The terror began not with a shout, but with the silence that followed a woman being dragged from her home by her hair, her cries swallowed by the jeers of a crowd that had been taught to see her as an enemy of the state. For millions of Italian women, the rise of Benito Mussolini did not just signal a political shift; it marked the beginning of a brutal campaign of public humiliation, physical violence, and psychological warfare designed to strip them of their dignity and confine them to the shadows of society. This was not a side effect of fascism; it was a core tool of its control.

The seeds of this brutality were sown in the ashes of World War I, which ended in November 1918. Italy was nominally on the winning side, but the peace felt hollow to a nation that had lost over 650,000 soldiers and saw millions more return wounded or broken. The economy was in shambles, with food prices skyrocketing, wages stagnating, and unemployment spreading like a plague through the countryside and industrial cities alike.

Into this void stepped Italy’s women, who had kept factories, farms, and offices running while men were at the front.

By 1919, women made up nearly 40% of the workforce in some northern industrial sectors, handling heavy labor and maintaining the infrastructure of a nation at war. They believed their sacrifice would earn them respect and rights, but the opposite occurred. Returning soldiers demanded their old jobs back, and conservative industrialists and landowners eagerly pushed women out of their positions, framing their employment as a temporary wartime necessity rather than a permanent right.

The economy was too broken to absorb everyone, leading to massive strikes involving over 1. 6 million workers in 1919 alone.

These strikes, concentrated in the industrial north and the Po Valley, were often led or supported by women who walked out of factories alongside their male counterparts, organized protests, and distributed bread to starving families. This period, known as the Biennio Rosso or “Two Red Years,” saw factory occupations and open talk of revolution, inspired by the recent events in Russia. The Italian elite, terrified of losing their power to socialist and communist movements, looked for a strongman to restore order, and they found him in Benito Mussolini.

Mussolini, a former socialist journalist born in 1883, had been expelled from the Socialist Party in 1914 for advocating Italian intervention in the war. He pivoted to a hyper-nationalist, militaristic ideology, and in March 1919, he founded the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in Milan. Initially dismissed as a fringe group, his movement quickly attracted disillusioned ex-soldiers, nationalists, and men who felt threatened by the labor unrest.

They adopted black shirts as their uniform and began a campaign of violence that targeted the very fabric of working-class life, with women as primary victims.

From the very beginning, the Blackshirts focused their aggression on women who dared to step into the public sphere. Female workers who distributed strike leaflets or organized food protests were attacked in town squares. They were beaten openly, their hair was cut off, and their clothing was torn, not merely to inflict physical pain, but to shame them publicly in front of their neighbors, families, and communities.

This was a calculated strategy to break the morale of anyone who dared to resist the rising fascist tide, turning daily life into a warning for all women.

By 1921, the movement had grown into a political party with the backing of wealthy industrialists and landowners who saw fascism as a weapon against socialism. The number of fascist squads multiplied across northern and central Italy, operating with near-total impunity. Police often looked the other way, and judges refused to prosecute the squads who destroyed union halls, burned cooperative buildings, and attacked socialist clubs.

Historians estimate that hundreds of buildings connected to labor activism were demolished between 1921 and 1922, and women were singled out for special cruelty.

Peasant women leading food strikes were dragged into the streets by their hair or arms, their bodies used as canvases for the regime’s brutality. One of the most infamous methods of punishment was forcing victims to drink castor oil, which caused violent diarrhea, severe dehydration, and uncontrollable bowel movements. This was a message designed to degrade and humiliate, to strip away the dignity of anyone brave enough to stand against the fascist squads.

The violence was not random; it was a systematic tool of terror meant to silence opposition before it could even form.

Mussolini understood that street violence alone was not enough to secure absolute power. He needed political legitimacy, and he manufactured it through fear. On October 28, 1922, he organized the March on Rome, where approximately 25,000 to 30,000 Blackshirts converged on the capital.

King Victor Emmanuel III, fearing the outbreak of civil war, refused to declare martial law and instead invited the 39-year-old Mussolini to become Prime Minister on October 29. The threat of violence had achieved what ballots alone could not, placing the fascist leader at the head of the Italian government.

Within a year, Mussolini pushed the Acerbo Law through parliament, which guaranteed his party an automatic majority of seats if they received the largest share of the vote. This effectively drowned out opposition voices before they could speak. The regime then cracked down on newspapers, banned opposition parties, and dissolved independent unions.

Local elected mayors were replaced by fascist-appointed officials, and women felt this shift in every corner of their lives. They could no longer participate in politics or unions without risking arrest, and workplace laws pushed them out of authority roles.

The ideology behind these policies was explicit: women were to be mothers first and citizens second. They were celebrated as life-givers, not leaders, and this doctrine was drilled into them through public campaigns, school programs, and fascist youth groups. The state created organizations like the Fasci Femminili, a women’s branch of the party, initially intended to give women a space for influence.

However, by 1926, its leaders were pushed aside, and the organization became a tool of social control, teaching women their place in the fascist hierarchy rather than empowering them.

Beyond jobs and politics, the state began to regulate family life itself. Mussolini set a goal of raising the population from 40 million to 60 million by 1950, and he expected women to make that happen. Local fascist leaders and police made examples of women whose choices didn’t match the regime’s vision.

Women accused of breaking moral codes, having relationships outside marriage, or seeking abortions could be publicly humiliated. Their heads were shaved in public squares, their faces and reputations marked with shame. These acts were extra-legal, not written into national law, but they were tolerated and encouraged by local officials to strengthen fear and compliance.

