The women’s movement in Liberal Italy has received relatively little attention from historians. It is, moreover, largely forgotten in collective memory and little taught in the school curriculum. This article discusses some of the reasons for this situation, focusing in particular on the question of language, on the fact that most historians have tended to refer to this political movement as women’s emancipationism, rather than using the term favoured in the historiography on analogous movements in many other countries — feminism. The author explores why Italian historians have adopted this terminology, a usage that has, arguably, helped discourage interest in this topic, given the negative connotations that the term women’s emancipationism took on for some in the late twentieth century. The article also discusses the thorny question of when historians should (or should not) use the term feminism and whether it is acceptable for them to ignore the self-naming of historical subjects.