Gender & History ISSN 0953-5233

Jessica Davidson, ‘Women, Fascism and Work in Francoist Spain: The Law for Political, Professional and Labour Rights’
Gender & History, Vol.23 No.2 August 2011, pp. 401–414.

Women, Fascism and Work in Francoist

Spain: The Law for Political, Professional
and Labour Rights
Jessica Davidson

The Sección Femenina (or SF, 1934–77), the female branch of the Spanish fascistic
party, the Falange, created and successfully lobbied for the Law for Political, Profes-
sional and Labour Rights for Women (Ley de Derechos Polı́ticos, Profesionales, y de
Trabajo de la Mujer) in 1961. The law responded to and recognised the shifting world
of women’s work during the late years of the Franco regime (1939–75) and established
the SF as an advocate for female labour rights. The new legislation simultaneously pro-
moted employment opportunities for Spanish women and reinforced their traditional
restrictions. This article will explore this significant legal achievement for women’s
rights during the 1960s, and discuss its meaning for the Franco dictatorship and for the
women’s organisation that ushered in the new legislation. Ultimately I argue that the
labour law represented a gesture of progress during the final years of the regime. But
it reinforced the SF’s paradoxical image as a female group with fascist roots pushing
for piecemeal reform in the workplace. In creating the legislation, the SF diversified
its programmes and policies for women, and proved it was not a static and intractable
organisation. The creation and passage of the law also offers a glimpse into the Spanish
female public’s opinion of the SF. Much of the research for this article is based on
unpublished letters written to the SF by working women in Spain and by members of
parliament during the late 1960s and 1970s. These sources, numbering several dozen
and located at the Real Academia de Historia in Madrid, elucidate the public and party
response to both the SF and its legislation that championed labour rights. They also
speak to the relationship between the SF, Spanish women and the state.1
The SF was led by Pilar Primo de Rivera, sister of the founder of the Falange,
José Antonio, and daughter of Miguel Primo de Rivera, dictator of Spain from 1923 to
1930. She headed the organisation for over forty years and served as the best-known
public face of the state women’s group. It was to her that the letters in question were
directed. Various working women appealed to her in writing to inquire about the labour
law and to ask about how it applied to them. Based on a reading of these documents,
it is evident that the Spanish women who wrote them felt comfortable and justified in
directing their questions to the head of the female section. Some of the letters implied
a trust on the part of the authors towards Primo de Rivera, both as a woman and as

C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
402 Gender & History

an influential political figure. Much of the correspondence acknowledged her efforts

for women in other realms outside labour legislation. For example, several employed
matrons wrote to Pilar Primo de Rivera ‘who has achieved so many effective things for
Spanish women, [you are] the only person that can continue defending our situation
in a modern life . . . Thanks to you it is possible for women to continue working after
they are married’.2
These letters, therefore, point to the unique role that both the SF and, in particular,
Pilar Primo de Rivera, played in the Franco regime: it was both an official state
organisation and one that represented an advocacy group that, despite its collaboration
with the regime, had a vested interest in improving working conditions for Spanish
women.
The position of women in fascist regimes has perplexed Anglo-American scholars
for almost twenty years. In the cases of National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy,
the place of women’s groups has been portrayed as paradoxical; on the one hand
empowering women and yet on the other limiting their contribution to the performance
of traditionally female tasks for the greater good of the nation. In the Spanish context,
the majority of social and political histories of the Franco regime focus on the Falange
with little reference to the SF.3 Only recently has the female branch attracted scholarly
attention, but much of it portrays the SF as a simple appendage and mouthpiece
of the Franco regime that reaffirmed women’s secondary status.4 Since the 1990s,
however, the role of the SF has undergone a reassessment. Victoria Enders, for instance,
has challenged the popular conception of the SF as an oppressive and reactionary
organisation. While popular memory and most Spanish historiography of the SF label
it as reactionary and restrictive for women, Enders recognised the diversity of women’s
roles in the SF and suggested that it represented a ‘redeemed feminism’ based on
Christian nationalism. She also suggested that the SF played a role in the partial
‘emancipation’ of some women. Enders’s expansion of the understanding of the SF
has served as the foundation for new research on Spanish women’s history.5
Similarly, in an examination of the housewife associations of the 1970s that served
to organise this traditional realm of female activity, Pamela Radcliff has explored the
complexity of Spanish women’s experience during the Franco regime. Like the SF, the
organisations were not revolutionary, yet Radcliff argues that, ‘in subtle ways’, they
accelerated the process of political equality and emancipation for women.6 Enders’s and
Radcliff’s interpretations of women’s organisations offer an opportunity to assess the SF
with a new vocabulary and understanding of women’s experience under dictatorships.
There is little disagreement that the SF proved to be a flexible, chameleon-like
organisation. Mary Vincent accordingly argues that the SF showed more inclination
than the male section of the Falange to be ‘adaptable and malleable’.7 And Aurora
Morcillo, while pointing to the SF’s desire to return women to their traditional duties
within the home, also recognises its change in policy in the 1960s. According to
Morcillo, the economic modernisation of Spain led more women to work outside the
home and the SF responded with its labour legislation.8
This article argues that neither the female branch of the Falange nor the regime
was monolithic. Instead, they experienced transitions and reform long before the end
of the dictatorship in 1975. As exemplified by the labour law, the SF was a complex
and malleable group with significant influence in women’s reform, which was em-
bodied in its director, Pilar Primo de Rivera. Her political savvy as a procurator, or

