Model of masculinity under fascist Italy
Encyclopedia
The model of masculinity under fascist Italy is the hegemonic masculinity prescribed by dictator Benito Mussolini
during his fascist reign. This hegemonic model was deemed as the appropriate, ideal identity to follow during the development of a New Italian citizen in a budding New Italy.
The model represents a mix between purported Roman ideal culminating mental and physical qualities. As such, it was later superimposed onto the political persona portrayed by Mussolini himself as he rallied to gather popular support for his fascist state. A hallmark of this model is a stance strictly anti-modern, grounded in traditional gender hierarchies and roles.
in 1861, the state was still fragmented internally with regards to morality solidarity among the people. Following the Great War
, there was an uprising of civil religion
as a "state of collective euphoria" roused the republic. In addition, a process of nationalization of the masses was in desperate need within a country that lacked a national identity.
It was during 1909 that Filipo Tommaso Marinetti founded the Futurist Movement, which advocated values such as: instinct, strength, courage, sport, war, youth, dynamism
and speed as exemplified by modern machines". Amid the introduction of this revolutionary, non-conformist ideology, it did not agree with the political philosophies of fascism
, which was also just beginning to bud at that time. Futurism
was thereby abandoned after 1920, and political regions became increasingly fervent as Mussolini came into power shortly thereafter
Mussolini, after having been elected to power, created a myth of himself, craftily adapting the image of the Superman of Nietzsche to the Italian forma mentis, which was grounded in the following credo: absolutely hegemony over life and death and good and evil.
Benito Mussolini underlined how Nietzsche had advocated an imminent return to the ideal, stating that 'a new kind of "free spirit" will come, strengthened by the war ... spirits equipped with a kind of sublime perversity ... new, free spirits, who will triumph over God and over Nothing!". Accordingly, war was regarded as the training ground of virility: a place to cultivate, embrace, and exercise masculinity to its fullest extent in the name of serving for one's nation with others as a collective entity. Novelist Mario Carli
provides a first-hand account of what was expected in the war-time front:
The wartime climate provided an opportune environment for Mussolini to reinforce the values which he extolled as central to his purported hegemonic masculinity. In addition, the wartime front provided a public stage for effective public actions. Mussolini openly boasted about conducting his efforts to introduce himself as a New Italian for the New Italy that was to come.
, anti-bourgeoisie, anti-feminism, and pro-natalism
The fascist regime imparted a carefully controlled, diversely dispersed propaganda which was in the name of delivering the New Italian, or the New Italy. Public media was monitored: newspapers, magazines, as well as lowbrow popular romances and biographies, were rigorously controlled by the regime because they were broadly diffused throughout society, and the implications of the public of Mussolini could be positive or negative depending on the content of such mass media. Also, over suggestions were made as to the proper conducts of an ideal Roman citizen: exaltation of the virile, dominant, and nationalistic masculine identity. The term 'virility' represents a key feature of the fascist vision of the world. The imparting of this hegemonic masculinity had the purpose of allowing fascist leaders to maintain their status quo
, aside from the management of their public image. It is for this reason that all forms of 'modern' masculinity were seen as a direct threat to the stability of the fascist state, and thus were actively rendered obsolete.
