Women in 1940s Spain

[8] Internal Spanish women migrants found life in Spain difficult during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s as Francoist policy dictated they remain in the home.

Named after an Italian car, women in this movement wore wedge shoes with cork soles, skirts worn a little longer than the knee, nylon stockings and tight dresses.

[16] Doctors in Francoist Spain had two roles: to be moral protectors of Spanish reproduction and to provide science based medical services.

The abortions were performed using things like knitting needles, parsley stems, vaginal irritants, physical trauma, probes, mustard baths, or ingesting substances.

10 women in Luna were found guilty of having abortions, in an extreme case of what appeared to be a coordinated effort to hide the existence of an underage prostitution ring.

[20] The regime used Sección Femenina and Acción Católica to impose its pro-ntalist policies on Spain through the concept of traditional womanhood, that demanded among other things that women tend to the home and be primary caregivers to their children.

Married women with young children often had high results of absenteeism on full-time jobs where she was expected to work 40 to 48 hours a week.

Even in the face of international programs like the Red Cross and visiting medical professionals from abroad, Spanish medicine resisted making its hierarchy and teaching practices less sexist.

[44] Franco issued an order in May 1940 that said, "Any person who wishes to exhume the corpse of one of his relatives who were killed by the red horde, to inter them again in the cemetery, you can request it to the civil governor of the corresponding province."

[45][46] During the Civil War, from his seat of government in Burgos, Franco issued a declaration in April 1938 that promised pensions to widows and orphans of Nationalist forces captured by Republicans.

She was followed by Alida González, sisters Antonia y Consuelo Rodríguez Montes, Alberta Viñales Martínez, Alpidia Moral Alonso and Asunción Macías Fernández.

Pharmacists or anyone in their employ who gave any substance or medicine that would be considered abortive could face the loss of their professional qualifications for 5 to 10 years and fines of between 1,000 and 25,000 pesetas.

[20] In the first days of the Francoist period, it was a crime for a mother, daughter, sister or wife of a "red", and this could be punished with long prison sentences or death.

While at the prison from the time of her arrest during the Civil War to 1942, she was subjected to constant psychological torture at the hands of the Little Sisters of the Poor who attempted to convert her to Catholicism and punish her for her Republican ties.

[31] The 1943 lay required that all women at university complete six months of social service in state institutions under the guidance Sección Femenina's S.E.U supervision.

[12] Pilar Primo de Rivera attended the 1943 National Council of Spanish Education Service as the leader of the Women's Section.

"[27][69] She continued, arguing that women had never offered anything as they lacked intelligence and creativity, that they never discovered anything, and that they needed guidance from men to interpret information.

Voluntary dependency, the offering of every minute, every desire and illusion is the most beautiful thing, because it implies the cleaning away of all the bad germs -- vanity, selfishness, frivolity -- by love.

[55] Men were only considered to have committed adultery when they brought the girlfriend into the marital home to live or if knowledge of a man's affair caused a public scandal.

[55][25][73] The regime's adultery laws were based on the Siete Partidas, established by Alfonso X, and designed to punish women for having sex outside of marriage.

Husbands and parents were still punished under the law for these killings, but the consequences were small and mostly included only an exile from his home of a distance greater than 25 kilometers of a few years.

The code said, "The husband who, if his wife is caught in adultery, will kill the woman or the adulterer on the spot or cause them one of the serious injuries, will be punished with banishment.

These rules are applicable to parents in the same circumstances, with respect to their daughters under twenty-three years of age and their corruptors, as long as they lived in their father's house.

This act also had a clause that said to work in industrial or commercial sector jobs, women needed to have proof they had been vaccinated and a doctor's note saying they did not have a contagious disease; no similar requirement existed for men.

[47] The order of instruction made by the Criminal Investigation Court n ° 5 of the Spanish National Audience put the number of children of republican detainees whose identities were supposedly changed in the Civil Registry delivered to families who supported the Francoist regime at 30,960 in the period between 1944 -1954.

A Comisión Liquidadora de Responsabilidades Políticas (Commission for the Discharge of Political Responsibilities) remained in operation until 1966 when the law was effectively abolished.

[33] Reforms were made to primary school education in 1945, with the goal of bringing students into political alignment with the state and of ensuring social stability.

Primary schools started the day with hoisting the Spanish flag, and singing nationalist songs like El cara al sol.

[90] Starting in May 1946, Sección Feminina, in conjunction with their magazine Ventanal, began an hour long Monday night weekly radio program that focused on women's writers.