Feminist Political Cultures: Spain 1970-1979.

 

I tank my friends, Sonia and Tatiana, for the translation.

by Giulia Gadaleta

The clandestine phase of Feminism during Franco’s Regime: SESM and MDM during the ‘60s.

 

The period of foundation of Spanish Feminism can be set during the ‘60s, a period characterised by social changes that affected the lifestyle of women and saw a new female activism after many years of imposed silence[1]. The new models of the family, likewise the entrance, although weak, of women in the working environment, opened up a new trend in the traditional division of roles within family and society[2]. These elements differentiate the reaction to Francoism of that generation of women who lived those changes compared to the generation that had lived during the II Republic and the Civil War[3], especially the women that were defeated. For this reason, my analysis will start considering two very different sets of women, whose history is rooted in the last fifteen years of the dictatorship: the Seminario de estudios sociólogicos sobre la mujer and the Movimiento democrático de mujeres. Without forgetting their respective differences, those two movements represent two aspects of the female opposition to Francoism before the generation of the Feminist movement in 1975, and they also present significant overlappings. If, on one side, the MDM represents the political version, on the other side, the SESM is the expression of the intellectual aspect. The cultural intervention was a way of acting chosen by most of the Spanish opposition: that is the reason for the success of reviews such as  "Cuadernos para el Diálogo", "Cuadernos de Ruedo Ibérico" and "Triunfo".

The Seminario de Estudios sociológicos sobre la mujer was used to organise meetings since 1960[4] in the house of a “illuminist” aristocratic, María Campo Alange. The participants of those meetings were women from the bourgeois, characterised by an average education and by a university background[5]. The SESM was mainly focused on studying and publishing papers on the social conditions of Spanish women. The means of cultural intervention, in fact, represented a mandatory choice, as it allowed, within the limits of censorship, for public activity. The repressive institutions of the regime, in fact, did not treat this kind of activity in the same way as political activists but their attitude was rather something between prevention and permissiveness. As Salas seems to suggest, this treatment was reserved for activities generated by a cultural elite:

 

We wrote the first book in ’63… the Plan de Estabilización was already in place, we aimed to modernise Spain, there was a strong modernisation process in the country… thus, since a book is read by few people there was a certain degree of tolerance. [6]

 

The only allowed Feminism during the dictatorship was a cultural contribution that did not cross the border with any sort of political critique, that was able to mildly suggest reforms for education and for the legislative system, having as an inspiring model the process of modernisation supported by the new technocratic managerial class of the Opus Dei. On the other side, the culture in itself of the Seminar was Liberal and Christian:

 

We were not Marxists, we were progressivistwomen. We were professional women, with a university background, bourgeois […] We were women belonging to the wealthy middle class, the chairwoman was an aristocrat, but she had written papers thanks to her progressivistinclination. [7] .

 

In December 1965, "Cuadernos para el Diálogo", a review directed by Joaquín Ruiz-Jiménez[8], published a special issue on the female condition. According to its ecumenical orientation, the review presented very different political standpoints. The relevance of the monograph was presented to the readers in the following way:

 

A characteristic of our time […] has been and still is the involvement of women in collective and social tasks […] Having been educated to be realized not as a subject but as a being dependant upon a man […] a woman is first of all a woman and then a human being.[9]

 

This issue of "Cuadernos para el Dialogo”, which three members of the SESM collaborated with, Consuelo de la Gandara, María Salas e Lilí Alvarez, represents a significant sign of how the “female condition” became subject of prominence during the 60s of a new “carefully progressive tendency”, as it is stressed by Scanlon, who had strongly initiated the debate.

As it is possible to understand from the quote above, it was a very important achievement for Liberalism to claim the dichotomy between public and private and the introduction of the concept of subject within the female condition. But, those standpoints were very much founded on the natural female difference[10] and they were stepping back from Marxism and Feminism considered to be “already surpassed in the western world”[11]. Consuelo de la Gandara claims in the whole paper that the female condition is a problem of cultural promotion “lack of education or poorly directed education”[12]: a lack of culture is the main reason for not being able to participate in those “privilegies relevant to the[…]individual”[13]: Dignity and Autonomy.

 

The female culture will have its own peculiar characteristics, but its aim will be to provide women with intellectual skills, responsibility, feeling and a moral education that will allow her to become part of contemporary Spanish society[14].

