Women putting up posters

Women were one of the groups for whom the Second Republic awakened hopes of greater levels of freedom and equality. The government of the Republic did bring in a number of measures to benefit women that were embodied in the Constitution and in reforms to the Civil and Penal Codes.

These reforms included legal equality with men, coeducational education, the legalization of divorce, and the granting of female suffrage which opened new possibilities for women’s participation in politics and significantly increased their public visibility. For the first time, many women took to the streets to defend their rights and promote their ideas, as illustrated by the photograph of Goya Telo, María Telo, and Pilar Alonso posting political posters in Salamanca in May 1936. The acquisition of political citizenship strengthened women’s position in the public sphere and contributed to their growing visibility in the media.

The granting of female suffrage led all political parties to establish women’s sections, including those that had previously opposed women’s right to vote. Aware that women now constituted half of the electorate, parties recognized the need to appeal to this new political constituency. For many women, this marked their first direct engagement with formal politics. However, since the 1910s, particularly with the creation of Catholic Women’s Action, Catholic women had already been encouraged by the social Catholic movement to take to the streets in defense of their model of the family and society.

The work of the pioneering women who created women’s and feminist organizations must not be forgotten. One of the most noteworthy was the National Association of Spanish Women, founded in 1918, which demanded the end of legal discrimination against married women, access to employment, and equal pay for equal work. From 1924, it also advocated women’s suffrage. Around the same time, the Union of Spanish Women emerged, aligned more closely with socialist ideas. The women’s movement gained renewed momentum with the creation of the Spanish Women’s Crusade in 1921, which defended sexual equality, female suffrage, the elimination of legal discrimination against women, equal pay, and the legalization of divorce. The Crusade also organized the first public event led by Spanish suffragists. After the passage of the Divorce Law in March 1932, Clara Campoamor, who had been its most prominent advocate during the parliamentary debates, created the Republican Female Union, the only women’s organization that was completely feminist and independent of all political parties.

This network of organizations, together with the democratic experience of the Second Republic, resulted in an unprecedented mobilization of women, one that intensified during the Civil War, with the creation of new associations and women’s involvement in the home front and front lines.

ACS