The article analyzes the representation of industrial workers in Italy during the second half of the xxth century, with a specific focus on their masculinity. It highlights two overlapping public images, that of the man and the industrial worker, because the representation of the industrial worker as a man derives from the belief that work is what defined manhood. Both representations are studied comparing the public images of factories and industrial workers with their self-representations in movies, photographs, novels, and autobiographic stories. The essay explores the connection between the decline of industrial work from the 1970s and the transformation of manliness in the same period, under the influence both of feminism and, more generally, changing social values. During this period male identity was redefined: it no longer stems from work but from a new body-centered self-awareness.
Masculinités ouvrières dans l'Italie du second XX siècle
SANGIOVANNI, Andrea
2013-01-01
Abstract
The article analyzes the representation of industrial workers in Italy during the second half of the xxth century, with a specific focus on their masculinity. It highlights two overlapping public images, that of the man and the industrial worker, because the representation of the industrial worker as a man derives from the belief that work is what defined manhood. Both representations are studied comparing the public images of factories and industrial workers with their self-representations in movies, photographs, novels, and autobiographic stories. The essay explores the connection between the decline of industrial work from the 1970s and the transformation of manliness in the same period, under the influence both of feminism and, more generally, changing social values. During this period male identity was redefined: it no longer stems from work but from a new body-centered self-awareness.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
