Libreria delle donne di Milano

Libreria delle donne di Milano is a feminist women's bookstore and collective based in Milan, Italy, founded in 1975. It is described as the oldest women's bookstore in Italy and operates as a cooperative run by volunteer women. From its historic premises on Via Dogana 2, it moved to Via Pietro Calvi 29 in Milan, where the Circolo della Rosa also found a home in adjacent rooms. The bookstore is a composite and evolving political reality: it publishes its own texts and an online journal, Via Dogana, organizes meetings, political discussions and film screenings, maintains a collection of out-of-print and hard-to-find texts, and serves as a meeting place for many women and also men. It sells books, including by mail order. Its organization is deliberately light, reduced to a minimum; the most important things are invented, decided and changed through direct relationships rather than by vote. It is a feminist enterprise that does not claim equality but instead asserts that women's difference exists and is highly valued, cultivated through the practice of relationship and attention to poetry, literature and philosophy. The bookstore is a place of discussion, or rather essentially a political place, in the sense the collective understands politics — nothing to do with institutions, parties or homogeneous groups. They call it the politics of starting from oneself; it arises from reflection on each woman's experience, from being together in a women's enterprise but also in the world, and it is based on relationship. Among its stable participants are more than forty women. Currently the bookstore offers works by more than 3,000 women authors and a total of over 10,000 titles, plus a collection of out-of-print and hard-to-find texts. It also has an archive and a library of rare books on feminism, and has exhibited works by artists such as Carla Accardi, Mirella Bentivoglio and Dadamaino. Documents of its political history from 1974 to 1997 are held at the Fondazione Elvira Badaracco in Milan. In 2008 the foundation published, with Franco Angeli, the monograph Libreria delle donne di Milano. Un laboratorio di pratica politica by Chiara Martucci, which traced the history of the Milan women's bookstore since 1975. The Libreria delle donne di Milano celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2025 and remains an important meeting point for feminist debates.

Libreria delle donne di Milano emerged in the second half of the 1970s, when feminist movements worldwide began founding cultural institutions and enterprises. The women's bookstore on Via Dogana in Milan was inspired by the Librairie des Femmes of feminist psychoanalyst Antoinette Fouque in Paris. Unlike that model, the Milan group decided to carry only works by women, in order to draw attention to women's thought and to promote the circulation of their writings. The collective also published its own texts. Its first book appeared in German translation in 1988 under the title Wie weibliche Freiheit entsteht (originally Non credere di avere dei diritti), in which 35 authors documented their shared history of feminist theory and practice. It is regarded as a cult book of the second wave of feminism and opens with the sentence: 'This book is about the necessity of giving meaning and value to the relationship of one woman to another, of representing it in words and images.' The Milan women's collective did not limit the question of freedom to liberation from oppression. Rather, it centered on the ability to found new forms of the political that could not be thought apart from sexual difference. Through its influential but also criticized and debated activities and writings, the Milan women's bookstore became a center for the theoretical elaboration of the 'feminism of sexual difference' (pensiero della differenza sessuale). As a publisher, Libreria delle donne di Milano issued the periodical Sottosopra, which appeared irregularly in six issues from 1983; the feminist political journal Via Dogana (online since 2015); and the satirical magazine Aspirina, printed from 1987 to 1991 and online from 2013, among whose founders was cartoonist Pat Carra. In 2019 the magazine had to change its name and give up its internet domain after the pharmaceutical company Bayer sued the editorial team because the name Aspirin is trademark-protected. The bookstore has an archive and a library of rare books on feminism and exhibited works by artists such as Carla Accardi, Mirella Bentivoglio, Dadamaino and others in its rooms. Documents of its political history from 1974 to 1997 are kept at the Fondazione Elvira Badaracco in Milan. In 2008 the foundation published, with Franco Angeli, the monograph Libreria delle donne di Milano. Un laboratorio di pratica politica by Chiara Martucci, which traced the history of the Milan women's bookstore since 1975. The Libreria delle donne di Milano celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2025. The bookstore remains an important meeting point for feminist debates. Operated as a cooperative, it engages exclusively volunteer women.

• 2025

  Libreria delle donne di Milano celebrates its 50th anniversary.

• 2019

  Aspirina forced to change its name and give up its internet domain after Bayer lawsuit over the Aspirin trademark.

• 2015

  Via Dogana journal goes online.

• 2013

  Aspirina relaunched online.

• 2008

  Fondazione Elvira Badaracco publishes Chiara Martucci's monograph on the bookstore's history.

• 1996

  German translation of Il patriarcato è finito published as Das Patriarchat ist zu Ende.

• 1988

  First book published in German translation as Wie weibliche Freiheit entsteht (Non credere di avere dei diritti).

• 1987

  Satirical magazine Aspirina begins print publication (until 1991).

• 1983

  Periodical Sottosopra begins appearing irregularly; six issues published.

• 1975

  Libreria delle donne di Milano founded in Milan as a feminist women's bookstore and collective.

A feminist enterprise and political place rooted in the practice of relationship and the thought of sexual difference, not claiming equality but valuing women's difference.

• 1988

  Non credere di avere dei diritti (Wie weibliche Freiheit entsteht)

• 1996

  Il patriarcato è finito (Das Patriarchat ist zu Ende)

• 1983

  Sottosopra

• Via Dogana

• 1987

  Aspirina

1. 1Libreria delle donne di Milano official websitelibreriadelledonne.it
2. 2Chi siamo | Libreria delle donne di Milanolibreriadelledonne.it
3. 3Wikidata: Libreria delle donne di Milanowikidata.org
4. 4Wikipedia (German): Libreria delle donne di Milanode.wikipedia.org