing of its columnist Alba de Céspedes, a specifically female perspective on the causes and durability of the stereotype.
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Notes
- 1.
D’Amelia, La mamma, p. 15. Alvaro, “Il mammismo.”
- 2.
The Catholic Church and Christian Democrat government were vociferous in promoting an idealized image of self-sacrificing, devoted motherhood, at its most perfect in the impossible example of the Virgin Mary, but the Communist Party too, despite its apparent advocacy of equality, also put forward a largely traditional view of the role of women. See Willson, Women, pp. 112–48 and Morris, “Introduction,” Women in Italy.
- 3.
See Anna Lisa Carlotti, “Editori e giornali a Milano,” p. 184, quoted in Forgacs and Gundle, Mass Culture, pp. 95–123.
- 4.
See Forgacs and Gundle, Mass Culture and Bellassai, La morale comunista.
- 5.
See Morris, “A Window” and Morris, “From Private to Public.”
- 6.
Claire Langhamer’s The English in Love considers advice columns alongside other sources, while David Gudelunas looks at newspaper advice columns to analyse sexual education in America (Confidential to America) and Paul Ryan focuses on a single advice column in Asking Angela Macnamara.
- 7.
In Noi donne, for example, readers’ full names and addresses sometimes appear, and at other times readers are invited to correspond privately with the columnist on particularly awkward issues (this also happens in Famiglia cristiana). Giuliana dal Pozzo and Alba de Céspedes both argue strongly that they do not invent letters.
- 8.
West, “‘What’ as Ideal.”
- 9.
For a more detailed discussion of advice columns as discursive space in 1950s Italy, see Morris, “A Window,” pp. 309–14.
- 10.
See Orton-Johnson, “Mummy Blogs.” For a discussion of “Mamme blog” in Italy see Marina d’Amelia, “Cambia il mestiere.”
- 11.
Publishing was still a very patriarchal industry. Apart from the left-wing women’s magazine Noi donne, all the magazines discussed had male editors, and, as will be discussed, not even all the “agony aunts” were actually female.
- 12.
Donna Letizia, Il saper vivere, updated in 1990 as Il nuovo saper vivere di Donna Letizia. A collection of letters from the column was published in 1981 under her real name, Colette Rosselli (Cara Donna Letizia…).
- 13.
Throughout the chapter Signora Quickly will be referred to as “she” as the discussion centres on the fictional persona.
- 14.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 14 October 1950.
- 15.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 7 July 1951.
- 16.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 7 July 1951.
- 17.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 26 June 1950.
- 18.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 11 July 1954.
- 19.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 3 July 1955.
- 20.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 30 September 1950.
- 21.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 27 July 1955.
- 22.
“Ditelo pure,”Grazia, 30 September 1950.
- 23.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 6 Sept 1953.
- 24.
“Saper vivere,” Grazia, 8 July 1956.
- 25.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 13 January 1951.
- 26.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 17 January 1953.
- 27.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 8 July 1956.
- 28.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 30 May 1954.
- 29.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 25 December 1955.
- 30.
“Ditelo pure,” Grazia, 17 June 1956.
- 31.
See Reich, Beyond the Latin Lover.
- 32.
In 1954 the magazine had a print run of 250,000, which grew to 1 million by 1960 (Forgacs and Gundle, Mass Culture, p. 258). For print runs of other magazines at the time see Ajello, Lezioni di giornalismo, p. 89.
- 33.
Forgacs and Gundle, Mass Culture, p. 259.
- 34.
“Just as parents are both responsible for generating children, God has established that both parents should co-operate with each other” (“Cerchiamo,” Famiglia cristiana, 4 January 1953).
- 35.
“Cerchiamo,” Famiglia cristiana, 11 December 1955.
- 36.
“Cerchiamo,” Famiglia cristiana, 7 June 1953. The view is echoed in later years. In 1956, for example, he approved of a mother who continued to have children against medical advice (8 January 1956).
- 37.
“Cerchiamo,” Famiglia cristiana, 7 March 1954.
- 38.
Noi donne, May–June 1957. Topics included teenage motherhood, abortion, maternity services, work and motherhood, the law and motherhood.
- 39.
On UDI, see Willson, Women, pp. 139–44. See also, Harris, “Noi donne and Famiglia cristiana,” and Rothenburg, “The Catholic and Communist Women’s Press.”
- 40.
On Communism, consumerism and modernity in 1950s Italy, see Gundle, Between Hollywood and Moscow.
- 41.
Estimated by Noi donne in 1957 to be around 28,000 per year (“Forbidden Maternity,” 26 May 1957).
- 42.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, UDI was involved mainly in PCI campaigns, but from the mid-1950s distanced itself somewhat from the party. Once Giuliana dal Pozzo became editor, “Noi donne frequently diverged from the official PCI line in matters connected to the private sphere” (Willson, Women, p. 141).
- 43.
A typical example is when in 1951 she offers her reader a “motherly piece of advice” (17 June 1951).
- 44.
“Fermo posta,” Noi donne, 3 June 1951.
- 45.
On the maternal and the Resistance more broadly, see Bravo and Bruzzone, In guerra senza armi.
- 46.
Seymour, Debating Divorce, pp. 171–72.
- 47.
“Parliamone insieme,” Noi donne, 9 February 1958.
- 48.
“Parliamone insieme,” Noi donne, 16 June 1956.
- 49.
“Parliamone insieme,” Noi donne, 23 January 1959.
- 50.
“Parliamone insieme,” Noi donne, 17 February 1957.
- 51.
“Parliamone insieme,” Noi donne, 29 March 1959.
- 52.
Forgacs and Gundle, Mass Culture, p. 110.
- 53.
The column appeared from 1952 to 1958. Another significant letters column in Epoca was “Italia risponde,” penned originally by Cesare Zavattini.
- 54.
De Céspedes, Dalla parte di lei.
- 55.
Prior to Dalla parte di lei, de Céspedes had published short stories, and, in 1938, the hugely successful Nessuno torna indietro. For a full annotated bibliography and a series of excellent in-depth essays, see Zancan, Alba de Céspedes. See also Carroli, Esperienza e narrazione and Nerenberg, Writing beyond Fascism.
- 56.
See Morris, “From Private to Public.”
- 57.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, issue 90, 1952.
- 58.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 20 December 1952.
- 59.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 20 December 1952.
- 60.
Caldwell, Italian Family Matters, p. 151.
- 61.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 4 January 1953.
- 62.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 20 September 1952.
- 63.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 20 September 1952.
- 64.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 17 January 1953.
- 65.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 21 November, 1953.
- 66.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 28 March 1953.
- 67.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 3 October 1954.
- 68.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 31 January 1953.
- 69.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 20 February 1955.
- 70.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 20 February 1955.
- 71.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 14 November 1954.
- 72.
References to homosexuality are not entirely absent from advice columns in the 1950s, but usually it was a matter of euphemistic inferences (Morris, “A Window,” pp. 323–24).
- 73.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 14 November 1954.
- 74.
“Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 23 August 1952.
- 75.
See “Dalla parte di lei,” Epoca, 8 May 1955.
- 76.
Quaderno proibito, p. 217.
- 77.
See Ursula Fanning’s chapter in this volume.
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Morris, P. (2018). Problems and Prescriptions: Motherhood and Mammismo in Postwar Italian Advice Columns and Fiction. In: Morris, P., Willson, P. (eds) La Mamma. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54256-4_4
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