MAFIA WOMEN IN CONTEMPORARY ITALY: The Changing Role of Women in the Italian Mafia since 1945
Publisher
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
By relying mainly on court cases and interviews with pentiti (people who turned state's
evidence), this thesis shows that the role of women in the Italian mafia has significantly
changed since 1945. Beyond performing their traditional role, including transmitting mafia
values, encouraging vendetta, guaranteeing men's honour and participating in arranged
marriages, women started to be involved in criminal activities.
Through an historical approach, this thesis demonstrates that changes in the mafia in terms
of businesses and structure, and changes in Italian women's conditions have been
contributory factors to the above process. This thesis identifies those historical
conjunctures where the supply and demand of female labour met within the last thirty
years.
Since the 1970s, the expansion of drug trafficking and the subsequent accumulation of vast
sums of money to be recycled led the mafia to employ women who were also trustworthy
and above suspicion. The mafia's need to involve women occurred also in the early 1980s
and in the early-mid 1990s when the state improved its battle against the mafia. As many
mafia bosses were imprisoned or went underground women assumed temporary leadership
positions. The mafia's need for workers was concomitant with the changes in women's
conditions in the legal world, resulting in the gradual dissolution of gender barriers and the
growth of female education, which made women more likely to be employed by organised
crime.
This thesis argues that the new female participation in the mafia was not the result of a
concession of equality within the mafia labour market. General indicators, such as the
persistence of patriarchal relations and women's economic dependence, temporary
allocation of power to women during periods of emergency, use of female labour in low
profile jobs, and exclusion of women from career opportunities, suggest that the increasing
public presence of women in the mafia, beyond mere supportive and private roles, was the
result of a process of female `pseudo-emancipation'. On the contrary, women who turned
state's evidence were examples of female liberation since they chose to reject the male
dominated mafia system.
Authors
Ingracsi, OmbrettaCollections
- Theses [4190]