ABSTRACT
As in other national contexts, there has been a persistent and as yet unresolved tension between Italian women's reproductive and productive roles. In the post-war period, 1 the maternal role of Italian women has historically been privileged above other roles, although more recently there have been moves towards a more equitable accommodation of women's multiple social identities. These trends have led to parallel but differentiated gender models for Italian women and migrant women and in subsequent chapters I will be arguing that, in contrast to Italian women, migrant women's labour identity has been privileged above other social identities. This chapter will establish the nature and direction of Italian debates on women, providing a specifically gendered framework within which to situate the experiences of migrant women. Given that the post-war debate on gender is so vast, I shall concentrate my discussion on providing an account of the tension between family work and paid work with reference to a few limited areas -the Italian Constitution, legislation regarding work and maternity and the empirical realities of women's family and work experiences. The activities of political feminists in the postwar period will also be addressed.
