The Indelible Markers of Twentieth-Century Spanish Antifeminism

Abstract

In twentieth-century Spain, the conservative political ideology maintained a gender discourse and an ideal of femininity that remained broadly unchanged. The democratic regimes established in the country, first after the reign of Alfonso XIII and then after the Franco dictatorship, did nothing to substantially fragment the country’s conservatism with regard to its proponents’ view of the function and role that women should fulfil in society. In an attempt to trace the indelible markers of Spanish antifeminism, this article examines three of conservatism’s key ideas related to gender: a differentiated consideration of male and female natures; a rejection of feminism; and a conception of the family as the preferred locus for the development of the so-called natural