y supported the women in their struggle for
emancipation. Since 1881 the women have organized clubs. At first these
were unsuccessful. Free and courageous women were in the minority. In Rome
the woman's rights movement was at first exclusively benevolent. In Milan
and Turin, on the other hand, there were woman's rights advocates (under
the leadership of _Dr. med._ Paoline Schiff and Emilia Mariani). The
leadership of the national movement fell to the more active, more
educated, and economically stronger northern Italy. Here also the movement
of the workingwomen had progressed to the stage of organization, as, for
example, in the case of the Lombard women workers in the rice fields.

There are 1,371,426 women laborers in Italy. Their condition is wretched.
In agriculture, as well as in the industries, they are given the rough,
_poorly paid_ work to do. They are exploited to the extreme. Women straw
plaiters have been offered 20 centimes, even as little as 10 centimes (4
to 2 cents), for twelve hours' work. The average daily wage for women is
80 centimes to 1 franc (16 to 20 cents). The maximum is 1 franc 50
centimes (30 cents). The law has fixed the maximum working day for women
at twelve hours, and prohibits women under twenty years of age from
engaging in work that is dangerous and injurious to health. There are
maternity funds for women in confinement, financial aid being given them
for four weeks after the birth of the child. Under all these
circumstances the organization of women is exceedingly difficult. Even the
Socialists have neglected the organization of workingwomen.

Socialist propaganda among women agricultural laborers was begun in 1901.
In Bologna, in the autumn of 1902, there was held a meeting of the
representatives of 800 agricultural organizations (having a total
membership of 150,000 men and women agricultural laborers). The
constitution of the society is characteristic; many of its clauses are
primitive and pathetic. This society is intended to be an educational and
moral organization. Women members are exhorted "to live rightly, and to be
virtuous and kind-hearted mothers, women, and daughters."[93] It is to be
hoped that the task of the women will be made easier through the efforts
of the society's male members to make themselves virtuous and kind-hearted
fathers, husbands, and sons. Or are moral duties, in this case also, meant
only for woman?

The movement favoring the abolition of the official