Women's rights in Francoist Spain and the democratic transition

The Franco regime immediately implemented draconian measures that legally incapacitated women, making them dependents of their husbands, fathers or the state.

[5] The legal status for women in many cases reverted to that stipulated in the Napoleonic Code that had first been installed in Spanish law in 1889.

[6] The post Civil War period saw the return of laws that effectively made wards of women.

[6][7] Women needed permission to do an array of basic activities, including applying for a job, opening a bank account or going on a trip.

The law during the Franco period allowed husbands to kill their wives if they caught them in the act of adultery.

[8] Pilar Primo de Rivera was viewed by many inside the regime as a critical player in successfully encouraging Franco to relax restrictions for women during the 1950s and 1960s.

Sección Feminina then launched a political campaign to be the point organization for United Nation plans around women.

Navarro was likely indicating support for Sección Femenina, and not for other qualified Spanish feminists of the period like Mercedes Formica and Maria Angeles Durán.

Ahead of the Year of the Woman, the government created eight commissions to investigate the status of Spanish women.

[13][14] In the immediate post-Franco era, feminists were successful in decriminalizing adultery, divorce, abortion before three months, and some forms of birth control.

[15] The treatment of women's rights in the democratic transition put Spain in line with other European governments of the period.

European influence was a positive one in Spain in this period in terms of making sure the discussion about women's rights took place.

On 1 April 1977, the right of association was finally recognized, and a Royal Decree of June 2 of that same year extinguished the mandatory union membership.

All photographs on sports championships Women 's Section , where the comrades are teaching knees are prohibited and therefore must be struck.

In its Spanish dubbed release had a husband and wife replaced with two brothers to avoid representing adultery in the film.

[35] The policy of the Franco regime with regard to women was a huge setback for the Republic as it set out to impose the traditional Catholic family model based on the total subordination of the wife to her husband and reduce them back to the domestic sphere as it had been proclaimed in the Labor Charter of 1938 in order "to free the married woman from the workshop and from the factory.

"[36][37] This hindered women's access to education and vocational and professional life and abolished or restricted their rights both in the public and in private.

One example involved Franco returning to the Civil Code of 1889 and the former Law Procedure Criminal, which they sanctioned the legal inferiority of women.

In addition, numerous labor ordinances stipulated that the woman as soon as she got married had to leave her job, being compensated with a dowry.

In addition, the access of women to a large part of the bodies of the public administration, especially to superiors, was prevented by law as a lawyer of the State, judge, prosecutor, diplomat, property registrar, notary, labor inspector, exchange agent and stock exchange, etc.

[36] Discrimination in employment was banned based on gender in 1961, with exceptions for the judiciary, armed forces and merchant navy.

This document returned Spain to being a country where women were guaranteed full equal rights under the law.

Reforms in the post-Francoist period saw the Catholic Church lose official status in government, the age of legal majority moved from 21 to 18, and marriage defining men and women equally.

Article 9.2 states, "It is the responsibility of public powers to promote conditions ensuring that the freedom and equality of individuals and of the groups to which they belong are real and effective.

The woman really began to be able to be what she herself achieved with her effort (...) I believe that none of the deputies of that constituent legislature were satisfied with the regulation of the Crown in regard to the order of succession.

"[40] The Cortes of 1977 had to try to find a way to navigate the demands of the newly liberated left, who wanted to see reforms like the legalization of abortion and divorce, with the Catholic Church who opposed both.

[41] One of the reasons UCD went into decline after the 1977 elections was the party was forced to take positions on major issues of the day, including divorce, abortion and the use of public money for private schools.

A compromise was reached on divorce that would see the issue addressed in later legislation through the text of Article 32.2 which said, "the law will regulate the forms of matrimony... [and] the causes of separation and dissolution."

On 6 December 1978, a number of groups presented Cortes president Antonio Hernández Gil with a list of their concerns about it.

These women were opposed to Article 15, which said that "everyone has the right to life" (Spanish: todos tienen derecho a la vida) as they felt it could be interpreted as offering protection to fetuses.