"He wrote me and that's enough". "Noi donne" and the author's reportage

Abstract

The collaboration between 20th century women authors and Noi donne represents an interesting lens through which to investigate the cultural dynamics that led women writers to “approach journalism with new determination” (Ghilardi 2004: 165) after the Second World War. In these years, the periodical of the Unione Donne Italiane offered a lot of space to women writers' reportages, in which an original ‘amphibious’ style was experimented (Chemello-Zaccaro, 2011: 11) and a polyvalent relationship was established between text and photographs: the images accompanying the articles - mostly portraying female subjects and in line with the political battles undertaken by the UDI - in fact provide a new look at the socio-cultural reality of republican Italy. Analysing the author's reportages published in the magazine between 1945 and 1956 - signed, among others, by Ortese, Lussu, Cialente and Masino - the essay investigates the relationship between text and images as a reflection of the history of Noi donne, a periodical still capable, even today, of combining the political objective with some effective formulas of the consumerist periodical press.