Mujeres Libres
Founded by Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Mercedes Comaposada, and Amparo Poch y Gascón as a small women's group in Madrid, it rapidly grew to a national federation of 30,000 members at its height in the summer of 1938.
It emerged from the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement, composed of three main organisations: the CNT union; the FAI federation; and the FIJL youth wing.
As a result, the autonomous Mujeres Libres groups were created, pursuing both women's liberation and the anarchist social revolution.
While Mujeres Libres sought recognition as the fourth main organisation within the anarchist movement, they never formally achieved equal status to the other branches.
[6] Sara Berenguer and Pepita Carpeña, who later became members of Mujeres Libres, reported witnessing sexism in FIJL youth groups, which were notable hotbeds of such behaviour.
In 1934, a similar but separate group was founded in Barcelona by CNT members, including Soledad Estorach, in an effort to involve women in the anarchist movement.
They remained essentially independent of each other in all but name until, in August 1937, 90 local Mujeres Libres groups formally established a national federation.
[13] However, Sánchez Saornil was sharply critical of the way in which anarchist women were encouraged into the movement, arguing with reference to men's sexist attitudes that "The vast majority of male comrades... have minds infected with the most typical bourgeois prejudices.
The announcement in April of the following year that this project would go ahead generated widespread support among anarchists and marked the full emergence of the Mujeres Libres organisation into the public eye.
[18] Compared to other leftist women's organizations in Spain at the time, Mujeres Libres was unique in that it insisted on remaining autonomous from its sister organisations, the male-dominated CNT, FAI, and FIJL.
Fists upraised, women of Iberia towards horizons pregnant with light on paths afire feet on the ground face to the blue sky.
The existence of these groups increased the visibility of anarchist women and bolstered their cause, particularly by providing a space to discuss strategies for combating sexism on both individual and collective levels.
"[23] Mujeres Libres often collaborated with the anarchist humanitarian organisation Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista, of which Lucía Sánchez Saornil was general secretary.
This objective was bolstered by the fact that many working men had become soldiers, and so unions were more comfortable to employ women as a necessity, extending even to apprenticeship programmes.
They formed divisions dedicated to transport, sanitation, manufacturing, metallurgy, and public service, alongside 'mobile brigades' which completed any unfinished work.
In reaction to this, Mujeres Libres organised support for the inclusion and training of women soldiers (such as Mika Feldman de Etchebéhère), setting up shooting ranges and target practice classes and promoting their stories through the magazine.
[17] One of the initiators, Dr Amparo Poch y Gascón, was a doctor herself, and used her expertise to teach advanced first aid and trained women as midwives.
[28] In Barcelona, they ran a lying-in hospital, which provided birth and post-natal care for mothers, and offered education for all women regarding child and maternal health, sexuality, and eugenics, even running a campaign to encourage breastfeeding.
This was later bolstered by their February 1938 founding of the Louise Michel Institute of Maternal and Child Care, named after the French anarchist, and offering extensive medical services and counselling for mothers and children.
[33] As the anarchist organisations were strong advocates of decentralization, policies on cooperation with Mujeres Libres varied between the local, regional, and national levels.
[34] One key reason for this hostility—and the eventual denial of equal status at the October 1938 national movement congress—was the insistence of Mujeres Libres on autonomy.
Several other political parties had set up women's organisations, particularly socialist and communist groups; even the fascist Falange had a Sección Femenina.
[38] Mujeres Libres rejected this call, not only due to their ideological opposition to the PCE, but also because they viewed wartime contribution as only one part of a broader programme of women's emancipation.
[39] Following the fall of Catalonia in February 1939, many Republican figures including Lucía Sánchez Saornil fled to France, and Mujeres Libres collapsed.
Just two months later, the Spanish Republic fell to Franco's Nationalist forces, and the resultant Francoist dictatorship suppressed the anarchist movement.
Historian Martha Ackelsberg noted that their experiences of "energy, enthusiasm, and sense of personal and collective empowerment" had a "dramatic and long-lasting impact" on women who had been members, even half a century after the Civil War.
