Anniversary

10 March 1946: how the vote for women was a revolution

The decree 80 years ago also allowed women to be elected: the spring round of elections anticipated the crucial one on 2 June

by Eliana Di Caro

10 March 2026

Maria Castaldo, 82 anni, quasi cieca e madre di nove figli, viene aiutata da un impiegato mentre esprime il primo voto della sua vita ad Anzio. Le prime elezioni libere in 26 anni hanno segnato la prima volta nella storia del Paese in cui alle donne è stato permesso di votare. (GettyImages)

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Before 2 June 1946, there is another key date carved into our civil calendar: three months earlier, 10 March, when the decree was approved allowing Italians not only to vote (a right already acquired on 1 February 1945) but also to be elected. A revolution.

Women were able to enter the political arena alongside men with their views, their commitment and their goals. More than two thousand of them were elected in the administrative elections between 10 March and 7 April 1946, when more than 5,700 municipalities went to the polls.

These were the first free elections since 1921. On 2 June, twenty-one candidates (out of a total of 556 elected) were chosen for the Constituent Assembly and left their mark on some of the fundamental articles of the Constitution.

The response of the Italians

In spite of the prudence of the parties, who feared that recognising the vote for women was not strategic (the PCI thought it would benefit Catholics, there was a general feeling that there would be a strong abstentionism), Italians went en masse to vote.

The women's associations, starting with the communist Udi (Italian Women's Union) and the Christian Democrat CIF (Italian Women's Centre), had carried out widespread dissemination and awareness-raising activities regarding the vote, making Italians aware of the crucial importance of that moment.

In the spring elections, the turnout was 82% and women outnumbered men. They were elected as town councillors and also thirteen mayors in small towns, from Emilia to Calabria, whose priority was to restore hope in a territory scarred by war: they worked in the immediate area to find and distribute food, to respond to the health emergency, rebuild roads, build council houses and colonies for the young.

The Turning Point of 2 June

On 2 June 1946, the turnout reached almost 90%, with a balance of men and women. On 25 June, 21 women also sat among the benches of the newly opened Constituent Assembly : just 3.6% and yet a combative and incisive minority.

There were nine Christian Democrats (Maria Agamben Federici, Laura Bianchini, Elisabetta Conci, Filomena Delli Castelli, Maria de Unterrichter, Angela Gotelli, Angela M. Guidi Cingolani, Maria Nicotra, Vittoria Titomanlio), nine Communists (Adele Bei, Nadia Gallico Spano, Nilde Iotti, Teresa Mattei, Angiola Minella, Rita Montagnana, Teresa Noce, Elettra Pollastrini, Maria Maddalena Rossi), two socialists (Bianca Bianchi and Lina Merlin), one exponent of the Front of Everyman (Ottavia Penna Buscemi).

Different in age, social background, generation and political colours, but united in the battle for the principle of equality (Article 3), then declined in the various articles of the Constitution (equality between spouses, in the education of children, in work). Their greatest lesson remains their ability to overcome fences and oppositions in the name of the common good and higher goals. Even where they lost (see the battle for women to enter the judiciary), they opened a path. The nascent Republic, without them, would not have been the same.