Movimento femminile e democrazia in Sicilia: la Consulta regionale femminile del 1977

This chapter aims to reconstruct the history of the political mobilization of Italian women. It focuses on the movement that from the early Seventies involved women active in Sicilian women's associations, political parties, and trade unions and, with them, militants who did not belong to any organization. In particular, the essay analyses the role played by the Italian Communist Party in introducing Italian women to the political arena of democratic Italy. In Sicily, one of the results of this mass mobilization and political participation was the political institutionalization into the Sicilian Regional Women's Council, established on 7 May 1977 with regional law number 272. In this context, the essay in particular analyses the case of the communist Simona Mafai in the local and national women mobilization, and in the Italian Communist Party in Sicily.