As an ideology that prefers traditional ways, fascism emphasized a hierarchical relationship between male and female relations, one that was grounded in a patriarchal view of gender dynamics. Arguments were made by the fascist government that the involvement of females in traditionally all-male workplaces would disrupt the power hierarchy that supported society. In addition, arguments were put forth that a mother working in the workplace would be transferring all her maternal responsibilities to that of the husband, which may become exasperated with the aspect of familial caretaking all together, further endangering the integrity and sustenance of the family unit. As per issues involving masculinity, fascist rhetoric advocated for misogynistic, homophobic, and virilistic values in their campaign during the 1920s and made direct references as to the accepted and unaccepted gender codes, as explained in this passage:
As the antithesis of the bourgeoisie, such a figure was iconic of the suggestions put forth by the fascist government as the way to be when it came down to cultivating masculinity. It is important to keep in mind that fascist ruralism aimed explicitly at the restoration of a traditional, pre-modern and rigidly hierarchical moral order.. In other words, the fascist regime used the depiction of ruralism as a gateway through the regime attempted to revert modernism
to traditionalism
thinking styles, which were far from modernism, deeply rooted in traditionalism. In this respect, village youth that sought to leave the village and relocate to larger cities were portrayed as individuals putting the fate of the nation at risk through their behavior:
Modernism, one phenomenon which includes the relocation of youth from villages to more developed urban cities, is seen in negative light by the fascist government because it is creating a sub-type of Italian masculinity that is more adept in living within metropolitan area
s, taking on less responsibilities suggested by the regime (as indicative of hegemonic masculinity). In other words, the Italian youth are no longer working in the farmlands cultivating the soil, but are instead, "de-masculinizing" themselves in the light of the fascist government and rendering the entire Italian country less fertile. Metaphorically, this means that they are cultivating less of their hegemonic masculinity that they should be embracing, and physically, they are contributing less to the state because those that move into the city usually have less children and marry less frequently, the regime argued. In addition, the safe environment of the metropolis prevents the New Italian (male) from enjoying his contact with nature, and has prevented him from contemplating deeply about the moral challenges, none of which are brought upon to him as a result of the artificial, "materialistic" metropolitan atmosphere that is void of dangers and adversities..
A parallel may be drawn between this phenomenon of relocation of Italian youth to create a new sub-type of masculinity to that of the notion of metrosexuality, a similar sub-type of masculinity purported to describe the urbanized, metropolitan male that breaks former stereotypes associated with intense, physical labor. There was an outbreak of the metrosexuality fad in 1994 in the United States as well.
ism very clearly:
As such as the intellectualism as defined by the fascists, as a pathology of masculinity.
Unsurprisingly, the effort by Mussolini to exalt the inferiority of females in relation to men created an imbalance in the public sphere. Women were forced and coerced to stay and remain in the domestic sphere, and the public generated an environment where this was deemed a convention: countless novels, moralizing works and articles of all sorts of publication aimed to exalt the woman as wife and mother and extinguish any spark of the terrible modernist conflagration. . In this way, in the name of maintaining status quo, women were rendered into means of achieving and maintaining male supremacy: a representation of the 'new woman' in pathological terms was advanced in order to trace a line between orthodoxy and deviance, but the description of a monstrous figure devoid of feminity, rather than presenting a solution to the problem, often achieved the effect of amplifying the very sense of alarm that the problem itself provoked" . Females were forced to remain as figures of antiquity, stationary, serving as an unchanging foundation onto which males stood on to maintain their supremacy. The theme of rejecting feminism
has been prevailing throughout Italy's history, dating back to the days of peasant farmers and feudal lords.
and bourgeoisie, in which case he described the bourgeoisie as a moral category, a state of mind. He possessed the articulateness to singlehandedly isolate the bourgeoisie as a parasitic entity of the state that is draining the state of potentiality because of its materialistic, hedonistic approach to life. In the final years of the regime, interests of Catholic circles and that of Benito Mussolini merged. During this period, one priest who founded the journal Frontespizio, Giuseppe De Luca
, declared that:
The bourgeois was perceived as unmanly, effeminate, and infantile in the following quote:
The economic freedom and mobility as exemplified by the bourgeois posed a direct threat to the integrity of the fascist regime. If and when the bourgeois gain power, there is the potential loss of control and unity as maintained by the state, so this is seen as threatening by Mussolini and his followers. To become bourgeois was still a fault pertaining to the masculine mystique: not by change, shortly after, the bourgeois was scornfully defined as someone who was "spiritually castrated"
. His conception of the New Futurist Man, building on previous futurist concepts, entailed: disdainful of death and books, in love with virility, violence, and war; a people particularly endowed with 'creative genius, elasticity in improvisation, strength, ability and physical resistance, impetus, violence, fury in the fight". It is evident through such descriptions of what a Roman male ought to be, that Mussolini is keenly tying in together political propaganda and proscribed, normative gender constructs. For example, a special emphasis on uniformity was given to the Fascist socialization of the Italian people to minimize the chance of a possible revolt against his regime, and the effective mobilization of the Italian army
in time of war.
