Prostitution in the Spanish Civil War was part of a larger ideological battle about the role of women and race.
The Second Republic period saw Spaniards oppose prostitution as they argued in favor of racial purity arguments and maintained it led to the spread of venereal disease.
During the Civil War, prostitution became an important issue for many women on the left to the confusion of foreign feminist allies.
With women featuring heavily in propaganda on both sides, milicianas were accused by military and political leaders of being prostitutes and nymphomaniacs, in order to discredit their involvement on the front lines.
[6][5] Middle-class and upper-class women in early Spain became feminists as they became more self-aware of the inequalities they faced as a result of men viewing them as intellectually inferior.
[6][7] This wave largely ended internationally as a result of achievements in gaining universal suffrage, which had the underlying belief that women were intelligent enough to vote.
[3][7][17][16][18] Fascists would slander political enemies of being or supporting prostitutes, as demonstrated through the spread of venereal disease which hurt a country on the whole.
It was viewed as a way to isolate venereal disease and to provide a way for men to relieve their natural urges while protecting women more broadly and the honor of Spanish families.
[23] Sumptuary laws in Spain in this period meant prostitutes were able to wear articles of clothing and jewelry that more respectable, moral women could not.
[2] The International Agreement 1904 signed in Paris required the Spanish government to monitor for the trafficking of women at railway stations and ports.
[21] The Sociedad Española del Abolicionismo was created in 1922 by César Juarros, the first organization of its kind seeking the abolition of prostitution in Spain.
Article 84.3 said unmarried women could vote in municipal elections assuming they were the head of household, over the age of 23, not prostitutes and their status did not change.
In the 1920s, anarchists viewed women having fewer children, increased sex education and the elimination of prostitution as position that would provide resistance to institutions and ideologies they opposed, including capitalism, religion and the military.
Anarchists believed that they supported prostitution so the lower classes would be polluted, while middle and upper-class women could maintain their appearances of chastity.
[21] During one of these debates, Clara Campoamor took to the floor of the Congreso de Diputados, saying,[21] The law can not regulate a vice; the law can not say that in order to achieve Health, it freely opens the doors of brothels to youth; because if the Health pursues the end it pursues, it would have caused infinitely greater damage (...).
Without these houses of prostitution sustained, protected and respected by the State, the evil that is pursued internationally could not have reality or effectiveness (...) It is necessary that the law deals with ther aspect and declares, once and for all, that the regulation, because the victims of prostitution are, in 80 per cent, underage women, and it is really a cruelty and even a formidable irony to see our civil laws protecting the minor, depriving her of personality even to conclude a contract, for acquire money on loan, to sell a property, to express their will, and that, on the other hand, do not give any protection when it comes to the freedom to treat your body as a commodity.
The women that we have dedicated ourselves to investigate ther problem, ther social scourge, we have found, amazed, that in the Dispensaries a medical "card" is issued today; but what will be its sanitary guarantee-that fiction pursued by the State when regulating-when it does not dare to stamp on said "card" more than these words: "Sana probable."
[36] Federica Montseny, in charge of the Public Health and Welfare portfolio from November 1936 to May 1937, started schools to assist prostitutes in learning new trades.
[43] Older members were often critical of younger ones, viewing them as being too hesitant to act and considering them obsessed with sexuality, birth control and access to abortions.
[41] Women involved on the Republican side of the Civil War were defamed as a matter of course by nationalists, accused of spreading venereal disease, of being immoral and unnatural.
[44][45] Young women who displayed overt femininity on the Nationalist side during the war were also slandered over their sexuality, and accused of being traitors to the state for flirting with men.
[34] Military and political leaders slandered milicianas, accusing them of being prostitutes and nymphomaniacs, representing a greater threat to the Republic than the fascist forces they were facing in battle because they spread venereal disease.
[48][49][50][45] In the end, milicianas featured in propaganda published by both sides during the Civil War often served as a symbol of a gendered cultural ideal.
[36] These brothels would often involve binge drinking on the part of officers and physical violence enacted upon the bodies of the women they bought.
[52] Lesbians in Francoist prisons were charged with prostitution instead of homosexuality, which makes it impossible to determine their numbers when compared to gay men.