Women's suffrage in the Spanish Second Republic period
Following Francisco Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War, neither women nor men would be able to vote in national elections until 1977, two years after his death.
Married women needed the approval or involvement of their husbands to undertake such matters as changing their address, accepting an inheritance, or owning property or a business.
[6] Suffrage as an in issue appeared in women's publications in places like Valencia, the Balearic Islands and Barcelona from the late 1900s to the early 1930s, but were often part of a demand for female emancipation through education and broader changes in laws to protect social changes as women increasingly entered the workforce.
Benita Asas Manterola, Pilar Fernández Selfa, Carmen González Bravo and Joaquín Latorre were among the more important voices in newspapers in this regard.
[6] During this period, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) did not generally want to address women's rights as they saw the movement as bourgeois.
The International Socialist Congress, Stuttgart 1907 issued a statement in favor of women's suffrage, but said the movement needed to come from the proletariat.
[7] For a brief time between July 1907, Congressional President Antonio Maura had discussed the possibility of giving women the right to vote under limited conditions, including they were widowed heads of households and they paid their taxes.
Despite being aided by the left and by Republicans, Maura's efforts proved ineffectual even with conditions requiring heads of household status and no possibility of women running for office; there was no perceived pressing social need by the conservative majority to give women to vote, and more important domestic problems like a war with Morocco were on the horizons, along with an economic recession.
[8][6] A year later, Count of Casa-Valencia, this time in the Senate, with support from Francisco Pi y Arsuaga in the Congress, would press the issue again.
Carmen de Burgos wrote in a newspaper that year of the parliamentary debate in 1908, "while the English fight in a devilish way for their civic ideals, while the French claim to affirm in laws the guarantee of their selfishness, while the Russians know how to die protesting from tyranny, we, the Spanish, remain indifferent to everything.
[6] Suffrage as a topic among this feminist group would largely disappear from 1918 until 1931, as women focused more on social changes than on political goals.
Falcón further argued this position would make feminists enemies of the party, a development that was born out by 1921, when Socialist men decided that to stop any attempt to promote the rights of women as they did not believe it was the time to push for electoral reforms.
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.
Consequently, some women took advantage of this political opening, ran for office and won some seats as councilors and mayors in municipal governments where elections were held.
[11][8][6] This was a surprise move by Primo de Rivera in giving women the right to vote, and was largely viewed as a way of shoring up his electoral base ahead of scheduled elections the following year.
[6][8] Manuel Cordero of El Socialista wrote in June 1924 of a right wing view stating that "the feminine vote supposes a revolutionary act and it seems strange that it is a reactionary who has projected this reform in Spain.
"[6] Socialist representative María Cambrils was pleased with women being given the right to vote, but balked at the restrictions placed upon female voters.
[12] Some Catholics tried to capitalize on this for their own political interests, achieving success when local elections in some places saw 40% of their total votes come from women.
[8][6] The arguments made around the 1924 Royal Decree would later play a critical role in the debates around women's suffrage in the Second Republic.
During the Congreso de los Diputados's inaugural session in 1927, the President of the Assembly specifically welcomed the new women, claiming their exclusion had been unjust.
[11][13] The abdication of king of Spain in 1930 would spell the end of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, and usher in the era of the Second Republic.
[14] The period also saw a number of rights available to women for the first time, including suffrage, divorce and access to higher education.
The first women to win seats in the Cortes were Clara Campoamor Rodríguez, Victoria Kent Siano and Margarita Nelken y Mansbergen.
[8] The measure in the constitution passed on 1 October 1931 as Article 36, stating, "Citizens of either sex, over twenty-three years of age, shall have the same electoral rights as determined by the laws.
[19] Three women won seats in Spain's national congress, the Cortes, in the 1931 elections: Clara Campoamor Rodríguez, Victoria Kent Siano and Margarita Nelken y Mansbergen.
"[20] Kent, in contrast, received much more support from Spain's right, including Catholics and traditionalists, during this period of constitutional debate as she, alongside Nelken, opposed women's suffrage.
[25] Kent and Campoamor became involved in a grand debate over the issue, receiving large amounts of press related to their arguments around women's suffrage.
La Voz de Guipúzcoa newspaper in Donostia said of the day, "It was Sunday when, for the first time in our city, the women went to the ballotbox, consulted for the issue of their vote in favor of the Statute.
[9] Clara Campoamor created the Female Republican Union (Unión Republicana de Mujeres) during the early part of the Second Republic.
[26] Victoria Kent and Margarita Nelken founded the Foundation for Women (Asociación Nacional de Mujeres Española) in 1918.
