Progress engenders hope, as well as fear. The fascist movements meant, among other things, a reaction against the advances of women towards equality with men. While they had to run the society, they had to remain in the background. They could be complements to the male figures, but never their equals.
In Spain, the Franco regime reacted virulently against the openness that had led the Second Republic to recognize women’s rights, beginning with the right to vote in elections. While feminism was harshly criticized, femininity was extolled in traditional and Catholic terms.
During the Civil War, the insurgents had called Spanish women to fulfill the functions that God had assigned them: “Tenderness is requested of her, the affection of a mother and sister, which our little women always show in their hearts.” of the family and in their games with the dolls”.
From this point of view, expressed in strongly kitsch language, the feminine was synonymous with self-denial, love and innocence. There was a special interest in reducing women to the status of minors. Whoever wanted to move away from these parameters ipso facto renounced her own identity as a human being: “A woman is always a girlfriend, sister, wife or mother, and when she does not know how to be, she is not a woman”.
Criticism of feminism becomes a real obsession. In the Falangist newspaper Imperio of November 14, 1936, it was condemned that women, after the First World War, called “loudly for an absurd independence, an emancipation that fell into tacky frivolity.”
Spanish women, from this ultra-conservative perspective, should never aspire to work in jobs that were considered masculine. Instead of taking on “manly functions”, her duty was to appear delicate and loving.
Curiously, when Imperio wants to give an example of the supposed ideal woman, he first cites Isabel la Católica, whom he praises because “she knew how to be a wife and a Spaniard, encouraging gigantic companies.” It is hard to understand the logic of setting a sovereign as a model when, shortly before, it was clearly stated that women should not mix with men’s tasks. Falangist writings are like that, more emotional than anything else, without much interest in the coherence of the argument.
The newspaper La Falange, in its edition of May 9, 1938, insisted on these issues, rescuing a text where José Antonio Primo de Rivera rejected both gallantry and feminism. The first, because it is a way to defraud women through praise to corner her later. The second, because women had to follow their own destiny. It did not make sense, according to José Antonio, that they were engaged in a rivalry with the man where they had “everything to lose.”
According to the founder of the Falange, true feminism “should not consist in wanting for women the functions that today are considered superior, but in surrounding female functions with ever greater human and social dignity.” Women, for Primo de Rivera, had the merit of accepting, most of the time, a life of submission. The man, on the other hand, was characterized by his radical selfishness. What he never explains is why, if they are truly distinguished by such a lack of generosity, they are the ones who have to govern the country.
Another Falangist publication, Azul, publishes an article entitled “Las heroicas mujeres españolas” (January 9, 1938) praising the Falangists for caring for the war wounded or welcoming children in children’s soup kitchens. Republicans, on the other hand, are presented in strongly denigrating terms, as ridiculous beings who do not understand the values ??that really matter, but are capable of “become heartbroken before a fried bird and faint in a bullfight.”
Falange, in short, did not ask for “votes, nor equal rights, but equality of sacrifices and duties.” Once again, important issues are hidden away. Why should someone who does not have equal rights have the same duties?
The Falange set out to frame women within its Women’s Section, a branch of the party that was in charge of Social Assistance. This charitable organization intended to contribute to social peace both because of the cross-class composition of its militants and because of the gratitude that its favor would arouse among those most in need.
Being part of the Social Assistance, in their kitchens, homes or nurseries, not only meant providing a service to the nation. It was also an apprenticeship for when the young woman would have “the august hour of fulfilling the function of her mother.”
It was clearly an ideology that sought to convert half the population into second-class citizens. In the texts of the time, the Falangists insist that they do not have the slightest intention of belittling women. The quotes from his writings speak for themselves.
