In the Name of Equality. Women's Action to Shape the Right to Work in the Italian Constituent Assembly

Investigating women’s actions in the Constituent Assembly on the affirmation of rights to equal pay and access to all professions requires starting from a consideration of the role and identity women have in that specific historical phase. It is, therefore, worthwhile considering how women become—or rather long to become—active participants in the Reconstruction of their country from the Resistance until obtaining the right to vote the ratification of the Constitution. The Constituent Assembly is the institutional stage in which issues already present in the political debate are addressed, and the place where their implementation into strategies can be influenced by the constitutional dictate that women help define when acting as a unified group, even if bearers of different political stances and cultures. Work is the one issue around which they are most cohesive and thus contribute to clarifying important articles of the Constitution. The difficulty in countering a culture that is frequently misogynistic, sometimes unconsciously so, emerges with a certain frequency in the Constituents’ debates and reaches a climax in the debate on access to the professions, in particular to the judiciary. It emerges as an issue requiring a transformative outlook and mentality not only by the major parties but also by the trade unions, where women have been active for decades, and where they expect to be listened to attentively, but which is not often the case in practice.