 

Probably, it is possible to claim that the culture of the SESM is rooted in the most relevant Spanish Liberalist movements, in particular in the Krausist school of thought, which, during the 19^th century had promoted feminine education as a tool of national renewal: “the essential mission of the ‘new woman’ is to be virtuous and educated so as to be able to take propercare of the children’s education”[15]. As it is widely known, the SESM belongs to the reformist trend of Feminism of the 60s and 70s, which inherits the theoretical-political tradition of the Suffragism, which in turn inherits from Illuminism.

The main aspect of this political culture is the idea of a female marginality, which remains unexplained in its deep structural roots. Though, we find modern elements in the way of carrying out a detailed analysis of the means and ways of socialising of the discriminatory attitude towards women, in the worry for an introspection of such culture, in disagreeing with imposing on women the female role within family as the only possible role for women[16]. Maybe with the intention of reassuring censorship, the female role within the family did not prevent the practice of inalienable human rights: the desired entrance of women into public life was justified as the natural and right counterpart of female activity within the institution of the family[17]. We could claim that, with the intention of providing foundations for the “legitimacy for women to access the political sphere”[18], the SESM was swinging between individualism and social maternity, with the necessary consequence of generating an ambiguous image of woman.

During June 1970, the Sección femenina celebrated the I Congreso internacional de la mujer and the members of the SESM took part in it on an individual basis, trying to participate in the debate:

 

We doubted whether to participate […] but finally we took part individually. We created different workshops and acted as lobbyists. I took part in the workshop on education and it was a stupid debate: I was in favour of introducing co-education and at the end what was decided was the introduction of “education of girls and boys, mixed” as the same word co-education was forbidden….anyway, each of us in her own workshop had to strongly debate, but, since there were participants from foreign countries, we were forced to tolerate certain differences. [19]

 

In the last fifteen years of the Franco’s Regime, the Seminar develops a set of standpoints partly due to the lack of political and civil rights but mainly due to its own inspiring political culture characterised by an inclination towards reformism, negotiations, graduality and by its preference, in accordance with its Liberalist inspiration, for a contribution from intellectuals rather than from the mass.  

The topic of the origins of the Movimiento democrático de mujeres, of its relationship with the Spanish Communist Party, of its evolutions towards feminist positions has always been and still is very debated. The MDM, in fact, has always represented for a long time a milestone, the symbolic turnpoint between Female revolts and Feminist revolts.

The Movimiento Democratico de Mujeres was founded at the end of 1964 by women belonging to the Partido Comunista de Espana, and spread from Madrid to other regions of the Spanish country[20]. In this first period, the MDM grouped women with different political orientations and represented the only female political organisation within the opposition to Francoism: ”Every unhappy woman adhered to the M.D.M; this is what gives to it the characterisation of unitary and eterogenic organisation, although the influence of comunist women is important since the PCE was the main organisation against Francoism”.[21]

As a very interesting volume by Fernanda Alfaro Romeu[22] highlights, in the first years of its activity, the top priority of the Movimiento democratico de mujeres was to do with the set up of a network of solidarity with political prisoners and with their families, sensitizing the civil society in favour of amnesty, organising demonstrations outside jails requesting freedom, milder sentences or simply keeping alive relationhips between civil society and people in jail:

 

The Movimiento democrático de mujeres [...] was more than anything an organisation of solidarity and when I was in jail they used to bring me food and reviews. [23]

The Movimiento democrático de mujeres had a very strong link with the PCE, both because many women were wives of members of the PCE and because it was an organisation of solidarity.[24]

 

The petitions to institutions and religious hierarchies drew their authority from the same feminist presence in the families; despite this, the sensitization towards solidarity of the “female popular mass” represented, during the years of most cruel repression, a fact that anyway questioned the Francoist objective of confining women to home virtues.

