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Title: Free Women of Spain Author: Deirdre Hogan Date: May 1999 Language: en Topics: Mujeres Libres, anarcha-feminism, Spanish Revolution Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20120312154405/http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ws99/ws57_mujeres.html Notes: This article is from Workers Solidarity No 57 published in May 1999
Conditions for the vast majority of people in Spain in the 1920s and
1930s were appalling. For women they were especially bad. There were
extreme gender divisions. Most women were economically dependent on men.
Household chores and childcare were exclusively women's domain. In both
countryside and city women's wages were lower than men's. For example
the average daily wage of a male agricultural labourer was 3 pesetas
while a women got just half this, for working from dawn to dusk.
Men and women led completely separate lives. "Most women's social
circles consisted of other women: family members, neighbours, fellow
workers, or those they met at the market place. Men, conversely, tended
to operate in a largely male world, whether in the factory, at union
meetings, or in local bars."[1]
Women's personal freedom was severely restricted. Single women could not
go out without a chaperone and they could often be "given away" in
arranged marriages.
Due to the traditional role of women in Spain and the small number of
them working outside the home, only a minority of women were involved in
unions or other political organisations. Although the CNT[2] had a
clearly defined egalitarian position[3], in practice the CNT failed to
attract large numbers of women to its ranks and there was little
discussion of women's issues.
In response to the pressing need to address women's situation, in the
two years before the 1936 revolution, two groups of anarchist women in
Barcelona and Madrid had begun organising. In preparation for the
revolution, they built up a network of women activists which would soon
merge to form the Mujeres Libres (Free Women) organisation.
The military coup that took place on the 17th of July 1936 sparked off
the much awaited social revolution. Anarchist organisations had long
been expecting the military revolt. In the week before the coup large
numbers of CNT activists had been sleeping in their union halls in
preparation for a call to arms. As soon as the coup occurred people took
to the streets and stormed the armories in search of guns which the
government had refused to give them. For the first few days many women
worked at building barricades and in each barrio (neighbourhood) they
took care of provisions to make sure there would be enough food.
"The most important thing women did - aside, of course, from the heroic
things they did along with everyone else - was to go up to the roofs of
the buildings, with paper loudspeakers, and call out to the soldiers to
come to our side, to take off their uniforms and join the people."[4]
The military coup was quelled in Barcelona and other areas of Spain
where anarchists had a strong influence. Immediately, workers' militias
were organised and set out to wherever the frontline against fascism
was. Women fought alongside men as full and equal members of the
militias until November 1936 when the republican government
'militarised' the militias and ordered women away from the frontline.[5]
Immediately after the failed coup, industrial and agricultural
collectives sprang up throughout the area of Spain controlled by the
anti-fascists. The collectives were inspired largely by the ideas of the
anarchist trade union, the CNT, and involved as many as five million
people. In the first few months activists in the CNT or the FAI[6] would
travel the countryside, encouraging people to collectivise. In the words
of one activist, Soledad Estorach,
"When we got to a village, we'd go to the provisional committee of the
village and call a general assembly of the entire village. We'd explain
our paradise with great enthusiasm... And then there would be a debate -
campesino style - questions, discussion, etc. By the next day, they'd
begin expropriating land, setting up work groups, etc."[7]
The collectives were, in general, very successful and living conditions
for those who participated improved dramatically. However in the rural
collectives there was no significant change in the traditional sexual
division of labour. Although single women worked outside the family
home, usually in collective workshops or in branches of the distribution
co-operatives, married women still held the responsibility for
childcare. Domestic chores fell automatically to women.
Although some collectives (such as those of Monzón and Miramel) paid men
and women equally regardless of what type of work was done, in general
the work women did was undervalued. Often when wages were paid to each
individual women received less than men. Some collectives paid a family
wage, however it was paid to the man who was assumed to be the head of
the family.
In the cities there had traditionally been a high proportion of women
working in the textile industries. Many women had done 'piece work' from
home. This was abolished during the revolution and an increasing number
of women flooded into the new collectivised factory jobs. For example,
in Madrid and Barcelona women ran much of the public transport system.
The move into factory jobs generally meant improved hours and wages for
women.
However very often wage differentials continued to exist between men and
women. Much like today, women had the multiple role of working outside
the home and then after work coming home to take care of children and
housework. This meant that for many it was difficult to attend union
meetings and with such little participation in union leadership, issues
of particular concern to women were often not prioritised.
This was not the case in the few areas where there had been a history of
organised activity by women in their union (such as the CNT textile
workers union in Terrassa). In such places women had succeeded in
getting the union to adopt equal pay for equal work and paid maternity
leave.
Many people were acutely aware of the problems that existed for women
specifically, at that time. In September 1936 a women's anarchist
organisation was established which, during its short two year existence,
came to number 30,000 women.