Mussolini presented himself as the perfect prototype of the New Italian, being the 'living and working model of ethical and political individuality' to which the Italians had to aspire.
to the state. In other words, measures were devised by the fascist state to maximize the infiltration of the fascist ideology
with regards to normative masculine ways of life. The shape of the New Italian via fascisticization took on the form of physically, mentally, and spiritually connecting oneself with the past.
Mussolini purported the eighteenth-century belief that a well-structured mind requires the cultivation of a well-structured body . He believed that the virility of male bodies was essential to reconstruct in a modern context the ancient and warlike 'Italian descent' as the National, then European and finally International model. The New Italian was encouraged to assume the Fascist style, which included canons of male beauty as advocated by the regime. He had to personify 'mens sana in corpore sano', on behalf of the Roman spirit and in the service of the cause. It is evident that, drawing on his beliefs of traditionalism, he is attempting to refine his conception of the ancient Roman empire to the fullest, illustrating the ancient virtues in present-day military discipline
of mind, body, and soul.
Opera Nazionale ed Maternita ed Infanzia (ONMI) was founded in 1925 and specialized in the physical and moral improvement of the Italian race, accepting children up to three years old as well as mothers who provided assistance to staff . Young students from 8 to 14 years of age were then enlisted in the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB), founded a year after the OMNI, which sought to engrain the fundamentals of fascism on a deeper level, into the conscious: students were organized in groups with names evoking the Roman spirit, the country and war .
Students that did not pursue advanced studies were mandated to enlist in the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MVSN), and from 1930, the Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento (FGC). As organizations devoted to develop military character in preparation for conscription, they served the needs of the fascist government in the interest of maintaining a united government with an army ready when the safety of the nation was at stake . In addition to the aforementioned institutions, universities such as the Universitari Fascisti (GUF) and Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro were all devoted to the furthering of the fascist regime, and the subsequent spreading of a military character, the spreading of the New Italian .
It is evident that through these institutions, the Fascist regime insinuated itself into the Italian social fabric, endeavouring to fascisticize the world of school, work, and free time. . Fascism is, in other words, permeating into all sectors of society.
Marinetti described that: "Male children must, according to us, be training far differently from female children, because their early games are clearly masculine ones—that is without affective morbidity, womanish sensibility—but lively, bellicose, muscular and violently dynamic . The successful transmission of such virtues may have resulted in the prevalence of bullying in some present-day intuitions, as discussed in one article titled "The Role of Maculinity in Children's Bullying (2006)" which concludes that for a small population of children in an Italian elementary school, bullying is a method with which males exert their masculine prowess over another.
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
during his fascist reign. This hegemonic model was deemed as the appropriate, ideal identity to follow during the development of a New Italian citizen in a budding New Italy.
The model represents a mix between purported Roman ideal culminating mental and physical qualities. As such, it was later superimposed onto the political persona portrayed by Mussolini himself as he rallied to gather popular support for his fascist state. A hallmark of this model is a stance strictly anti-modern, grounded in traditional gender hierarchies and roles.
Earlier movements
Following the birth of the Kingdom of ItalyKingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
in 1861, the state was still fragmented internally with regards to morality solidarity among the people. Following the Great War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, there was an uprising of civil religion
Civil religion
The intended meaning of the term civil religion often varies according to whether one is a sociologist of religion or a professional political commentator...
as a "state of collective euphoria" roused the republic. In addition, a process of nationalization of the masses was in desperate need within a country that lacked a national identity.
It was during 1909 that Filipo Tommaso Marinetti founded the Futurist Movement, which advocated values such as: instinct, strength, courage, sport, war, youth, dynamism
Dynamism
Dynamism is a concept that has several meanings.*Dynamism , a cosmological explanation of the material world in the vein of process philosophy.*Dynamism , a Japanese retailer specializing in exports....
and speed as exemplified by modern machines". Amid the introduction of this revolutionary, non-conformist ideology, it did not agree with the political philosophies of fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
, which was also just beginning to bud at that time. Futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
was thereby abandoned after 1920, and political regions became increasingly fervent as Mussolini came into power shortly thereafter
Mussolini, after having been elected to power, created a myth of himself, craftily adapting the image of the Superman of Nietzsche to the Italian forma mentis, which was grounded in the following credo: absolutely hegemony over life and death and good and evil.