In the period between the 60s and 70s, to the more traditional objectives of  “fighting against repression, in favour of amnesty and solidarity”[25], the MDM had also proposed vindictive activity very close to those “aspects of the everyday life”[26] within the family which saw as major actors its female component, the housewives. Later on, besides the final objectives of improving the conditions of popular style of life – kindergartens, high cost of life, social services- the MDM had also requested for civil female rights[27]. Being aware of the changes produced by a wild urbanisation, the MDM favoured the urban territory [28] and in particular the peripheral areas of big cities. Sara Iribarren, theorist of the MDM and member of the PCE, in 1973 described the activity of the Movimiento democrático de mujeres:

 

The activities of the MDM are several. Some are theoretic, like the organisation of workshops and district meetings […]on women’s problems within family and society […]; others are practical , as the organisation of  demonstrations and delegations sent to firms, writing documents to the authorities, the creation of groups of solidarity […] for people who have been arrested or fired, the sending of delegations to the town authorities to ask for schools, kindergartens, gardens […] initiatives taken in markets against the high cost of living. [29]

 

Requests related to the female condition and requests for quality of life in popular urban areas will go hand in hand for some time in the programmatic heritage of the MDM. On the other side, though, the gradual evolution from solidarity to attention to problems of the housewives, and from this to the request of legal reforms, were not able to open the discussion about the role of women within family and society as nursing activity. They were still promoting the idea of work as social nursing assistance of women as an extension of the family nursing assistance, an idea not very different from the one used by the SESM in order to promote and justify the female social activity, although different in its subversive purposes and in its tension towards collective redemption. Merche Comabella, long time chairwoman of the MDM, explains in tactical terms such ambivalence:

 

It was very difficult to talk to women about topics such as contraception, divorce, or the entrance of women in the working environment […] so we had to think about different ways of getting in touch with those women who did not have any sort of link with the social or political reality […] besides talking about divorce, contraceptives and adultery we also used to talk about those aspects that directly related to women’s every day life, since the management of their house was their duty. [30]   

 

The MDM pushed for the working movement and the democratic forces to develop greater attention towards the “female participation” in popular movements, reinforcing the link of solidarity that related it to the opposition against the dictatorship. Although the peculiarity of the female condition was recognised, this was connected to the capitalistic contradictions and the female movement was expected to be able to became a new front in the fight against dictatorship, in favour of socialism.

 

Feminism in the phase of transition towards Democracy: continuity, changes and forms of radicalism.

 

Starting from the beginning of the 70s, a process of radicalisation took place, as demonstrated by the fact that, between 1974 and 1975, the Movimiento de liberación de la mujer was added to the old definition of Movimiento democrático de mujeres : “The expression Movimiento democrático de mujeres was justified because there was a dictatorship, […] but going towards a pre-democratic phase, the foundations, the objectives and the ways of fighting could not stay the same.”. [31]

The revision of the MDM in a Feminist way was claimed in a new program produced during October 1976. A brief comparison between this new program and the one elaborated in 1971 highlights not only the introduction of new issues, a change in the language used, but also a new way of looking at old problems [32]. The conquest of Democracy was considered as a simple premise to female claims. The traditional claim of amnesty for political prisoners was extended to “behaviour considered to be criminal for the gender”. The request for social services (e.g. kindergartens) that was in first position in the 1971 program, in the 1976 program was the one before the last and it was placed close to the request for “collective services (laundries, canteens)”, whose aim was to make the “double working day of women” easier. Co-education was still a main objective but, in 1976, was seen as the most suitable means to prevent the reproduction and reinforcement of types of behaviour with differences based on gender, in particular “dual morality”. In 1971, the right to family planning was intimately linked to marriage, while in 1976 it was requested as a right in itself and the link with marriage was just one of the many possibilities. At last, in 1976 the legalisation of contraceptive methods and abortion was mentioned. In evaluating female oppression, a big relevance was given to issues often considered secondary in importance because they were superstructural.  “We revise the program and there we stress […] items related to the lack of women’s rights and this has to be due not so much to the evolution of the organisation but rather to the political situation of the country”.[33]   

The process of radicalisation of MDM-MLD was a symptom of an important change that happened in those years: the public presence of the feminist movement. Two events, as we will see, will determine its birth: the death of general Francisco Franco on 20^th November 1975, after a long dictatorship that lasted almost forty years and the proclamation by the United Nations in 1975 of the International Year of Women.

During 1974, the Movimiento democrático de mujeres promoted a series of organisational groups such as the Secretariado de organizaziones no-gubernamentales in Madrid and within the Asociación de amigos de las Naciones unidas in Barcellona: the backing of the United Nations would provide a movement still in the beginning phase with coverage that the regime had to tolerate, would provide the opportunity for the creation of an organisational structure and the set up of a network of contacts and relations[34]. Also, it could represent a very important point of reference for claims, reinforcing long standing European inspirations[35], with the ability to guarantee visibility and a delegitimisation of the official governmental intervention of the Sección femenina[36].

