For a few years she taught Literature and Philosophy at the Unitary Experimental High School of Rome and had among her pupils Valerio Magrelli, Fabio Ferzetti, Guglielmo Loy, Riccardo Barenghi, Nicola Pecorini, Daniele Archibugi and Alessandra Baduel.

She was elected to the Chamber of Deputies on June 14, 1987, on the list of the Italian Communist Party in the College of Rome - Viterbo - Latina - Frosinone, she joined the parliamentary group of the independent Left.

She was very involved in the feminist movement Se non ora quando (If not now when), which arose in 2011 following the scandals of the then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi concerning accusations of frequenting underage prostitutes.

After her first marriage to Luca Codignola, for a brief period in the early seventies she was romantically linked to the director Nanni Moretti, for whom she acted in the short film Pâté de bourgeois.

Her daughter Maddalena Vianello is also involved in gender issues and has published, with her mother, the book Fra me e te.