Nilde Iotti was born in Reggio Emilia in 1920 and died in Rome in 1999. Active during the resistance struggle, she directed the Women’s Defence Group and, after 25 April 1945 (Liberation Day), became the head of the Italian Women’s Union.
On 2 June 1946, she was elected to the Constituent Assembly. On 18 April 1948, she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies and was reconfirmed in all subsequent legislatures.
A convinced Europeanist, she was also a Member of the European Parliament from 1969 to 1979. On 20 June 1979, she was elected President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. The first woman to hold this post. She was reconfirmed in the post in 1983 and again in 1987.
Between 1996 and 2000, she was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where she continued to strive for equality, women’s empowerment, and human rights in general.
In 1996, she was elected Chairperson of the ad hoc Committee on Equality, the first ever body of the Assembly dedicated to equality issues. At that time, the question of gender equality was only breaking through general conscience of people who, in majority, considered the problem to be already settled.
Ms Iotti has largely contributed to the establishment of this ad hoc Committee and continued her fight for the establishment of a full Committee, which, thanks to her efforts, was eventually achieved a year later.
She was a devoted Chair, taking things seriously, encouraging men to become members (the large majority of members were women at that time).
The project “75 women in 75 years of Council of Europe history” is organised by the Delegation of the European Union to the Council of Europe with the Council of Europe and the Permanent Representations of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
