Women in Francoist Spain
Pregnant women in prison often had their children kidnapped by the state, in order for them to be placed in families that supported the government line.
It was an embrace of organic democracy, defined as a reassertion of traditional Spanish Roman Catholic values that served as a counterpoint to the Communism of the Soviet Union during the same period.
[3] Franco used his status as head of Falange to become Caudillo, fashioning himself as a political and spiritual leader who led the country in a Crusade against the secular forces of the Second Republic.
[11] Doctors in Francoist Spain had two roles: to be moral protectors of Spanish reproduction and to provide science based medical services.
[13] The end of World War II meant Franco felt threatened by the extinction of other European fascist regimes on the continent.
[17] Internal Spanish women migrants found life in Spain difficult during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s as Francoist policy dictated they remain in the home.
[18] During the 1940s, the number of women in Málaga for crimes related to food acquisition sentenced to Caserón de la Goleta increased.
[6] Until the mid-1950s, Spain was crippled by an economic crisis coupled with a government imposed repressive society and culture that demanded uniformity and compliance.
[26] 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.
Women were no longer only biological organisms existing for the sole purpose of procreation, but as beings for whom Spanish cultural meaning rested.
The court said in rejecting the appeal, "there was no consent, because although the husband knew the behavior of his wife, he could not exercise the action while the guilty lived abroad."
Opportunities to work, study or travel required taking classes on cooking, sewing, childcare and the role of women before they were granted.
[44] Republican mothers abroad addressed the problem of specifically being targeted by Franco's regime by created the Unión de Mujeres Españolas (UME) in France.
[40] State supported feminism, expressed through Sección Femenina, offered Isabel the Catholic and Teresa of Avila as symbols for Spanish women to look up.
[46] The pride that women got in completing these domestic tasks associated with Sección Femenina's teachings has been described by Guiliana Di Febo as Christian feminism.
[40][43] Women needed permission to do an array of basic activities, including applying for a job, opening a bank account or going on a trip.
[50] Women were involved with the party, helping to organize covert armed resistance by serving in leadership roles and assisting in linking up political leaders in exile with those active on the ground in Spain.
[50] During the later parts of the war and at its conclusion, some women from POUM were coerced into making false confessions in Moscow courtrooms, and then sent to Soviet prisons.
[51] It was only during the 1950s and 1960s that some of those women involved with POUM and Trotskyite purges began to re-evaluate their role in them; their change of hearts only occurred after Stalinist Communism lost its prestige among leftist circles.
Swiss aid worker Elizabeth Eidenbenz arrived to the camps on the frontier in December 1939, and immediately set about improving maternity services.
Works produced by these writers including Nada by Carmen Laforet in 1945 and La mujer nueva in 1955, Primera memoria by Ana María Matute in 1960.
[40] Writings of some foreign feminists did find their way to Spain, including the Le deuxième sex published in French in 1947 by Simone de Beauvoir.
[54] British Surrealist Leonora Carrington traveled to Spain in 1940, seeking to find her partner Max Ernst who had left Germany was on the run from the Gestapo.
Her trip happened only months after the Civil War officially ended, and the arrest of Ernst precipitated a mental breakdown that eventually saw her put into an asylum in Santander after her father and the British government agreed.
Women were no longer only biological organisms existing for the sole purpose of procreation, but as beings for whom Spanish cultural meaning rested.
[59] The nuns of the order Evangelical Crusades of Christ the King were created during the Spanish Civil War with the purpose of monitoring Republic prisoners.
[60] The nuns of the order Evangelical Crusades of Christ the King continued their work during the Franco regime by running the Trinitat Vella women's prison in Catalonia.
To carry out this task of controlling female morality, the so-called Patronato de Proteccion a la Mujer was created , within the Ministry of Justice, whose objective was to defend "good customs" and attend to "the victims of vice", seeking its "Repentance and re-Christianization".
[62] The Catholic Church, for its part, endeavored to impose traditional values in both the private and public spheres, with a particular concern to monitor and condemn any behavior or attitude of women that could lead to "sinful intentions".
The ecclesiastics were also concerned about the feminine dress – for which they gave strict instructions on skirts, sleeves, necklines or stockings – and the "modern" dances, "the root of countless sins and offenses against God," according to the bishop of Ibiza , and "favorite fair of Satan", according to Cardinal Pedro Segura, archbishop of Seville.
