Citizens and housewives: The problem of female citizenship in Spain's transition to democracy

Journal of Social History

Volumn 36, Issue 1, 2002, Pages

  Radcliff, Pamela ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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EID: 0036744408     PISSN: 00224529     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jsh.2002.0106     Document Type: Review

References (79)

1. th century, espoused a return to the domestic ideology of "separate spheres" and a patriarchal ordering of society. This ideology was propagated both by the regime's cultural ally, the Catholic Church, and by the official women s movement, the Sección Femenina, which conscripted women into domestic "tours of duty", and taught the gospel of domesticity. In legal terms, the majority of women up to 1975 were still legal dependents of their husbands and fathers, and could not sign a legal contract, make major purchases or apply for a job without permission. In the Civil Code, the status of married women equaled that of the mentally incapacitated. The situation was more complicated in certain regions, like Catalonia, which had its own family law, not entirely supplanted by the Franco regime. On francoist gender ideology, see Mary Nash, "Pronatalism and Motherhood in Franco's Spain," in Maternity and Gender Policies: Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States, 1880s-1950s, edited by Gisela Bock and Pat Thane (London, 1991), and Aurora Morcillo, True Catholic Womanhood: Gender Ideology in Franco's Spain (DeKalb, IL, 2000).
2. th century, espoused a return to the domestic ideology of "separate spheres" and a patriarchal ordering of society. This ideology was propagated both by the regime's cultural ally, the Catholic Church, and by the official women s movement, the Sección Femenina, which conscripted women into domestic "tours of duty", and taught the gospel of domesticity. In legal terms, the majority of women up to 1975 were still legal dependents of their husbands and fathers, and could not sign a legal contract, make major purchases or apply for a job without permission. In the Civil Code, the status of married women equaled that of the mentally incapacitated. The situation was more complicated in certain regions, like Catalonia, which had its own family law, not entirely supplanted by the Franco regime. On francoist gender ideology, see Mary Nash, "Pronatalism and Motherhood in Franco's Spain," in Maternity and Gender Policies: Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States, 1880s-1950s, edited by Gisela Bock and Pat Thane (London, 1991), and Aurora Morcillo, True Catholic Womanhood: Gender Ideology in Franco's Spain (DeKalb, IL, 2000).
3. For a more extended critique of the scholarship of the transition, see Pamela Radcliff, "Imagining Female Citizenship in the New Spain: Gendering the Democratic Transition, 1975-78," Gender and History, v15(5) (November 2001).
4. For critiques of the status-based conception of citizenship, see Margaret Somers, "Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere: Law, Community and Political Culture in the Transition to Democracy," American Sociological Review v58, (October, 1993); Kathleen Canning and Sonia Rose, "Gender, Citizenship and Subjectivity: Some Historical and Theoretical Considerations," Gender and History v15 (5), (November 2001); and David Held, "Between State and Civil Society: Citizenship," in Citizenship, edited by Geoff Andrews (London, 1991). The distinction between "thin" and "thick" citizenship is made in Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman, "Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory," Ethics 104 (January, 1994,): 353.
5. For critiques of the status-based conception of citizenship, see Margaret Somers, "Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere: Law, Community and Political Culture in the Transition to Democracy," American Sociological Review v58, (October, 1993); Kathleen Canning and Sonia Rose, "Gender, Citizenship and Subjectivity: Some Historical and Theoretical Considerations," Gender and History v15 (5), (November 2001); and David Held, "Between State and Civil Society: Citizenship," in Citizenship, edited by Geoff Andrews (London, 1991). The distinction between "thin" and "thick" citizenship is made in Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman, "Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory," Ethics 104 (January, 1994,): 353.
6. For critiques of the status-based conception of citizenship, see Margaret Somers, "Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere: Law, Community and Political Culture in the Transition to Democracy," American Sociological Review v58, (October, 1993); Kathleen Canning and Sonia Rose, "Gender, Citizenship and Subjectivity: Some Historical and Theoretical Considerations," Gender and History v15 (5), (November 2001); and David Held, "Between State and Civil Society: Citizenship," in Citizenship, edited by Geoff Andrews (London, 1991). The distinction between "thin" and "thick" citizenship is made in Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman, "Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory," Ethics 104 (January, 1994,): 353.
7. For critiques of the status-based conception of citizenship, see Margaret Somers, "Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere: Law, Community and Political Culture in the Transition to Democracy," American Sociological Review v58, (October, 1993); Kathleen Canning and Sonia Rose, "Gender, Citizenship and Subjectivity: Some Historical and Theoretical Considerations," Gender and History v15 (5), (November 2001); and David Held, "Between State and Civil Society: Citizenship," in Citizenship, edited by Geoff Andrews (London, 1991). The distinction between "thin" and "thick" citizenship is made in Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman, "Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory," Ethics 104 (January, 1994,): 353.
