In the history of many civilizations, the normative representation of motherhood has been one of the key instruments in the dominance men have established over women. This article focuses on the political function played by maternal stereotypes in modern Italian history, especially in protecting the integrity of masculine identity. Since the nineteenth century, misogynistic discourse has emphasized women’s “natural” destiny, restricted to family life and reproduction. Yet even in the twentieth century, when virilistic rhetoric based on the biological inferiority of women started to fail,