Women at the Constituent Assembly

"Not for a spirit of chivalry but of loyal gratitude, I'd like to remember our colleagues in this moment. Let's not forget that for the first time, some Italian women have sat in this Chamber, and they, though bringing the voice of many political positions, have taught us that in the most important moments, when establishing the fundamental points for our life, they were able to find the most adapted words to express, unitedly, all Italian women's thoughts".

On 31st January 1948, taking grateful leave from the Constituent Assembly,  having reached the end of his work, the President Umberto Terracini pronounced these words in honor of all the Italian women who had participated.

In just a few words, the President let emerge some of the distinctive  features of women's experience at the Constituent Assembly. Above all the extraordinary nature of the event, marking an irreversible turning point in the political and social life of the country: the affirmation of the Italian women's right (duty) to take part as well, together with the Italian men. Secondly, demonstrating that the variety of geographical origin, of the educational level, of the political training and experience don't represent, as indeed they hadn't represented, an obstacle to the expression of a unitary and representative position of all Italian women, because there is a possibility of diverse and varied composition of reality and the 21 Consituents were an expression: the "arranged words", that is to say the dialogic and conciliatory "style". And finally, the ability to recognize the supremacy of the essential on the transient, to distinguish the "basic points" for the life of a country from those which aren't fundamental. Although coming from the most varied experiences of political militancy, engagement in female movements or in social solidarity,   ultimately all trained by the partisan resistence to the sacrifice of personal interest in the name of a common good, the 21 Members of the Constituent Assembly were able to put their diversities together with a view to the life of the Italian State of the time: the writing of the Constitutional Charter by women and for women.