Women in Arms: Images and Representations in Italy,
1848-49
This article examines the women who claimed their citizenship right to
carry (or demanded to carry) arms in the battles or barricades of the 1848-49
Italian revolutions. This subject is analyzed by using prints and caricatures
from the time and comparing them to those of the French Revolution and the
Jacobin Republics in Italy. The article explains how armed citizenship, claimed
by many women patriots, was linked with the proclamation of equality
between female and male nature, with oath, virile femininity and transvestism.
The women’s requests challenged gender roles and destabilized the balances
of power and the relationship between the sexes. Many men reacted by
portraying these requests as ridiculous and used sexual parody to condemn
them, showing femininity to be incompatible with a virtuous public sphere.