Woman without protest 

Abstract

Adler's concept of masculine protest refers to a generation of women who, in order to regain their “low” social status, vent their aggression and rebellion or, conversely, display a self-protective closure that defends them from humiliation, but which is nonetheless an expression of suffering due to a state that is poorly accepted or even rejected. This Adlerian concept fits very well with the figure of women in the late war period, when their massive employment in industry led them to rediscover their own value. The next generation of women, on the other hand, could be defined as women without protest, who submit to men, ensuring their ‘well-being as housewives’, and whose low self-esteem prevents them from engaging in more constructive protest. In fact, research on female alcoholic neurosis in 1980 showed that alcoholism is more common among women who continue to live traditional roles, suggesting that female alcoholics derive from alcohol the benefit of a fictitious compensation for their existential failure