Pedagogical methodology for applying a gender perspective to the study of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes.
Session 1. Women, norm and deviance under fascism (introductory lesson)Session 2. Political repression, psychiatrisation and source-reading methodology
Session 3. Dossier workshop: women, repression and gender categories
To provide a historicalconceptual framework for understanding how fascism constructs gender norms and how those norms can translate into practices of control and repression.
Introductory session devoted to the construction of the “normal woman” under fascism and to the mechanisms by which norm, propaganda and morality became instruments of control.
The session linked the cultural and symbolic dimension to the regime’s policies (motherhood as public duty, controlled mobilisation) and to the junction leading from non-conformity to the classification of women as “dangerous”, up to the two main repressive channels (the political-police apparatus and the psychiatric apparatus).
Guiding question: what does it mean to be a “normal woman” under fascism? What happens to those who step outside the norm?
Materials / evidence
Introductory slides; collection of responses.
Difference between women’s history and gender history; gender as a social and political rule.
Materials / evidence
Conceptual tools” slides; board
Motherhood as patriotic mission; woman as social function; functional visibility and controlled mobilisation.
Materials / evidence
“General framework” and “Women and politics” slides.
The double message of propaganda; morality/reputation as control; categories that prepare interventions.
Materials / evidence
“ Propaganda and control” slides
Norm–transgression–label–institution; distinction between political and moral/medical labels.
Materials / evidence
“Crucial junction” slides
Closing question: to describe or to decide? Who speaks in the documents and what intervention does each one prepare?
Materials / evidence
Final slide; brief debrief.
Oral contributions and class map on “normal”/“nonconforming”.
Shared list of categories and keywords useful for reading documents in subsequent sessions.
Each student receives an exit ticket with three questions, from which they must choose one and answer before leaving the classroom.
Some examples of student responses:
- I used to think that dictatorship and totalitarian regime were synonyms; now I think they are 2 different regimes.
- I had never reflected on the condition of women.
- How much courage was needed during that era.
- Women were aware of the repressive condition –women aligned themselves with the model imposed by the totalitarian state.