On 20^th February 1975, the Plataforma de organizaciones de mujeres de Madrid printed a document: this document listed all contradictions that prevented the realisation of the principle of non-discrimination towards women, a principle claimed by the United Nations and to which the Spanish State itself subscribed. The document highlighted that “the peculiar characteristics of the political development in Spain” and the “traditional and historical social predominance of men”[37] were obstacles for the achievement of equality and female freedom. The same historic role of the francoist legislation that provided women with a role functional to the reactionary objectives of the regime[38] explains why the feminist movement focussed its attention on legal issues: the declaration, in fact, was basically founded on a program which claimed the normalisation of the legal female condition within the Civil, the Trade, the Right of Family and Legislation of Work Codes[39]. 

Its moderation basically met the tactic attitudes developed in the long period of dictatorship. For example, even if they did not openly ask for a law on divorce, the request of a separation between Church and State was its essential condition. 

This program was presented at the debate Primeras jornadas por la liberación de la mujer that took place on December 6, 7, 8 1975. Due to the political instability created by the first government of the monarchy, led by Arias Navarro[40], the Primeras jornadas por la liberación de la mujer were actually celebrated underground thanks to the cover granted by the sorority of Collegio Montepellier.

The outcome of the Jornadas confirmed the short-term agenda of the Programa-Manifiesto. Nevertheless, the claim had a stronger political tone, compared with the calmness of the document issued the previous year and reserved a pugnacious treatment to the Francoist legislation. They expressly spoke of the decriminalisation of abortion and of the need of a law on divorce, they asked to include sexual information in the education programs at school, they spoke of housework as an unpaid job. They also regarded the family as a tool of ideological and economic oppression. They also extended the request for general amnesty to the actions regarded as crimes depending on the sex one belongs to[41]. These claims meant to attach a fascist label to the whole legislation on women and therefore to politicize this request and make it generalizable to the whole opposition.

The debate was characterised by a general radicalisation of the claims and, in spite of the efforts of MDM-MLM to drive the movement towards a kind of coordination and unitary platform[42], two distinct declarations introduced the list of common request. It was the first remarkable clash between different feminist cultures. The first resolution, the majority one, reintroduced the concern about not breaking the anti-Francoist front, which was already present in the 1971 document. As a matter of fact it stated the women’s will to be partaker in the attainment of democracy: “Our fight, as women, should not be a fight against the male, but [...] against the structures that keep the power [...] only in the hands of men ”.[43]

Besides this caution, probably coming from the weakness of the opposition in the political arena, they reaffirmed the primary role of the general politics on the specific feminist claims. They reserved a limited fighting role to the feminist movement while they left the role of accepting (or refusing) the women’s requests to the political strategies of the parties, as part of the political negotiation:

 

 We think that, since the independence of feminism as a claiming organisation, is essential only the active and theoretical presence of women in the structures and in the programs of social claiming will lead them to the fulfilment of their goals.[44]

 

A minority in the audience saw these statements as a reaffirmation of a scheme tending to postpone the feminist claims in the long-run, keeping them in the waiting-room of general politics. The minority did not accept the idea that the attainment of democracy was the essential condition for the accomplishment of any possible feminist demand. The debate was not on the urgency of basic requests, that were shared by both of the groups but on the political room for the feminist movement; in particular on its relation with the general political fight and on the need of an “autonomous, revolutionary and independent”[45] movement^.  This clash marked a rift between a vision linked to the underground fight and a radical vision, and helped the regeneration of MDM-MLM in a feminist direction:

 

The Movimiento democrático de mujeres became more radical mainly for two reasons: first because, when the le Primeras jornadas por la liberación de la mujer  took place, after Franco’s death in 1975, the other women’s organisations criticised the Movimiento democrático de mujeres for its subordination to the PCE and [second] that it had no freedom to evolve towards a feminist position because of this subordination.[46]

 

Even if it changed its name and its theoretical approach, the MDM-MLM started declining after the Primeras jornadas por la liberación de la mujer: it lost the pluralism of the underground period and the women supporting other parties[47] gradually left it, also because of the political changes: as a matter of fact it was no more necessary to stand by the PCE and the anti-Francoist opposition, as in the underground period.

On the other front, from the minority group made up of around one hundred women, three radical groups arose: Frente de liberación de la mujer (FLM), Colectivo feminista de Barcelona e Seminario colectivo feminista de Madrid[48].

