Anna Nicolosi Grasso e la battaglia dell’UDI di Palermo per la parità di genere nella scuola degli anni Cinquanta

Anna Nicolosi Grasso (1913-1986) was a leading figures in the Sicilian women’s movement for equality, emancipation and liberation, togheter with UDI, the Italian Women’s Union established in Palermo in 1944. In the immediate post-war years, when Palermo was under Anglo-American administration and new democratic institutions were beginning to be established, she devoted herself to defending women’s rights. As a member of the UDI Palermo, from 1945 she implemented a social pedagogy to promote and spread a democratic-republican and revolutionary consciousness. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies, in 1956 she started a battle with her fellow members of the UDI against the separate ranking of men and women for the allocation of permanent positions in public schools. A women’s movement was created that, starting in Palermo, quickly became national and ended in 1965 with the approval of the draft legislation presented in 1958 to the Chamber by the Palermo deputies of the PCI and conceived by the women of the UDI.