Benito Mussolini underlined how Nietzsche had advocated an imminent return to the ideal, stating that 'a new kind of "free spirit" will come, strengthened by the war ... spirits equipped with a kind of sublime perversity ... new, free spirits, who will triumph over God and over Nothing!". Accordingly, war was regarded as the training ground of virility: a place to cultivate, embrace, and exercise masculinity to its fullest extent in the name of serving for one's nation with others as a collective entity. Novelist Mario Carli
Mario Carli
Mario Carli was an Italian poet, novelist, essayist, diplomat, and journalist.-Life:Carli was born in San Severo, Apulia, to Florentine father and Apulian mother....
provides a first-hand account of what was expected in the war-time front:
-
- "[W]ar is something sublime because it forces every man to face the dilemma of choosing between heroism and cowardice, between the ideal and the stomach, between the spiritual instinct to project life beyond the material, and the pure and simple instinct of animal conversation. It is the brutal discriminator that distinguishes man from man, character from character, constitution from constitution: on the one side the cowardly, the soft, the hysterical, the effeminate, the cry-babies, the mommy's boys; on the other the strong, the aware, the idealists, the mystics of danger, those who triumph over fear and those who are courageous by nature, the hot-blooded heroes and the heroes of the will."
The wartime climate provided an opportune environment for Mussolini to reinforce the values which he extolled as central to his purported hegemonic masculinity. In addition, the wartime front provided a public stage for effective public actions. Mussolini openly boasted about conducting his efforts to introduce himself as a New Italian for the New Italy that was to come.
The Exalted Virility by Mussolini: A Fascist Anti-modernism
Fascist anti-modernism is a political ideology that consists of these salient elements: ruralism, anti-urbanism, anti-intellectualismAnti-intellectualism
Anti-intellectualism is hostility towards and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectual pursuits, usually expressed as the derision of education, philosophy, literature, art, and science, as impractical and contemptible...
, anti-bourgeoisie, anti-feminism, and pro-natalism
The fascist regime imparted a carefully controlled, diversely dispersed propaganda which was in the name of delivering the New Italian, or the New Italy. Public media was monitored: newspapers, magazines, as well as lowbrow popular romances and biographies, were rigorously controlled by the regime because they were broadly diffused throughout society, and the implications of the public of Mussolini could be positive or negative depending on the content of such mass media. Also, over suggestions were made as to the proper conducts of an ideal Roman citizen: exaltation of the virile, dominant, and nationalistic masculine identity. The term 'virility' represents a key feature of the fascist vision of the world. The imparting of this hegemonic masculinity had the purpose of allowing fascist leaders to maintain their status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
, aside from the management of their public image. It is for this reason that all forms of 'modern' masculinity were seen as a direct threat to the stability of the fascist state, and thus were actively rendered obsolete.
As an ideology that prefers traditional ways, fascism emphasized a hierarchical relationship between male and female relations, one that was grounded in a patriarchal view of gender dynamics. Arguments were made by the fascist government that the involvement of females in traditionally all-male workplaces would disrupt the power hierarchy that supported society. In addition, arguments were put forth that a mother working in the workplace would be transferring all her maternal responsibilities to that of the husband, which may become exasperated with the aspect of familial caretaking all together, further endangering the integrity and sustenance of the family unit. As per issues involving masculinity, fascist rhetoric advocated for misogynistic, homophobic, and virilistic values in their campaign during the 1920s and made direct references as to the accepted and unaccepted gender codes, as explained in this passage:
-
- "The deviant male was above all a bourgeois, egoistic and unpatriotic as well as scarcely virile (because he was unfit or reluctant to repeatedly impregnate the female)l the deviant female was the too 'modern' woman, Americanized, independent and masculinized. The social damages provoked by these two converging deviants were most serious: a widespread and 'excessive loosening of family hierarchical relations, a decline in the main of that robust virility that fascism, with much love and perseverance, pursues in other ways"
Ruralism
The rural man was exalted to be among the ideal hegemonic forms of masculinity by the fascist government because it did not pose a direct threat to the integrity of the fascist government. It was traditional, and it was anti-modern. Ardegno Soffici describes such hegemonic masculinity as apparent in rural Italy:-
- "... with their sobriety, the strength of their bared arms, tanned by the sun, and their savage resistance to work and fatique, represented ... a solemn lesson in virility."