The analysis of the political ideology of these groups and of the breakaway ones shows the richness and the diversity of the radical political culture: they are divided by the discussion on the dual militancy and by the idea of the female oppression as a result of class contradictions, of gender contradictions, or both of theme. Actually the difference comes from a much more problematic issue: the relation with the transition process and with the rest of the anti-Francoist opposition.

The Colectivos feministas homologados del Estado español[49]^, coming from right and following alliances, traces the female oppression back to economic structure of the society[50], like any other kind of human oppression[51]. In fact, in the family, regarded as a production unit, women would reproduced, through housework[52], labour force for capitalism and free social services. So women would be a social class antagonistic to men, and the family production and capitalistic production would be interdependent. As a consequence, the Colectivos denied the utility of the female militancy in the working-class parties and supported the militancy in women organisations; moreover they wanted to suppress the family-mode-of-production through the attainment of power by a feminist party[53].

The Colectivos feministas did not criticise the traditional parties because of their male structure, but because they were unable to approach properly women’s issues since they attended the class interest of the male. Moreover, in a linguistic context that used the word politico in contrast with feminista, they carried out an important revolution awarding to their fight the status of the political action neither marginal, nor subordinate to the general fight.

 

As we always said, feminism is politics, because, as a revolutionary movement, it plans to overthrow the capitalistic and male chauvinism society, changing the way of producing, the social relations, the ideology and the whole of culture [...]. We give strength to the revolutionary movement, increasing the contradictions not only between classes but also between man and women.[54]

 

On the other side of the radical culture we find Seminario colectivo feminista de Madrid[55], whose program, written in May 1976 (before the split of the Colectivo feminista of Madrid) deepened, in a biological sense, the concept of family as a production-consumption unit: it introduced the world antiautoritario, that evokes the feminism criticism to power structures as male structures and the expression familia patriarcal that suggest a use of concept of family[56] not only en an economic sense. The Seminario colectivo feminista exposed, first of all, “the exploitation of the reproductive capability of the woman, root of her specific sexual oppression”[57].

The Seminario colectivo feminista had a more complex vision of human reproduction, while the Colectivos feministas homologados regarded it as a source of unpaid value for the capitalists[58]:

 

Women’s oppression has its roots not only in its position of economic class [...] but in a common oppression, coming from a mixture of economic, sexual, moral and legal factors.[59]

 

To sum up: for the first group “woman is a social class”, for the second one “woman is a sexual class”[60].

Carrying on our journey in the radical Spanish feminism we find the LA-MAR group (Lucha antiautoritaria de mujeres antipatriarcales revolucionarias), a breakaway of Colectivo feminista of Barcelona. The LA-MAR took its cue from a theoretical-practical rethinking of the political methods: its document[61] is a celebration of the radical feminism and evoke its sacred books, from Firestone to Millet and Carla Lonzi[62]. It is worth going through it since it will be useful in highlighting its differences from the moderate feminism of SESM and MDM-MLM and from the radical one of the Colectivos feministas homologados.

In order to define the reality and find categories to classify it they preferred the universe of symbols. They declared to prefer the expression “spring of life and nature”[63] to the original name of the group LA-MAR. The language, modified and in embryo, was appointed to revolutionise the sentiment of politics:

 

We want to develop a theory of practice and not vice versa. For this reason we start from our consciousness of woman and from ourselves [...] we shared in the self-consciousness of each woman a common point for the group.

 

Here we can find significantly the magic worlds of the new feminism: partire da sè, autocoscienza, pratica. This last concept was the basement of the whole political thought of LA-MAR: they not did focus on a general analysis of society but on the expression of women’s oppression emerging from the conscience of any single woman. So, the oppression was placed in the sexual being of the women because “the division of labour on a sexual basis has been created through her biological function ”. Patriarchy was depicted as a power system based on cultural values, rather than on exploitation of economic value of female work: “elimination of all the aspects that men have developed to keep being in a domination position: competition, aggressiveness […] to sum up the male chauvinism culture.”

Rather than the systematic analysis of female oppression, they preferred “the search of our identity and our culture”, that is to say the re-discovery of female value through the decolonisation of consciousness: “In order to elaborate a new culture, we have to start from research and the reworking of the remains of the old women’s culture, hidden and denied by men”. In the practice of politics, they had as corollaries of those goals “the woman’s direct control of reproduction”, through the abolition of family institution and, in actual practice, the use of contraceptives and the decriminalisation of abortion, the obligation of choose only feminist militancy in “small groups of women, in which every single woman can develop her autonomy”.

