Anna Del Bo Boffino (1925–1997)

Anna Boffino was born in Milan, Italy, to a working-class family. Her father worked for the national railroad and her mother worked for Pirelli and took evening classes in English and French. During World War II, while still a high school student, Anna worked for the Resistance movement as a messenger and liaison to partisans in hiding. After high school, she enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Milan and graduated in 1948. The following year, she married Giuseppe Del Bo, editorial director of the publishing house Feltrinelli, and joined their two surnames to call herself Anna Del Bo Boffino. In the 1950s, she worked in the press office at Feltrinelli, then joined the editorial staff of the magazine Abitare and the publishing house Il Saggiatore. As a journalist and writer, she knew she wanted to address topics not often discussed in public in that era, such as personal relationships. In 1968, she joined the editorial staff of Due più, a new monthly. She wrote about psychology, sex, and how parents should respond to children's questions about it. She moved to the weekly Amica, where she wrote a popular column called "From Woman to Woman," which became a flashpoint in the public debate on the status of women in Italy, as it covered issues such as sexual freedom, contraception, divorce and abortion, equality at work, and the sharing of roles in the family. In 1975, was elected to city government in Milan. From 1991, she was an adviser to the National Women's Union. She published several volumes of her writing, including Pelle e cuore (Skin and Heart, 1980), Figli di mamma (Mom's Children, 1981), Stavo malissimo (I Was Very Ill, 1983), Voi uomini (You Men, 1985), Le domande e le risposte (The Questions and Answers, 1989) and in collaboration with Lella Ravasi, Un cerchio dopo l’altro (A Circle After Another, 1994). The city of Milan named a public garden in her memory in 2013.