Francoist Antifeminism and the Violent Reversal of Women’s Liberation, 1936–1951

Abstract

During the fi rst third of the twentieth century, the Catholic and antiliberal Spanish right grew increasingly concerned by the growing public role claimed by women. These fears became particularly acute with the arrival of the Spanish Second Republic in 1931. In the fi rst years of the Republic, women benefi ted from advanced social legislation that helped forge greater equality, and as they swelled the ranks of political organisations they became powerful actors in their own right. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 brought women even further to the fore. A fresh and larger wave of women surged into a range of democratic, revolutionary and anarchist organisations in defence of the Second Republic. The victory of the Francoists in the Civil War, however, ushered in the reversal of reform and a concerted effort to use violence and repression to return women to the home. This chapter sets out to analyse the repression of women carried out by the new regime. It does so by fi rst placing the repression in its historical context. It goes on to analyse a range of different forms of persecution suffered by thousands of women that included imprisonment, public humiliation, social marginalisation and, in some cases, death.