Mujeres Italianas emigradas a Egipto (1870-1940). ¿Qué es lo que exactamente pasa con Penélope? / Italian women (who have) emigrated to Egypt (1870-1940). That is, what happens when the woman is the one who leaves home?
Authors: Straniero Maria Agnese 
Published: June 2023

Desde siempre los viajes, se dotan de un matiz masculino: en el imaginario colectivo occidental es el héroe, y no la heroína, el que sale de viaje para vivir las más variadas aventuras. La pregunta entonces es ¿qué pasa cuando la mujer que tendría que quedarse en su hogar esperando el retorno de su hombre, decide salir y construir su propio itinerario? Se trata de intentar construir un mapa alternativo para revisar el tópico occidental que hace bueno el mito de que las mujeres no salen, de que las mujeres solo esperan. En el trabajo de investigación que he realizado me he ocupado  de las mujeres italianas emigradas a Egipto, en particular de las mujeres de las aldeas de Calabria, de la Marche y de la comarca del Friuli que se fueron para trabajar de nodrizas, de niñeras y de amas de llaves, de bailarinas, a Egipto. La emigración de las mujeres, se puede enmarcar en un patrón de emigración primaria. Lo que resulta de interés aquí es el análisis y el estudio de como la relaciones de género se reproducen y transforman en el marco de este proceso. Desplazándose, como veremos en el caso de nuestras emigradas, esas mujeres abren una puerta, cruzan un umbral, una frontera y, en ese movimiento, en ese pasaje sucede algo, no es solo el Mar Mediterráneo lo que se cruza. Ellas, como veremos, probablemente cruzan fronteras desconocidas hasta entonces entre lo masculino y lo femenino, entre el deseo y la realidad, entre la libertad y la necesidad a largo plazo), transitan por un camino desconocido que se vuelve bien difícil y que no se sabe con precisión donde lleva, porque los viajes de las mujeres, como nos aclara Dinora Corsi no tienen retorno.Palabras clave: Mujeres, emigración, género, margen, centro.Abstract: In the collective mentality of Western culture, it is often portrayed that the one who leaves home or emigrates is male and usually, young and unmarried. Common perceptions even at academic level have ignored the fact that women also leave home on their own. Women also have embarked on migratory paths, searching for a better future for themselves and for their children. That is what happened between the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX century, to some Italian women, of which this ethnography deals. They were often unmarried women but also married women, coming from small villages of the North as well as from the Centre and the South of Italy Those women emigrated to Egypt, and settled in Alexandria and also Cairo.  This was a time when the country was passing through a period of widespread prosperity and an artistic-cultural expressiveness.The emigration of women has had an impact in three main areas: the family of origin, the community of origin the place of employment To these three fields, for ethnographic analysis, it is essential, to add the context of ‘belonging,’ to the country of emigration. The aim is to bring to light previously unknown life-stories, which serve to question an entire social establishment, as well as a symbolic that had a pre-assigned destiny for those women. I built this research around the hypothesis that those women travelers cannot return By crossing the Mediterranean, these women moved away from economic, socio-cultural and gender marginalization, which ruled their existence.  Living as immigrants lead them to a social, economic “centre-existence,” This was a journey that mentally they could never return from.Keywords: Women, migration, gender, margin, center.