Anna Maria Magnani was an Italian actress. She was known for her explosive acting and earthy, realistic portrayals of characters.
Freeborn women in ancient Rome were citizens (cives), but could not vote or hold political office. Because of their limited public role, women are named less frequently than men by Roman historians. But while Roman women held no direct political power, those from wealthy or powerful families could and did exert influence through private negotiations. Exceptional women who left an undeniable mark on history include Lucretia and Claudia Quinta, whose stories took on mythic significance; fierce Republican-era women such as Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, and Fulvia, who commanded an army and issued coins bearing her image; women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, most prominently Livia and Agrippina the Younger, who contributed to the formation of Imperial mores; and the empress Helena, a driving force in promoting Christianity.
Magdalene asylums, also known as Magdalene laundries, were initially Protestant but later mostly Roman Catholic institutions that operated from the 18th to the late 20th centuries, ostensibly to house "fallen women". The term referred to female sexual promiscuity or sex workers, young women who became pregnant outside of marriage, or young girls and teenagers who did not have familial support. They were required to work without pay apart from meagre food provisions, while the institutions operated large commercial laundries, serving customers outside their bases.
Zita, also known as Sitha or Citha, is an Italian saint, the patron saint of maids and domestic servants. She is often appealed to in order to help find lost keys.
Critical scholars have pointed to the status of women in the Victorian era as an illustration of the striking discrepancy of the United Kingdom's national power and wealth when compared to its social conditions. The era is named after Queen Victoria. Women did not have the right to vote or sue, and married women had limited property ownership. At the same time, women labored within the paid workforce in increasing numbers following the Industrial Revolution. Feminist ideas spread among the educated middle classes, discriminatory laws were repealed, and the women's suffrage movement gained momentum in the last years of the Victorian era.
Josephine Elizabeth Butler was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era. She campaigned for women's suffrage, the right of women to better education, the end of coverture in British law, the abolition of child prostitution, and an end to human trafficking of young women and children into European prostitution.
Gerard Majella was an Italian lay brother of the Congregation of the Redeemer, better known as the Redemptorists, who is honored as a saint by the Catholic Church.
Two Women is a 1957 Italian-language novel by Alberto Moravia. It tells the story of a woman trying to protect her teenaged daughter from the horrors of war. When both are attacked and the virgin daughter raped, the daughter suffers PTSD.
Prostitution was a common aspect of ancient Greece. In the more important cities, and particularly the many ports, it employed a significant number of people and represented a notable part of economic activity. It was far from being clandestine; cities did not condemn brothels, but rather only instituted regulations on them.
Rose Venerini, also called Rosa Venerini, was an Italian Roman Catholic saint and virgin who founded the first public schools for girls and young women in Italy. According to the Vatican document published on the occasion of Venerini's canonization in 2006, "Wherever a new school sprang up, in a short time a moral improvement could be noted in the youth". Her confraternity of teachers, after her death, was raised to a religious congregation called the Religious Teachers Venerini, which worked with Italian immigrants in the U.S. and Switzerland established the first day care centers in the Northeastern U.S., and worked throughout the world. Her feast day is May 7.
Lucy Filippini is venerated as a Catholic saint.
The Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants (MABYS) was a voluntary organisation of middle- and upper-class women, which aimed to support poor young women and girls in London and encourage them to become domestic servants.
Geltrude Caterina Comensoli, also known as Mother Geltrude is the Patron of Youth, Val Camonica and Relic Custodians.
The Oblate Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus are the members of a religious congregation of women founded in the 17th century, dedicated to the education and religious formation of poor girls. They use the suffix O.B.G. after their names.
Anna Pappritz was a German writer and suffragist. She was one of the leaders of the German branch of the International Abolitionist Federation, which sought to abolish regulations and criminal laws directed against prostitutes, and proposed instead to eliminate prostitution through moral education of young men and women, and through providing alternative ways by which young women could earn a living. Pappritz became one of the most prominent members of the women's movement in Germany.
Hanna Bieber-Böhm was a German feminist and pioneer of social work. She established an organization to assist young women seeking work in Berlin and help protect them from becoming prostitutes, and founded a recreation home for women where they could also be trained in housework and gardening. She was in favor of combating prostitution through strong laws penalizing the clients of prostitutes.
During the Middle Ages in Europe, lifelong spinsters came from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, though elite women were less likely to be single than peasants or townswomen. The category of single women does not include widows or divorcees, which are terms used to describe women who were married at one point in their lives.
Eleonora Ramirez di Montalvo was an Italian educator, author, and poet. During her life she created two lay conservatories, Il Conventino and La Quiete. Her work has played a large role in the evolution of education for women.
Maria Hueber was a Tyrolean religious sister, a pioneer in educating girls in and foundress of a congregation of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Brixen.
The situation of women in the Byzantine Empire is a subject of scientific research that encompasses all available information about women, their environments, their networks, their legal status, etc., in the Byzantine Empire.