As the antithesis of the bourgeoisie, such a figure was iconic of the suggestions put forth by the fascist government as the way to be when it came down to cultivating masculinity. It is important to keep in mind that fascist ruralism aimed explicitly at the restoration of a traditional, pre-modern and rigidly hierarchical moral order.. In other words, the fascist regime used the depiction of ruralism as a gateway through the regime attempted to revert modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
to traditionalism
Traditionalist School
The term Traditionalist School is used by Mark Sedgwick and other authors to denote a school of thought, also known as Integral Traditionalism or Perennialism to denote an esoteric movement developed by authors such as French metaphysician René Guénon, German-Swiss...
thinking styles, which were far from modernism, deeply rooted in traditionalism. In this respect, village youth that sought to leave the village and relocate to larger cities were portrayed as individuals putting the fate of the nation at risk through their behavior:
"The various phases of the process of disease and death are also precisely demonstrated, and they bear a name that summarizes them all: urbanismUrbanismBroadly, urbanism is a focus on cities and urban areas, their geography, economies, politics, social characteristics, as well as the effects on, and caused by, the built environment.-Philosophy:...
and metropolitanism, as the author explains .... The metropolis grows, attracting people from the countryside, who, however, as soon as they are urbanized, become - just like the pre-existing population - infertile. The fields turn to desert; but when the abandoned and burned regions spread, the metropolis is caught by the throat: neither its business nor its industries nor its oceans of stone and reinforced concreteReinforced concreteReinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...
can re-establish the balance that by now is irreparably broken: it is a catastrophe."
Modernism, one phenomenon which includes the relocation of youth from villages to more developed urban cities, is seen in negative light by the fascist government because it is creating a sub-type of Italian masculinity that is more adept in living within metropolitan area
Metropolitan area
The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...
s, taking on less responsibilities suggested by the regime (as indicative of hegemonic masculinity). In other words, the Italian youth are no longer working in the farmlands cultivating the soil, but are instead, "de-masculinizing" themselves in the light of the fascist government and rendering the entire Italian country less fertile. Metaphorically, this means that they are cultivating less of their hegemonic masculinity that they should be embracing, and physically, they are contributing less to the state because those that move into the city usually have less children and marry less frequently, the regime argued. In addition, the safe environment of the metropolis prevents the New Italian (male) from enjoying his contact with nature, and has prevented him from contemplating deeply about the moral challenges, none of which are brought upon to him as a result of the artificial, "materialistic" metropolitan atmosphere that is void of dangers and adversities..
A parallel may be drawn between this phenomenon of relocation of Italian youth to create a new sub-type of masculinity to that of the notion of metrosexuality, a similar sub-type of masculinity purported to describe the urbanized, metropolitan male that breaks former stereotypes associated with intense, physical labor. There was an outbreak of the metrosexuality fad in 1994 in the United States as well.
Anti-intellectualism
Intellectuals were seen as a threat by the Fascist regime because they advocated for a masculinity which was associated with the bourgeoisie. More importantly, the values upheld by the intellectual class were in direct opposition to the values advocated by the fascist government, which were the exaltation of: action, impulsivity, and youth. Youth was amongst the many ambiguous terms employed by the fascist government to manipulate the public's perception of hegemonic masculinity. It was ambiguous in that the term was often used to refer to the promising potentialities of current, present-day youth, as well as the youthful Roman soldiers, gleaming with their sharp mind and shining armor, eons ago. This narrative passage provides the stance on intellectualIntellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
ism very clearly:
-
- "What is intellectualism? It is important to avoid misunderstandings in this regard. Intellectualism is a sort of infertile intelligence, an intelligence without virtility. Intellectualism is a disease of the intelligence .... Intellectualism is a pathological International, like the hymn of the sexually inverted or the anarchists who are that way because nature was cruel to them .... Their function is in fact feminine, but in the worst sense, for it is a femininity that will never be material."
