Twentieth-century feminisms in Catalonia

Abstract

Any summary of the plural and diverse feminist movement in Catalonia in the 20th century needs to go over the 19th-century precedents and also take a look at the present situation. We shall give a brief review of the fight for women’s suffrage, the labour movement and female citizenship, and the progress made in the period between the wars, particularly in the autonomous Catalonia of the Spanish 2nd Republic. We also focus on the features of the second wave of Western feminism under the long Franco dictatorship and the outburst of the movement in the transition to democracy. The contraction cycle during the construction of the welfare state and the force of institutional feminism led to changes and continuity until the onset of the crisis and the new cycle of mobilization at the turn of the century. Specialized bibliography and our own long-term research enable the movement to be situated in the European context. Feminism has intermittent periods of visibility and mobilization. But between every period of activity there is a network of women who continue to think and act over and above their own subordinate status. Historical studies of women and gender have shown that all the progress made towards women’s citizenship has been associated with feminist mobilization rather than the existence of feminist associations in both Catalonia and Europe.

Keywords: History of Catalonia in the 20th century, Feminism, Political Catalanism, History of women and gender, Social movements