Mujeres Libres had two main strategies. The first was what was called
"capacitacion" which aimed at preparing women so that they could realise
their full potential and participate as equals in the new society that
was being built. The second strategy was "captacion" - which meant the
active incorporation of women into the anarchist movement.
Mujeres Libres from the start made great efforts to involve more women
in union activities. Many women had difficulties going to union meetings
because of their childcare responsibilities so one of the first
activities Mujeres Libres engaged in was to set up "flying day-care
centres", primarily for women who were interested in serving as union
delegates.
Education was an important part of the work done by Mujeres Libres. They
wanted particularly to tackle the problem of illiteracy which was
widespread in Spain at that time. They set up the Casa de la Dona which
was taking 600-800 women per day by December 1938. The courses ranged
from elementary reading, writing and maths to professional classes in
mechanics, agriculture, and also classes in union organisation,
sociology and economics.
Mujeres Libres believed that education and consciousness raising would
empower women to "free her (self) from her triple enslavement: her
enslavement to ignorance, her enslavement as a producer, and her
enslavement as a women. To prepare her for a new, more just social
order."[8] This would enable women to take a more active role in the
revolution and thus help win the war.
Mujeres Libres co-operated with unions in running numerous employment
and apprenticeship programs in order to facilitate women's entry to the
workplace. As well as technical training they urged trainees to fight
for full equality within the workplace.
In order to spread their message Mujeres Libres had their own magazine
and also published numerous articles in the libertarian press. Members
of the organisation travelled the countryside on propaganda tours to
talk to the women there and also to help establish rural collectives.
Pepita Carpena spoke of her experiences:
"We would call the women together and explain to them... that there is a
clearly defined role for women, that women should not lose their
independence, but that a woman can be a mother and a companera at the
same time... Young women would come over to me and say, "This is very
interesting. What you're saying we've never heard before. It's something
that we've felt, but we didn't know" ...The ideas that grabbed them the
most? Talk about the power men exercised over women.. There would be a
kind of uproar when you would say to them, "We cannot permit men to
think themselves superior to women, that they have a right to rule over
them". I think that Spanish women were waiting anxiously for that call."
[9]
It is important to take into consideration the context of 1930s Spain to
fully appreciate the achievements of Mujeres Libres during the social
revolution. As well as overcoming their own social conditioning they had
to challenge the assumptions of what women's role should be. Many
articles written in anarchist newspapers and magazines complained that
often male comrades, despite their political beliefs, would still expect
to be 'masters' in their own home and had fixed views on women's proper
place in society.
"All these companeros, however radical they may be in cafes, unions, and
even affinity groups, seem to drop their costumes as lovers of female
liberation at the doors of their homes."[10] In public contexts within
the libertarian movement women generally found that they were not taken
seriously and were not respected.
For these reasons Mujeres Libres always insisted on organisational
autonomy. They believed that women needed a separate organisation whose
main focus would be issues of particular concern to women. They argued
that only through their own self-directed action would women become
confident and capable, able to participate as equals in the anarchist
movement.
However Mujeres Libres refused to separate the struggle for women's
emancipation from class struggle. They rejected mainstream feminism
whose only ambition was "to give to women of a particular class the
opportunity to participate more fully in the existing system of
privilege".[11] Instead, they treated women's subordination as part of a
larger system of hierarchies.
Revolutions bring about dramatic social changes. Old expectations,
assumptions and ways of behaving begin to be questioned. Mujeres Libres
was a vital organisation for raising issues which would never have been
brought forward by other left-wing organisations at the time. The social
revolution was made by people, like the women in Mujeres Libres, who
pushed forward for radical changes in a very conservative society.
The fate of Mujeres Libres was tied to the fate of the entire social
revolution. When the republican government, including the CNT
leadership, concentrated on a 'popular front' against Franco's fascists
the social revolution and the changes brought by Mujeres Libres were
pushed aside. Nothing was to be done that would frighten the
'anti-fascist' section of the ruling class nor antagonise the 'Western
democracies'. The war was not to be for a new Spain, just for
parliamentary rulers rather than military ones. When this happened the
revolution died, and the war against Franco was lost.
[1] 'Free Women of Spain. Anarchism and the struggle for the
emancipation of women', Martha A. Ackelsberg, p.43/44
[2] CNT (Confederacion Nacional de Trabojo), an anarchist-syndicalist
trade union founded in 1911.
[3] At its Zaragoza Congress of May 1936 the CNT stated that in an
anarchist society "the two sexes will be equal, both in rights and in
obligations".
[4] Soledad Estorach quoted in 'Free Women of Spain', p69
[5] The militarisation was resisted by several columns - the Iron Column
and the Durruti Column amongst others.
[6] FAI (Federacion Anarquista Iberica) - Loose federation of anarchist
groups formed in 1927.
[7] 'Free Women of Spain', p77
[8] Ibid, p118
[9] Ibid, p121
[10] Ibid, p87
[11] Federica Montseny quoted in 'Free Women of Spain', p90/91.