Abstract
This essay analyzes Armanda Guiducci's novel Due donne da buttare (1976) through a sociological perspective that values the role of urban space in gender issues; it specifically frames Guiducci's work in the context of feminist campaigns during the 1970s. Such an investigation of the role that urban space plays in women's lives also encourages a reflection on narrative representations of housewives as prisoners of their domestic environment. Guiducci achieves to shed light on societal and structural discrimination by bringing together (and simultaneously overcoming) Marxist and Feminist theories, moving from a Zhdanovist and materialist approach to embrace a more inclusive vision on the subaltern. Indeed, the two protagonists, an unnamed housewife and an ex-prostitute called Stellina, denounce in the form of long monologues their exclusion from the economic productive system, which requires them to occupy a marginalized space within the city-de facto forcing them into a state of non-existence. Consequently, through these testimonies, Guiducci gives voice to the feminist campaigns advocating in favor of wages for housework, claiming the need to recognize this unpaid and invisible labor.