Major Concepts in Spanish Feminist Theory Roberta Johnson, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2019 (ISBN 978-1-4384-7369-7)

Abstract

In Major Concepts in Spanish Feminist Theory, Roberta Johnson reconstructs Spanish feminist thought in an accessible and original way. This is not a conventional history of Spanish feminism, but rather a history of Spanish feminist theory that, while preserving chronological order, is articulated around six fundamental concepts addressed in six chapters along with an introduction and an epilogue. These concepts are solitude, personality, social class, work, difference, and equality. Masterfully, Johnson takes us from one chapter to another with a unity of meaning that traverses the book. The first chapter studies the concept of solitude in the work of authors from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. From the great feminists of the nineteenth century, such as Concepción Arenal or Emilia Pardo Bazán, to the sadly and recently deceased Carmen Alborch, Spanish feminism considers solitude as a necessary condition for women in order to form their own identity and fully realize themselves as independent individuals. On the one hand, the issue of solitude can be approached from a social or external perspective, where women desire to create their own physical place. On the other, the desire for solitude can be internal, where that physical space is linked to consciousness that enables personal development, being oneself, and building an independent personality. Neither of these perspectives nullifies the importance of the relationship with others. Intimately related to solitude is the concept of personality, to which Johnson dedicates the second chapter of the book. Most of the authors that Johnson studies understand personality as a set of complex interactions between the inner and outer self. According to Johnson, Rosa Chacel was the first Spanish writer to develop the idea, suggested by other earlier authors such as Arenal or Hildegart Rodríguez, of an interaction between these two dimensions. Neither in Chacel’s works nor in María Zambrano’s (also studied by Johnson) can we find a feminist use of the concept of personality; but, as Johnson points out, their thought is easily linked to a feminist meaning. In fact, Zambrano’s concept of persona is close to other authors’ idea of personality, referring to a set of specific characteristics that distinguish one individual from others. Carmen Martín Gaite departs from the dichotomy between the interior and exterior dimensions of the person, but like Chacel and Zambrano, she believed in the possibility of discovering the authentic internal self hidden behind external impositions. Although Martín Gaite’s use of the concept of personality is ambiguous, Spanish writers generally associate it with the formation of an identity that gives women independence and dignity. That brings to light the connection with the concept of solitude, since the