8. There is an ongoing debate about the parameters of civil society, which is not central to my argument in this context. In general terms, the concept of "civil society" has been increasingly employed in models of democratic transitions since the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. I follow John Ehrenberg's "narrow" definition of civil society as the social relationships and structures that lie between the market and the state. Civil Society: The Critical History of an Idea (N.Y., 1999).
9. Iris Marion Young makes this general point about the interdependence of state and civil society in the democratization process in Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford, 2000), p. 156.
10. The civic republican intellectual tradition emphasizes active citizenship but neglects the "enabling rights" that allow access to participation and employs a narrow vision of the public good. Ruth Lister argues for a linkage between the status-based and participation-based ideals of citizenship in "Citizenship: Towards a Feminist Synthesis," Feminist Review 57: (Autumn 1997).
11. As Lauren Berlant puts it, "Practices of citizenship involve both the public sphere narratives and concrete experiences of quotidian life ... Yet the rhetoric of citizenship does provide important definitional frames for the ways people see themselves as public, When they do." The Queen of America Goes to Washington City (Durham, N.C., 1997), p. 10.
12. Somers, "Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere: Law, Community and Political Culture in the Transition to Democracy," p. 589.
13. This approach has been particularly fruitful in Latin America, where social movements were very prominent in several democratic transitions. See The Women's Movement in Latin America: Feminism and the Transition to Democracy, edited by Jane Jacquette (London, 1989), and Women and Democracy: Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe edited by Jane Jacquette and Sharon Wolchik (Baltimore, 1998).
14. This approach has been particularly fruitful in Latin America, where social movements were very prominent in several democratic transitions. See The Women's Movement in Latin America: Feminism and the Transition to Democracy, edited by Jane Jacquette (London, 1989), and Women and Democracy: Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe edited by Jane Jacquette and Sharon Wolchik (Baltimore, 1998).
15. "The Good-Enough Citizen: Female Citizenship and Independence," in Beyond Equality and Difference, edited by Gisela Bock and Susan James (London, 1992).
16. Ruth Lister, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (New York, 1997), p. 28. Not all feminist scholars take this position. Some argue that women need to be better equipped for involvement in the public-as-defined, and others propose a women's citizenship of the private, based on an ethic of maternal care. See Chantal Mouffe, "Feminism, Citizenship and Radical Democratic Politics," for a discussion of these positions. In Feminists Theorize the Political, edited by Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (New York, 1992).
17. Ruth Lister, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (New York, 1997), p. 28. Not all feminist scholars take this position. Some argue that women need to be better equipped for involvement in the public-as-defined, and others propose a women's citizenship of the private, based on an ethic of maternal care. See Chantal Mouffe, "Feminism, Citizenship and Radical Democratic Politics," for a discussion of these positions. In Feminists Theorize the Political, edited by Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (New York, 1992).
18. Nira Yuval-Davis, "Women as Citizens," in Women and Citizenship in Europe: Borders, Rights and Duties, edited by Anna Ward, Jeanne Gregory and Nira Yuval-Davis (London, 1992), p. 14.
19. Ursula Vogel, "Is Citizenship Gender-Specific?," in Frontiers of Citizenship, edited by Ursula Vogel and Michael Moran (London, 1991), p. 59.
20. This figure is from 1977, up from 16% in 1950. See Maria Pilar Alcobendas, Employment of Women in Spain (Luxembourg, 1984) for a breakdown by sector.
21. Aurora Morcillo makes the argument that women's consumer identity is increasingly emphasized as the country underwent a transition to a free market economy, and women's consumer spending becomes as important as her reproductive capacity to the nation's prosperity. See chapter three of True Catholic Womanhood.
22. th Century Spain"). As Margaret Somers puts it, laws can be transformed from instruments of the state or elite control into popular citizenship rights, depending on the relational setting. "Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere," p. 603.
23. Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy, chapter five.
24. Gender and Citizenship: Politics and Agency in France, Britain and Denmark (Cambridge, 2000), p. 4. Both Slim and Young emphasize the Habermasian concept of communicative interaction.
25. Although not written from the perspective of citizenship, Victoria Enders' article, "Problematic Portraits: The Ambiguous Historical Role of the Sección Femenina of the Falange," in Constructing Spanish Womanhood: Female Identity in Modern Spain, edited by Victoria Enders and Pamela Radcliff (Albany, NY, 1999), begins to raise some of these questions.