By the late 1920s, open political opposition was almost impossible. In 1927, Mussolini authorized the creation of the Ovra, a secret police force with an estimated 50,000 agents tasked with monitoring Italians for any sign of dissent. This network operated in workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, and even private homes, detecting criticism before it could spread.

For women who continued to question the regime, the Ovra was a terrifying instrument. They risked being reported by neighbors or co-workers, arrested without clear charges, interrogated, and imprisoned.

Public humiliation remained a key tool alongside the shadowy work of the secret police. In towns such as Bari and Palermo, women accused of helping communists or socialists could be tied to chairs in central squares. Crowds were encouraged to shout insults, jeer, or spit at them.

Unlike official court sentences, these punishments had no legal basis. They were community spectacles backed by local fascist leaders who wanted fear to spread quickly among citizens. The effect was chilling; most women withdrew from anything that looked like political activity, and silence became survival.

The regime’s brutality extended beyond Italy’s borders in 1935 when Mussolini invaded Ethiopia. Despite having signed the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons, the Italian military dropped between 300 and 500 tons of mustard gas on soldiers and civilians. In some areas, up to one-third of casualties were caused by these illegal attacks.

The violence escalated further in February 1937 when, after a grenade attack on an Italian general, forces went on a killing spree in Addis Ababa, rounding up and executing civilians in what became known as the Yekatit 12 massacre, with estimates of deaths ranging from 1,400 to 30,000.

The colonial system was built on racism, with propaganda describing Ethiopians as backward and inferior. The regime banned relationships between Italians and Africans, making “race mixing” a crime. If an Italian woman were accused of having a relationship with an African man, she could be shunned by her community, punished by law, and even sent to prison.

In some places, local officials went further, shaving women’s hair or marking their faces as a public sign of their transgression. This racist ideology paved the way for even more draconian policies.

In 1938, the regime introduced the “Laws for the Defense of the Race,” a major turning point. For the first time, Italian citizens were officially treated differently by law because of their race. Jewish women were banned from public places like state beaches, libraries, and parks.

Signs appeared showing where Aryans were allowed and where Jews were not. Women who spoke out against these racial laws risked arrest under broad police powers that punished anyone accused of harming national prestige. Many ordinary Italians, even those who disagreed, stayed silent, knowing that speaking up could bring the same secret police and punishments that had crushed opposition years ago.

By 1939, Italy was firmly allied with Hitler’s Germany, and violence and exclusion had become normalized. When Italy entered World War II in June 1940, the strain on the economy and society became unbearable. Imports were blocked, and essential resources like food and fuel were rationed in inefficient systems.

Daily caloric allowances fell far below what was needed for hard work, and black markets became a common way to survive. Women stood for hours in long bread lines in cities like Turin, Milan, and Naples, waiting for staples that often weren’t there, and many families lost significant weight.

By March 1943, anger reached a boiling point in the industrial north. Workers at the Fiat Mirafiori plant in Turin walked out on March 5, protesting food shortages and low wages. The strike spread to Milan and other factories, and women joined alongside men, marking one of the first real cracks in the regime’s control since strikes had been outlawed.

The fascist police responded harshly, arresting women at workplaces, beating them in front of co-workers, and sending them to notorious prisons like San Vittore. Public punishments returned, with women accused of spreading rumors forced to stand outside police stations with signs around their necks.

The war turned badly for Italy through 1943. Allied forces invaded Sicily in July, and the Italian army quickly collapsed. On July 25, 1943, the Fascist Grand Council voted to strip Mussolini of his powers, and King Victor Emmanuel III ordered his arrest.

The 21-year fascist rule collapsed almost overnight, but the hope was short-lived. On September 8, Italy announced an armistice with the Allies, and Nazi Germany reacted immediately, moving troops into northern and central Italy. Just four days later, German commandos rescued Mussolini in a dramatic operation, and Hitler forced him to return to power as the head of a new fascist state, the Italian Social Republic, based in Salò.

This period became the most violent phase of fascism. Under the RSI, German forces and loyal fascist units fought against anti-fascist resistance groups known as partisans. These partisans were civilians, workers, and former soldiers who escaped into the hills to fight a guerrilla war, sabotaging rail lines and attacking German patrols.

Anyone suspected of helping them faced extreme violence. Public executions became a key weapon of terror, and women were not spared. They were subjected to extreme interrogation and abuse in prisons, and some were executed as reprisals for partisan activities.

Women played critical roles in the resistance, moving weapons, forming first aid teams, and acting as messengers under fire. Their courage was immense, but the cost was devastating. Nazi and fascist forces carried out mass executions against civilians suspected of aiding the resistance, such as the infamous reprisals at the Fosse Ardeatine, where hundreds were killed.

In the spring of 1945, the end came quickly. Partisan uprisings in cities like Milan and Turin helped drive out the German forces, and on April 28, 1945, Mussolini was captured near Lake Como by partisans and executed along with his mistress, Claretta Petacci.

Mussolini’s death did not erase the damage. The brutality of over two decades had left deep scars on Italian society, especially among women who had endured hunger, political violence, and the terror of civilian reprisals. Their courage and sacrifice helped Italy break free, but the cost was immense and deeply human.

The legacy of that fear did not disappear with the regime’s collapse; it lingered in the memories of a generation of women who had learned that public life could be a death sentence, and that their bodies were battlegrounds for a war they never chose to fight.