Problems and prescriptions: motherhood and mammismo in postwar Italian advice columns and fiction

This chapter explores the way that motherhood was represented and debated in Italian magazine advice columns of the 1950s, a time of burgeoning success for the illustrated magazine and also the period that saw the emergence of the stereotype of mammismo. A study of four contrasting magazines, Grazia, Famiglia cristiana, Noi donne and Epoca, it discusses not only the normative prescriptions of some publications, but also the ways in which advice columnists attempted to establish a genuine dialogue with their readers and, to varying degrees, to respond to their interests and anxieties. It also gives an insight into the prevalence of mammismo in popular discourse, and, in Epoca and the writing of its columnist Alba de Céspedes, a specifically female perspective on the causes and durability of the stereotype