As such as the intellectualism as defined by the fascists, as a pathology of masculinity.
Anti-feminism
During this era, there was a salient, overarching belief grounded in science that females were biologically inferior to men. It is for this reason that a prevalence of feminine elements in a person corresponded to an actual regression of the human being on the evolutionary scale. It is for this reason that the active pursuit of vehement exercising and modern sports activities was strongly suggested as a measure to increase masculinity and combat any signs of femininity in one's lifestyle.. In other words, it was through the indoctrination of the belief that weak males were inferior like females that Mussolini raised the importance of sport and excersise, which he managed to list as one of the essential quotas for qualifying as an acceptable male in the New Italy.Unsurprisingly, the effort by Mussolini to exalt the inferiority of females in relation to men created an imbalance in the public sphere. Women were forced and coerced to stay and remain in the domestic sphere, and the public generated an environment where this was deemed a convention: countless novels, moralizing works and articles of all sorts of publication aimed to exalt the woman as wife and mother and extinguish any spark of the terrible modernist conflagration. . In this way, in the name of maintaining status quo, women were rendered into means of achieving and maintaining male supremacy: a representation of the 'new woman' in pathological terms was advanced in order to trace a line between orthodoxy and deviance, but the description of a monstrous figure devoid of feminity, rather than presenting a solution to the problem, often achieved the effect of amplifying the very sense of alarm that the problem itself provoked" . Females were forced to remain as figures of antiquity, stationary, serving as an unchanging foundation onto which males stood on to maintain their supremacy. The theme of rejecting feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
has been prevailing throughout Italy's history, dating back to the days of peasant farmers and feudal lords.
Anti-bourgeois
The fascist regime regarded the bourgeois as an obstacle of modernism because of its purported par excellence. The bourgeois and the bourgeois spirit were exploited, with the latter being used to manipulate the public. For example, Benito Mussolini, in a 1938 speech, voiced the clear distinction between capitalismCapitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
and bourgeoisie, in which case he described the bourgeoisie as a moral category, a state of mind. He possessed the articulateness to singlehandedly isolate the bourgeoisie as a parasitic entity of the state that is draining the state of potentiality because of its materialistic, hedonistic approach to life. In the final years of the regime, interests of Catholic circles and that of Benito Mussolini merged. During this period, one priest who founded the journal Frontespizio, Giuseppe De Luca
Giuseppe de Luca
Giuseppe De Luca , was a famous Italian baritone who achieved his greatest triumphs at the New York Metropolitan Opera...
, declared that:
-
- "Christianity is essentially anti-bourgeois .... A Christian, a true Christian and thus a Catholic, is the opposite of a bourgeois."
The bourgeois was perceived as unmanly, effeminate, and infantile in the following quote:
-
- "Middle class, middle man, incapable of great virtue or great vice: and there would be nothing wrong with that if only he would be willing to remain as such; but when his childlike or feminine tendency to camouflage pushes him to dream of grandeur, honors, and thus riches, which he cannot achieve honestly with his own 'second-rate' powers, then the average man compensates with cunning, schemes, and mischief; he kicks out ethics and becomes a bourgeois. The bourgeois is the average man who does not accept to remain such and who, lacking the strength sufficient for the conquest of essential values - those of the spirit - opts for material ones, for appearances."
