Women in the Red Brigades

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of women’s participation in the Italian terrorist organization, the Red Brigades, approached from the perspective of critical theories, particularly gender studies, while also drawing on tools of hermeneutics (theory of interpretation). Various sources were analyzed, including strategic documents, court records, television and press interviews, as well as personal documents and epistolography. Due to the limited volume, the case study method was used to create a functional and genre-appropriate catalog of the narratives of women-brigadisti. The hypothesis posited that women in the Red Brigades embodied the phenomenon of ‘new femininity’, shaped by the global socio-cultural movement of the late 1960s (the ’68 movement), which manifested in a new form of women’s political violence that transcended traditional patriarchal roles. The narrative is divided into three distinct sections. The first section examines the Italian feminist movement, emphasizing its local specificity and connections to other trends in the Italian left during that period. The second section focuses on the gender-based division of roles within the Red Brigades, highlighting the equal participation of women, including their involvement in the organization’s most violent actions. The third section amplifies the voices of the women involved, exploring their motivations, autonomous choices, expectations, and the disappointments they encountered throughout the armed struggle. The analysis confirms the hypothesis that women in the Red Brigades represented a new generation formed by profound global socio-cultural transformations at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, while also reflecting the distinctive characteristics of Italian leftist ideology.