As we can see, the way followed by the spin-offs and breakaways of Colectivos feministas homologados shows the increasing relevance of ideas such as sexuality and autonomy of feminist movement[64]. In some ways these changes were partly caused by a generational gap between the groups[65].

 

The third pole of the radicalisation of Spanish feminism was the Frente de liberación de la mujer that was born in Madrid on January 25, 1976 as a consequence of the conflicts risen during the Primeras jornadas: its members were both independent women and communist and socialist supporters[66].

The FLM took from the thought of the radical feminism the concept of patriarchy as a first culprit of female oppression. Nevertheless, the capitalistic system would have changed the reproductive roles within the family to favour its survival, creating a new kind of women’s exploitation and making them a reserve of labour force necessary to survive. So, according to them patriarchy and capitalism had overlapped in history leading to the current condition of women’s oppression.

As a consequence, the freedom from oppression is bound to overthrow both of them: the feminist fight should be revolutionary, anti-patriarchal and anti-capitalist. This analysis rejected reformism as a long-term tool to change the condition of women[67] but aimed, instead, to redefining the concepts of revolution and socialism so that the women’s liberation could be an integral part of a project aiming to change reality:

 

In this way, we keep the thesis that only a socialist revolution can lead to women’s liberation, even if we know that the fight of the women cannot be automatically won through the attainment of power by the exploited classes.[68]

 

The willingness to co-operate, felt as a priority especially by MDM-MLM, was reaffirmed within the spirit of autonomy typical of the transition period from the underground phase to the democratic one:

 

This autonomy does not mean division among the Left. The division comes, instead, from the constant forgetfulness of the actions for the defence of our real goals and exclusive acceptance of all the programs of women’s claims that only tend to improve partially our situation, keeping us living in fringes. [...] On the contrary, we want to recognise ourselves and be recognised as citizens with full rights and join our fight with the fight of the exploited people.[69]

 

The MDM-MLM thought of autonomy in a negative sense, as a politic action realised in a disjointed way, a fight that denies the interdependent relations between the general fight and the feminist fight. On the other hand, the FLM understood that without a real achievement of the feminist movement’s autonomy, this interdependence would have come down to marginalisation, or worse, to the negation of the need of a fight of/for the women.[70].

Despite the short life of FLM as a group, some of its ideas spread and follow-ups in the area of the feminist movement that supported the dual militancy; particularly the idea of permeation of feminist fight and general fight and its theoretical and practical implications: interdependence of the two fights and autonomy of feminist movement.  In conclusion the FLM was the first signal of a change in the relation between feminism and politics and offered a lasting lesson to the women that had to face the hard choice of the dual militancy, like Carlota Bustelo, one of the first feminist deputies elected  for the Partido Socialista Obrero Español:

 

I think that all I had the chance to do in those years for women in the  PSOE, I did it thanks to what I learnt and discussed in the Frente de Liberación de la Mujer with those feminist friends […]. Without this information and without the confidence coming from that experience, I would not had enough strength and confidence.... being alone as I was.[71]

 

On the basis of FLM, the wing of the socialist feminism[72], was a tool to reaffirm the relations of organisational autonomy from the male politics and had a wider and more complex vision of female oppression: women’s marginality in the social life of the country was recognised in its dynamics as well. They affirmed, for example, that keeping the women in the fringe of the job world, they favoured the preservation of the traditional family model and that the discouraging rules against female work assured pockets of cheap labour force exploitable in the period of economic growth[73].

Conclusion.

 

In spite of the radicalisation of the demands of the whole feminist movement, during the Transition there were many clashes between the wings that had risen in the Primeras Jornadas and confirmed during the Primeres jornades catalanes de la dona[74] celebrated from May 27 to May 30, 1976 in paranymph of the University of Barcelona. MDM-MLM e SESM settled on a reformist position: even if the theoretical and political thought of the first group was a Marxist inheritance, the attainment of democracy and the overthrow of Francoist dictatorship were the primary gaols of the organisation.

Besides these scenarios, the MDM-MLM sensed the possibility of a claiming activity aiming to obtain as many reforms as possible in the new political situation: from this point of view, the group promoted the unity of the new feminist movement.