26. This account comes from the 20 Aniversario, Federación Española de Asociación de Amas de Casa, Consumidores y Usuarios, published in 1988 by the Federation.
27. While I have no national membership figures for this early period, some of the provincial associations sent lists of founding members, which probably represent the range of initial participation: Lugo began with 31 members, Alava with 19 and Alicante with 100 in 1967; in 1968 Palencia had 75, and in 1969 Santiago de Compostela had 135 and La Coruña had 403. The correspondence between the new federation and the provincial associations (from this foundational period only) are contained in the Ministerio de Cultura: Dirección General de Desarollo Comunitario, Subdirección General de la Familia archives at the Archivo de la Administración, in Alcalá de Henares.
28. The Madrid figure appeared in an El País story, September 30, 1976, and the national figures in an October 27, 1977 article.
29. All of these are self-stated goals, as outlined in the 1988 anniversary bulletin of the Federation.
30. Its mission was to "assume the tutelage and defense of consumer interests", and it was composed of representatives from local governments, syndicates, public administrators, consumer organizations and chambers of commerce. El asociacionismo de los consumidores. Perspectivas de futuro, Federación Española de Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, Fareso, Madrid, 1989
31. For example, in "Política de Precios," the author notes that the association sent a report in January 1972 to the Government, warning it of economic calamity if price increases were not curbed. Trocha, #4, 1972 (Bulletin of the Madrid Association). I have only been able to locate two issues of this bulletin, #4, and #99, from 1981.
32. #99, "Consumo."
33. #4, 1972, "Política de Precios," by Josefina Trillo.
34. The ideological perspective emerged clearly on the cover of the 1972 issue of Trocha (#4), which featured a photo of Franco's grandaughter's wedding, with congratulations to Spain's newest ama de casa. The article took the opportunity to praise the brilliant scion of the family, who led the nation through the national crusade of the Civil War followed by the miracle of 33 years of peace.
35. On the more general argument about the links between the revival of civil society and the democratic transition in Spain, see Victor Pérez Díaz, The Return of Civil Society: The Emergence of Democratic Spain (Cambridge, MA, 1993).
36. th Anniversary celebration.
37. th anniversary bulletin of the national federation (1988), the change of regime is never mentioned as a significant phenomenon that affected the history of the organization. It is only mentioned as a "political and economic crisis" that delayed government attention to the problematic of the ama de casa. The message seems to be that there was really no rupture when it came to consumer rights and the need to defend them.
38. #4, "Charlas en la Camilla."
39. Trocha, #99, 1981.
40. The Constitution explicitly proclaimed a set of economic, political, civil and social rights that applied to both men and women. Crucial were Article 14, which established gender equality before the law and article 32 on equality within the family. For the exact text of these articles, see Codigo de la mujer, by Carmen Pujol Algans (Madrid, 1992), p. 30 & 35.
41. The Ventas association was registered on October 6, 1970 in the National Register of Associations, where its file is archived.
42. This narrative is contained in Españolas a la Transición: De excluidas a protagonistas (1973-1982), coordinated by the Asociación "Mujeres en la Transición Democrática" (Madrid, 1999), p. 30, 40-41.
43. Españolas a la Transición, p. 41-42. There was yet another umbrella housewife association formed in October of 1976, the Coordinadora Provincial de Amas de Casa, which the older associations refused to join. Its origins and ideological provenance are unclear, although an El País story described the Coordinadora as comprised of the most radical women, closely tied to the labor movement. September 30, 1976.
44. Españolas a la Transición, p. 41-42. There was yet another umbrella housewife association formed in October of 1976, the Coordinadora Provincial de Amas de Casa, which the older associations refused to join. Its origins and ideological provenance are unclear, although an El País story described the Coordinadora as comprised of the most radical women, closely tied to the labor movement. September 30, 1976.
45. An example of early organizing may be a meeting held in a parish-owned locale in Getafe, December 6, 1973, with two members of the board of the Association of Amas de Casa of Getafe, and 25 other women attending. The members were distributing a flyer on how workers were paying for economic growth while owners profited. They were surprised by police, who entered when they noticed various women going in to the building. Although the organization was legal, it had not secured permission for the meeting. Registro Nacional, Asoc. Getafe.
46. El Pais, September 30, 1976.
47. The register is held by the Fundación CIFFE, a feminist archive. I calculated membership figures by subtracting those who left the organization in a given year. Information on professions in the register is difficult to interpret. Few members have professions listed, and most of these do fall in the category of white collar service workers when they are not listed as amas de casa, but most often the box for profession is simply left blank. Thus, it is difficult to tell whether this means that all other members were housewives or whether the information was simply not recorded.
