20 Women in Francoist Spain

Adultery in Francoist Spain and the democratic transition was a criminal offense for women. In Francoist Spain (1936–1975), the crime of adultery by married women could lead to prison terms of between six months and six years. There was no comparable punishment for married men. In the period between 1944 and 1963, blood revenge was allowed for husbands who caught their wives in bed with other men. This allowed the husbands to injure or kill them with no real penal or civil punishment. Many women were imprisoned in the Francoist period for adultery, but the topic was little discussed in wider society.

Childcare in Francoist Spain and the democratic transition was not about the needs of the mother, but about the needs of the state to educate children. While childcare centers had been provided by Republican aligned unions in the Spanish Civil Wars, with the start of the Franco period women were discouraged from participating in the workforce. Instead, they were expected to tend to their children in the home. The 1942 Ley de Sanidad Infantil y Maternal provided some assistance to working mothers, including maternity leave, economic incentives to breastfeed and infant childcare. By 1955, the Franco government offered educational programming for children aged three to five, but this was focused less on the needs of mothers for childcare and more on the desire to provide children with skills and abilities to succeed in later mandatory schooling. By 1970, children aged two to five were officially considered part of the educational system, even if attendance was not mandatory.

Contraception in Francoist Spain (1939–1975) and the democratic transition (1975–1985) was illegal. It could not be used, sold or covered in information for dissemination. This was partly a result of Hispanic Eugenics that drew on Catholicism and opposed abortion, euthanasia and contraception while trying to create an ideologically aligned population from birth. A law enacted in 1941 saw usage, distribution and sharing of information about contraception become a criminal offense. Midwives were persecuted because of their connections to sharing contraceptive and abortion information with other women. Condoms were somewhat accessible in the Francoist period despite prohibitions against them, though they were associated with men and prostitutes. Other birth control practices were used in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s including diaphragms, coitus interruptus, the pill, and the rhythm method. Opposition to the decriminalization of contraception became much more earnest in the mid-1960s. By 1965, over 2 million units of the pill had been sold in Spain where it had been legal under certain medical conditions since the year before. Despite the Government welcoming the drop in the number of single mothers, they noted in 1975 that this was a result of more women using birth control and seeking abortions abroad.

Divorce in Francoist Spain and the democratic transition was illegal. While divorce had been legal during the Second Spanish Republic, Franco began to overturn these laws by March 1938. In 1945, the legislation embodied in his Fuero de los Españoles established that marriage was an indissoluble union. Divorce was still possible in Spain through the Catholic Church as a result of Pauline privilege or petrino. Marriages, primarily for the rich, could also be annulled through ecclesiastical tribunals. The Catholic Church was vigorously opposed divorces, whether on religious or civil grounds.

Gender roles in Francoist Spain became more regressive following the end of the Spanish Civil War. Women, who had achieved some degree of liberation during the Second Republic, were forced back into the home. Misogyny and heteronormativity became linchpins in the new fascist Spain, underpinned by Hispanic eugenics. Under this system, anyone who did not adhere to state and religious mandated gender roles and who expressed any deviance from Roman Catholic sexual norms was considered by both church and state to be a sex pervert.

Gender violence and rape in Francoist Spain was a problem that was a result of Nationalist attitudes developed during the Spanish Civil War. Sexual violence was common on the part of Nationalist forces and their allies during the Civil War. Falangist rearguard troops would rape and murder women in cemeteries, hospitals, farmhouses, and prisons. They would rape, torture and murder socialists, young girls, nurses and milicianas. Regular Nationalist soldiers engaged in similar patterns of rape, torture and murder in places like Maials, Callus and Cantalpino. Moroccan Foreign Legionaries were used to commit rape against women to instil terror among local populaces, using rape as a weapon of war. Women in prison were also raped, often facing death if they refused to have sex with their captors. The exact extent of the problem will likely never be known as there was less record keeping around women, and quantification attempts have largely resulted in the erasure of women's history.

Guardianship in Francoist Spain (1939-1975) and the democratic transition (1975-1985) was a system which provided husbands and fathers with tremendous legal control over women. Male members of the family were able to transfer legal control of their daughters over to the state. One of the developments after the Civil War was the restoration of the Civil Code of 1889 by the Franco regime. This made women into virtual slaves to their husbands and fathers with men controlling not only the custody of their children, but their bank accounts, contracts, nationality and residency. Women did not reach the age of majority until 21, 25 if they were unmarried or not in a convent. Husbands and fathers could kill their wives and daughters for committing adultery or having sex outside marriage. Minor reforms were made in the 1950s and 1960s, largely as a result of economic pressures.

Lesbians in Francoist Spain had to contend with a culture where a fascist state met with a form of conservative Roman Catholicism to impose very rigid, traditional gender roles. In the immediate post-Civil War period, the new regime was not concerned with homosexuals in general, but instead were focused on changing laws to enforce restrictive gender norms like repealing divorce. While original laws banning homosexuality were on the books and enforced using a 1933 law, they were changed in 1954 and 1970. Unlike male homosexuality, lesbians were less clearly addressed by these laws and were much less frequently prosecuted for the crime of homosexuality. Lesbians from that period are hard to identify because they were not identified as such, and often identified as prostitutes instead.