The economic freedom and mobility as exemplified by the bourgeois posed a direct threat to the integrity of the fascist regime. If and when the bourgeois gain power, there is the potential loss of control and unity as maintained by the state, so this is seen as threatening by Mussolini and his followers. To become bourgeois was still a fault pertaining to the masculine mystique: not by change, shortly after, the bourgeois was scornfully defined as someone who was "spiritually castrated"
Mussolini as the Hegemonic Male
It was at the beginning of the century that the code of the Superman was embraced in Italy, with the purpose of infusing new life into what ought to be pursued as the New Man (or New Italian), or the masculine ideal, in addition to that of the New Italy, which for Benito Mussolini, signified a fascist government where he was the dictator in full control. He mandated that the New Man be brutal, barbarous, and abandon his romanticismRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
. His conception of the New Futurist Man, building on previous futurist concepts, entailed: disdainful of death and books, in love with virility, violence, and war; a people particularly endowed with 'creative genius, elasticity in improvisation, strength, ability and physical resistance, impetus, violence, fury in the fight". It is evident through such descriptions of what a Roman male ought to be, that Mussolini is keenly tying in together political propaganda and proscribed, normative gender constructs. For example, a special emphasis on uniformity was given to the Fascist socialization of the Italian people to minimize the chance of a possible revolt against his regime, and the effective mobilization of the Italian army
Italian Army
The Italian Army is the ground defence force of the Italian Armed Forces. It is all-volunteer force of active-duty personnel, numbering 108,355 in 2010. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank, and among its aircraft...
in time of war.
Mussolini presented himself as the perfect prototype of the New Italian, being the 'living and working model of ethical and political individuality' to which the Italians had to aspire.
Institutionalization
Institutional measures were put in place to accelerate the process of acculturation of individuals into the political ideology purported by Mussolini: schools, physical education programs, and mandatory military serviceConscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
to the state. In other words, measures were devised by the fascist state to maximize the infiltration of the fascist ideology
Fascism and ideology
Fascism and ideology is the subject of numerous debates. The position of fascism on the political spectrum is a point of contention.-Ideological origins:...
with regards to normative masculine ways of life. The shape of the New Italian via fascisticization took on the form of physically, mentally, and spiritually connecting oneself with the past.
Mussolini purported the eighteenth-century belief that a well-structured mind requires the cultivation of a well-structured body . He believed that the virility of male bodies was essential to reconstruct in a modern context the ancient and warlike 'Italian descent' as the National, then European and finally International model. The New Italian was encouraged to assume the Fascist style, which included canons of male beauty as advocated by the regime. He had to personify 'mens sana in corpore sano', on behalf of the Roman spirit and in the service of the cause. It is evident that, drawing on his beliefs of traditionalism, he is attempting to refine his conception of the ancient Roman empire to the fullest, illustrating the ancient virtues in present-day military discipline
Military courtesy
Military courtesy is one of the defining features of a professional military force. These courtesies form a strict and sometimes elaborate code of conduct....
of mind, body, and soul.
Opera Nazionale ed Maternita ed Infanzia (ONMI) was founded in 1925 and specialized in the physical and moral improvement of the Italian race, accepting children up to three years old as well as mothers who provided assistance to staff . Young students from 8 to 14 years of age were then enlisted in the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB), founded a year after the OMNI, which sought to engrain the fundamentals of fascism on a deeper level, into the conscious: students were organized in groups with names evoking the Roman spirit, the country and war .
Students that did not pursue advanced studies were mandated to enlist in the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MVSN), and from 1930, the Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento (FGC). As organizations devoted to develop military character in preparation for conscription, they served the needs of the fascist government in the interest of maintaining a united government with an army ready when the safety of the nation was at stake . In addition to the aforementioned institutions, universities such as the Universitari Fascisti (GUF) and Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro were all devoted to the furthering of the fascist regime, and the subsequent spreading of a military character, the spreading of the New Italian .
It is evident that through these institutions, the Fascist regime insinuated itself into the Italian social fabric, endeavouring to fascisticize the world of school, work, and free time. . Fascism is, in other words, permeating into all sectors of society.
Marinetti described that: "Male children must, according to us, be training far differently from female children, because their early games are clearly masculine ones—that is without affective morbidity, womanish sensibility—but lively, bellicose, muscular and violently dynamic . The successful transmission of such virtues may have resulted in the prevalence of bullying in some present-day intuitions, as discussed in one article titled "The Role of Maculinity in Children's Bullying (2006)" which concludes that for a small population of children in an Italian elementary school, bullying is a method with which males exert their masculine prowess over another.