48. El Pais, June 3, 1976.
49. Flyer, October 30, 1976. CIFFE archives.
50. On the occasion of the public presentation of the new federation. Reported in Diario 16, January 16, 1977.
51. Conclusions from the Primeras Jornadas del Ama de Casa, March 1977: point "h".
52. El País, "Según las asociaciones de Amas de Casa," June 8, 1976.
53. Results of International Symposium for the defense of the consumer, October-November 1976.
54. Letter to "Public Opinion," February 10, 1976, from the Asociación Castellana.
55. El País, June 4, 1976, "Las Asociaciones de Amas de Casa." Quote from the opening of their minimum program.
56. Cuadernos, "Las Amas de Casa de Castilla," March 27, 1976. El País also printed a notice from the Provincial association that proposed creation of a commission of all interested parties, including amas de casa, to control and provide information about the evolution of prices. (August 18, 1977) On October 27, 1977, the Federación Castellana requested a meeting with the President, Adolfo Suárez, to discuss measures contained in the Pact of Moncloa. In the same issue, the official housewife association asserted that Suárez should have consulted amas de casa before arriving at the Pact.
57. Contained in file for Asociación de Areas de Casa of Ventas, in Registro Nacional.
58. El País printed a notice of their disapproval of the Moncloa reforms (July 19, 1977), which didn't help families' buying power. On November 2, 1976, it printed a piece entitled "Amas de Casa criticize the economic measures of the government," that had done nothing to stop a 20% increase in the cost of living.
59. Many of their communiques were directed to the President of the Government, as were two dated September 21, 1973 and May 1974, both demanding a broader freezing of prices and an increase in salaries as ways to confront the rising cost of living. Fundacion CIFFE archives.
60. Aim number six in the Statutes of the Amas de Casa of Ventas.
61. May 16, 1974, police informer. Blanket permission was denied, and they were forced to seek permission for each event. Registro Nacional, Asoc. Ventas.
62. Meeting topics are included in the files for the Associations of Getafe and Ventas, Registro Nacional.
63. Called by the Asociación Castellana, members were going to distribute unsigned postcards directed to President Suárez in commercial centers and workplaces. El País, December 18, 1977.
64. Two such notices were found in CIFFE archives: in the March bulletin of the Ventas association and in an undated invitation from the association of Chamartín. See also the conclusions from the I Jornada de Amas de Casa, held in March, 1977. "The future elections have an exceptional importance ... And women ought to pay attention so that the new Constitution takes into account our interests and rights. Thus, it is important that amas de casa participate in the elections, trying to educate themselves as much as possible so as not to be manipulated by propaganda."
65. November 14, 1974, held in the Centro of the Association of Vecinos of the Barrio Concepción. Registro Nacional, Asoc.Ventas.
66. Published in Boletín Informativo, #4, Asociación de Amas de Hogar, Ventas, March 1977.
67. May 19, 1976. Cycle planned in conjunction with the Neighborhood Association of the Barrio de Concepción. Registro Nacional, Asoc. Ventas.
68. El País, June 19, 1976, November 5, 1977.
69. This analysis is based on a close reading of two of the major democratic news organs of the transition, El País, a daily paper, and Cambio 16, a weekly newsmagazine.
70. Cambio 16, July 3, 1977.
71. A reference to the classic text of traditional womanhood, La perfecta casada, written by Fray Luis de Leon in 1583, but reprinted in the 1940s and 1950s as part of the Franco regime's official support of domesticity.
72. In an interesting contrast, El País reprinted an article about Sophia in the Washington Star, on the occasion of the monarchs' visit to the U.S. (August 10, 1976) This article compared her to Isabella la Católica, who was also at the helm of the country during momentous changes, and focused on her knowledge, in particular her interest in comparative religions. El País did not comment on the article, and in general included very little about the royal family in its pages.
73. See, for example, its coverage of the monarchs' visit to the U.S., June 3 & 10, 1976, or to France, November 4, 1976.
74. El País, December 19,1976.
75. El País, November 27, 1977.
76. One article in the progressive Cuadernos para el diálogo dismissed the association as "anachronistic and anecdotal" (#102, March 1972).
77. El País, September 30, 1976.
78. The main chronicler of the citizen movement, Manuel Castells, uses the same boundaries by arguing that the Housewives' Association diverted women from participating in the citizen movement. His judgment seems to rest on the presumed leadership of "militant communist women," but such leaders dominated the neighborhood organizations as well. "The Making of an Urban Social Movement," in The City and the Grassroots (Berkeley, 1983), p. 271.
79. El País, 11/2/76, 7/19, 2/13, 10/27, 1977.