Lesbians in the Second Spanish Republic and Civil War period were doubly discriminated against, as a result of their gender and sexual practices. Prior to the Second Republic, lesbians in Spain were largely ignored, eclipsed by gay men. They faced discrimination as they challenged definitions around what it meant to be a woman. While homosexuality was not condemned by law, it was possible for lesbians to face more severe punishment when charged with violation of morals because of their sexual orientation.

Prostitution in Francoist Spain (1936–1975) presented the government with a problem. The Nationalist faction in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) tolerated the practice but prostitution was actively opposed by the Catholic Church. During the 1940s, state policy was more tolerant of it and allowed officially sanctioned brothels to serve the needs of men and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). However, clandestine prostitution was actively suppressed while its economic causes, which largely involved war orphans and women in dire economic situations, were ignored.

The Sección Femenina was the women's branch of the Falange political movement in Spain. Founded in July 1934 as part of the Sindicato Español Universitario (SEU) of the Falange Española de las JONS, and fully incorporated to FE de las JONS later in the year, it remained as part of the FET y de las JONS following the 1937 Unification Decree, subsequently becoming an official institution of the single-party of the Francoist dictatorship. Following General Franco's death and the beginning of the transition to democracy it was disbanded on 1 April 1977 together with all Movimiento Nacional institutions. Sección Femenina was led throughout its history by Pilar Primo de Rivera, the younger sister of Falange Española founder José Antonio Primo de Rivera.

Sex education in Francoist Spain (1939–1975) and the democratic transition (1975–1982) was prohibited by law to be taught in schools. When it was addressed, it was originally done so from a moralistic point of view, highlighting concepts like the need for chastity. During the mid-1950s, this practice began to change, and after formal government approval sex education incorporated more elements of psychology and biology. Despite a lack of government-sanctioned sex education, people were taught informally. Middle-class women could learn from marriage guides. More generally, as women approached the age to marry, they received more sexual education from friends, mothers, sisters, and future in-laws. Upper-class men learned by having sex with prostitutes and maids employed by their households.

Women in ETA in Francoist Spain were few in numbers, and portrayed as dangerous by the media. Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) grew out of a Basque nationalist movement with roots that pre-dated the Second Spanish Republic. When Franco seized power, the new regime cracked down on Basque nationalism, imprisoned and killed many activists and made traditional women's activism difficult to continue. Women found themselves being investigated by the new regime. Basque nationalists began to stockpile weaponry following the end of World War II. ETA was created in 1952 by students in Bilbao, creating a fissure in the Basque nationalist community by the mid-1950s. Their attitude towards women was patriarchal and informed by their conservative Roman Catholicism. There would be few women in the movement in this period.

Women in exile during Francoist Spain were a result of their being on the wrong side during the Spanish Civil War. The repression behind nationalist lines during the war and the immediate years that followed left many politically active women with few choices but to leave or face death. The exact totals of women who were murdered, fled or disappeared is unknown, as it was only possible to make estimates.

Women in the Basque Nationalist Party in Francoist Spain were involved in leadership positions from an early period. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) was founded prior to the Second Spanish Republic in Bilbao, as a conservative Roman Catholic organization. They initially tried to be neutral during the Civil War, but later more openly opposed Nationalist forces. This led to repression and investigation after the war of women PNV members, and wives and daughters of male PNV members. Emakume Abertzale Batza, PNV's women political section, was operated in exile in this early period.

Women in the workforce in Francoist Spain faced high levels of discrimination. The end of the Spanish Civil War saw a return of traditional gender roles in the country. These were enforced by the regime through laws that regulated women's labor outside the home and the return of the Civil Code of 1889 and the former Law Procedure Criminal, which treated women as legally inferior to men. During the 1940s, women faced many obstacles to entering the workforce, including financial penalties for working outside the home, job loss upon marriage and few legally available occupations.

Women prisoners in Francoist Spain were often there because of specific repression aimed at women. During the Civil War, many women were in prison because family members had Republican sympathies or the authorities wanted to lure out male Republican affiliated relatives; it was not a result of anything the women did themselves. The Law of Political Responsibilities, adopted on 13 February 1939, made such repression easier and was not formally removed from the Criminal Code until 1966. Prisoners and people in concentration camps, both male and female, would total over three quarters of a million by the end of the Spanish Civil War. Of these, 14,000 women were held in Las Ventas Model prison in Madrid.

Women's education in Francoist Spain was based around the belief that women lacked the same intellectual abilities as men and that education should prepare women for lives in the home as wives and mothers.

Women's media in Francoist Spain suffered as a result of Francoist Spain policy. Many writers, translators and others were forced into exile, or faced stifling censorship and harassment if they remained. Spanish restrictions meant writing became one of the few acceptable occupations for women, and literate women with few other outlets for participation in Spanish society became voracious readers.

Women's suffrage in Francoist Spain and the democratic transition was constrained by age limits, definitions around heads of household and a lack of elections. Women earned the right to vote in Spain in 1933 as a result of legal changes made during the Second Spanish Republic. Women lost most of their rights after Franco came to power in 1939 at the end of the Spanish Civil War, with the major exception that women did not universally lose their right to vote. Repression of the women's vote occurred nevertheless as the dictatorship held no national democratic elections between 1939 and 1977.