Editing Fascism (section)

===Age and gender roles===
[[File:Piccole Italiane.jpg|thumb|Members of the {{lang|it|[[Piccole Italiane]]}}, an organization for girls within the National Fascist Party in Italy]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-04517A, Potsdam, Mädchen in der Führerinnenschule.jpg|thumb|Members of the [[League of German Girls]], an organization for girls within the Nazi Party in Germany]]
Fascism emphasizes [[youth]] both in a physical sense of age and a spiritual sense as related to virility and commitment to action.{{sfnp|Antliff|2007|p=171}} The Italian Fascists' political anthem was called ''[[Giovinezza]]'' ("The Youth").{{sfnp|Antliff|2007|p=171}} Fascism identifies the physical age period of youth as a critical time for the moral development of people who will affect society.{{sfnp|Quine|1996|p=47}} [[Walter Laqueur]] argues "[t]he corollaries of the cult of war and physical danger were the cult of brutality, strength, and sexuality ... [fascism is] a true counter-civilization: rejecting the sophisticated rationalist humanism of Old Europe, fascism sets up as its ideal the primitive instincts and primal emotions of the barbarian."{{sfnp|Laqueur|1978|p=341}}

Italian fascism pursued what it called "moral hygiene" of youth, particularly regarding [[Human sexuality|sexuality]].{{sfnp|Quine|1996|pp=46–47}} Fascist Italy promoted what it considered normal sexual behaviour in youth while denouncing what it considered deviant sexual behaviour.{{sfnp|Quine|1996|pp=46–47}} It condemned [[pornography]], most forms of [[birth control]] and contraceptive devices (with the exception of the [[condom]]), [[homosexuality]] and [[prostitution]] as deviant sexual behaviour. However, enforcement of laws opposed to such practices was erratic, and authorities often looked the other way.{{sfnp|Quine|1996|pp=46–47}} Fascist Italy regarded the promotion of male sexual excitation before [[puberty]] as the cause of criminality amongst male youth, declared homosexuality a social disease and pursued an aggressive campaign to reduce prostitution of young women.{{sfnp|Quine|1996|pp=46–47}}

Mussolini perceived women's primary role as primarily child bearers, while that of men as warriors, once saying: "War is to man what maternity is to the woman."{{sfnp|Bollas|1993|p=205}} In an effort to increase birth rates, the Italian Fascist government gave financial incentives to women who raised large families and initiated policies intended to reduce the number of women employed.{{sfnp|McDonald|1999|p=27}} Italian Fascism called for women to be honoured as "reproducers of the nation", and the Italian Fascist government held ritual ceremonies to celebrate women's role within the Italian nation.{{sfnp|Mann|2004|p=101}} In 1934, Mussolini declared that employment of women was a "major aspect of the thorny problem of unemployment" and that for women, working was "incompatible with childbearing"; Mussolini went on to say that the solution to unemployment for men was the "exodus of women from the work force."{{sfnp|Durham|1998|p=15}}

The German Nazi government strongly encouraged women to stay at home to bear children and keep house.{{sfnp|Evans|2005|pp=331–332}} This policy was reinforced by bestowing the [[Cross of Honor of the German Mother]] on women bearing four or more children. The unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that men could take their jobs. Nazi propaganda sometimes promoted premarital and extramarital sexual relations, unwed motherhood and divorce, but at other times the Nazis opposed such behaviour.{{sfnp|Heineman|2002|pp=29–31, 46–49}}

The Nazis decriminalized abortion in cases where fetuses had hereditary defects or were of a race the government disapproved of, while the abortion of healthy pure German, [[Aryan race|Aryan]] fetuses remained strictly forbidden.{{sfnp|Friedlander|1995|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=gqLDEKVk2nMC 30]}} For non-Aryans, abortion was often compulsory. Their [[eugenics]] program also stemmed from the "progressive biomedical model" of [[Weimar Germany]].{{sfnp|McLaren|1999|p=139}} In 1935, Nazi Germany expanded the legality of [[history of abortion|abortion]] by amending [[Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring|its eugenics law]] to promote abortion for women with hereditary disorders.{{sfnp|Friedlander|1995|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=gqLDEKVk2nMC 30]}} The law allowed abortion if a woman gave her permission and the fetus was not yet viable{{sfnp|Proctor|1989|p=366|ps=: "This emendation allowed abortion only if the woman granted permission, and only if the fetus was not old enough to survive outside the womb. It is unclear if either of these qualifications was enforced."}}{{sfnp|Arnot|Usborne|1999|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=q1BFiRa3KHkC 241]}} and for purposes of so-called [[racial hygiene]].{{sfnp|Proctor|1989|pp=122–123|ps=: "Abortion, in other words, could be allowed if it was in the interest of racial hygiene. ... the Nazis did allow (and in some cases even required) abortions for women deemed racially inferior. ... On 10 November 1938, a Luneberg court declared abortion legal for Jews."}}{{sfnp|Tierney|1999|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=gQLqRd7hJq0C 589]|ps=: "In 1939, it was announced that Jewish women could seek abortions, but non-Jewish women could not."}}

The Nazis said that homosexuality was degenerate, effeminate, perverted, and undermined masculinity because it did not produce children.{{sfnp|Evans|2005|p=529}} They considered homosexuality curable through therapy, citing modern [[scientism]] and the study of [[sexology]]. Open homosexuals were interned in Nazi concentration camps.{{sfnp|Holocaust Encyclopedia ''Persecution of Homosexuals''}}