Patriarchal Resistance and Critique in Sibilla Aleramo’s Una Donna (1906) and Ada Gobetti’s Diario Partigiano (1956)

Abstract

This essay explores how two female authors weaponise the autobiography to challenge patriarchal narratives of 20th-century Italy, by elucidating women’s experiences of both marginalisation and agency. Sibilla Aleramo's Una Donna (1906) illuminates women's oppression and its societal acceptance, universalising her own traumatic story as a typical product of patriarchy. Fifty years later, Ada Gobetti also offers a broad portrayal of womanhood in her Diario Partigiano (1956) but places a greater focus on the strength and agency exercised by women. Her autobiography recounts the critical yet historiographically overlooked role of Italian women in resisting fascism and Nazi occupation in the 1940s, thereby challenging the heroic, masculine narrative that was already dominant by the time of this publication. Both authors also reclaim womanhood as a site of power, with Aleramo's innovative, feminine writing style breaking canonical norms, and Gobetti emphasising the role of women in defeating fascism, which was both intrinsically feminine and deeply effective.