A relevant clash between reformists and radicals concerned the Subdirección general de la condición femenina. The Subdirección general de la condición femenina replaced the previous female organisation, the Sección femenina, apponited by the governament of Suárez to tackle the female issue. The Subdirección was under the authority of the Ministerio de Cultura y Bienestar Social and therefore it had a limited financial and organisational autonomy[75]. The experience of the Subdirección was a relevant example of a right-wing feminism[76] or of institutional feminism[77], both for its aims and for the culture of the women working there as executive and officers: in conclusion a respectable feminism[78]. Since the role of the Subdirección was to “prepare a new ground for modernisation and legal reforms”[79], seventeen feminist groups proposed themselves as interlocutors of the new body with the name of equipo dialogante.

But the major part of feminist movement refused to co-operate with a state that had not undergone any purge and kept being in the hallmark of continuity. The wing against the governmental activity refused negotiation[80] as the main tool in the attainment of legal reforms in favour of women. The movement was probably adverse to the reformist attitude of SESM and MDM-MLM because of its maximalism, favoured by the political culture of the opposition in general and, particularly, of the PCE accustomed to private negotiations among leaders and to be led by the government party[81].

The vain debate on dual militancy, partially related to the clash between reformists and radicals, was fomented during the Transition, not only by the case of equipo dialogante, but also by the different position on the relation with politics: issue like the decriminalisation of contraceptives, abortion and adultery, divorce and the more general ground of the constitution. The constitutional debate nourished great expectations in the feminist movement but these were disappointed since the decriminalisation of abortion and the law on divorce were assigned to the ordinary legislation[82]. So, in spite of the bond coming from the anti-Francoist activities and, later on, from the transition process, we could say that the ability to provoke the crisis of the left-wing parties and of the extraparliamentary movement - typical of the new-feminism of the seventies- crept into Spain in a subtle but regular way. Women’s dissatisfaction had always smouldered, but has probably never broken out.

However the signals of a difficult co-existence were already there: during the first elections in June 1977, the feminist public opinion was mistrustful towards the sudden interest of the parties in the feminist and women’s claims[83]. Even if they forgave the parties for a sort of opportunism , the case of the new constitution was perceived by a wide area of the movement as a betrayal of full recognition of its claims. At the time of  Juicio de Bilbao in 1979, the trial that opened a tough campaign on abortion, the tone of the debate was much more polemical and the trust in the promises of the Left had already decreased. Eminent feminists as Calvet (PSUC) and Bustelo (PSOE), withdrew their candidacy in protest for the methods for drawing up the candidate list for the 1979 election.

The history of the Spanish feminist movement during the Transition, was the history of the process of fights and claims, whose aim was to become citizens[84]. The aim was, in conclusion, the attainment of a full citizenship both from a political and a civil point of view and gaining “the two essential attributes that define the modern concept of individual: independence and self-determination”[85]. However, in the Spain of the 70s, on the contrary of what happened in Italy at the end of the fascist period, the social and economic citizenship took up the attention of the public opinion, letting the female suffrage fade into the background, after the opportunity gained in the II Republic.

On one hand, we should examine the reason of this lack of interest –indifference or forgone[86]- but on the other hand, the attainment of the full citizenship, gained in Spain only about ten years after Italy, confirms a common path, characterized by a late acquisition of the citizenship rights[87]. While in Italy the appearance of women in public life[88] came in the context of a strong collective spirit, in Spain the return of women to politics happened in a conflictual context because of the consequence of the new-feminism.

The feminist movement shared the SESM goals: granting the legal condition for women to enjoy their civil and political rights and to became individuals.

Unlike Italy, they did not refuse the careful approach to feminism[89], typical of the end of the century, because the attainment of civil rights had been cancelled by the victory of Francisco Franco. The criticisms of Spanish feminism could not start from the civil and political rights gained by the first feminism[90]. For this reason, in the Spanish feminism of that period we can find radicalism and reformism, tendency to autonomy and wish to gain political rights.

Moreover, the political culture of radicalism examined closely the life condition of women and their real capability of enjoying their rights: the sexual division of labour in the family and in society, the constitution of women entering the job market, the legal and social control on women’s body were obstacles to the full assertion of the women’s citizenship and the feminist movement was aware of it.

At the beginning of the 80s the goals of the feminist movement became less concrete: the attainment of democracy through the Transition led to the disruption of the political feminism, but the fading out of the “collective actor” has, maybe, left the stage to a widespread feminism[91]  able to change in time attitudes and mentality of the society[92].