C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
 Women, Fascism and Work in Francoist Spain 403

representative in the pseudo-parliamentary Spanish cortes, as well as her family con-

nections, influenced the success of her proposed labour legislation.
The passing of the SF’s political and labour rights for women in 1961 reflected
both the adaptable nature of the female organisation and the atmosphere of an open
economy of the 1960s. The labour law represented an important movement away
from the conservative gender ideology and expectations of the Franco regime, and
established the SF as a pioneer of change.
According to the letters written to Primo de Rivera, it is clear that working women
welcomed the law. In 1963, Marı́a Peiro Tomás, a worker from Valencia, wrote to
Primo de Rivera ‘with the trust that all Spanish women have in you, and inspired by the
victories that we are achieving, thanks for your sound efforts, particularly that married
women can continue in their jobs’.9 In 1963, a working woman from Pontevedra lost
her job after notifying her boss that she was getting married. The SF informed her
that with the 1961 legislation she was now eligible to keep her old job even after she
married. The grateful woman wrote to Primo de Rivera: ‘we saw our problem solved
when you won the law for women in parliament . . . you have been the good fairy who
came to solve our problem’.10

The Franco regime, the Falange and the SF

The Falange was founded in 1933 by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, who until his
death three years later repeatedly denied claims that the Falange was fascist.11 Yet he
rejected both liberalism and socialism (a common fascist theme), and sought to include
the working class in his pseudo-revolutionary scheme to return Spain to its imperial
power and glory.12 His abstract platform promoted revolution through the syndicates,
with all of Spanish society united in a ‘destiny in the universal’. Similar to Italy after the
Lateran Accords, the Spanish fascists embraced Catholicism.13 Also in line with other
fascistic organisations, the Falange encouraged the creation of a separate women’s
branch, the Sección Femenina, in 1934.
During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), Franco enlisted the SF to administer
social services. At that time, the women’s branch acted as an auxiliary group, provid-
ing nursing services to wounded Falangist soldiers. Through the Auxilio Social, SF
women provided aid to those affected by the war, primarily but not exclusively on the
Nationalist side, particularly orphaned children. At the war’s end, the Auxilio Social
allowed the SF to monopolise social services. By 1939, its membership had increased
to 580,000.14 As the SF’s responsibilities grew, so did its reputation and contact with
the public.
As the official women’s group during the Franco regime, the SF pledged to
prepare Spanish women for their duties of marriage and motherhood. The organisation
engaged provincial and local delegates throughout Spain, who administered its
programmes and policies. It offered social services, most notably through the Servicio
Social, and education to women, as well as cultural activities.
Francisco Franco established his National–Catholic regime in 1939 after three
years of civil war. With the aid of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Franco and his
Nationalists proved victorious against the Spanish Republicans. The Spanish Falange
dominated the government during the Second World War, during which Spain remained
neutral (but was friendly with the Axis powers). But by the mid-1950s, instead of an

C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
404 Gender & History

economically and politically isolated country, Franco’s Spain would be a National–

Catholic state open to international trade.15
In 1957, with the definitive end of autarky, Franco dismissed Falange ministers,
replacing them with members of Opus Dei. This secretive and exclusive branch of
Catholicism was founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest, José Marı́a Escrivá de Balaguer.16
Opus Dei representatives were mainly wealthy Catholic laymen, including university
professors and businessmen. The new cabinet, called the ‘technocrats’, opened up
the Spanish economy with capitalist programmes and embarked full speed on its
liberalisation, relying heavily on foreign business.17
The SF offered change during an era in Spain when the society and economy
shifted away from the totalitarian isolationism of the post-war years. In the years after
the Second World War, Pilar Primo de Rivera’s adept leadership and ability to change
with the times allowed the SF to survive under a dictatorship that no longer gave a
privileged position to the Falange. Early in her tenure as head of the SF, she defined
herself as a significant political player. She directly inherited the Falange flame from
her brother and stood as one of its most devout leaders. At the same time, she moulded
herself and her group to fit the changing political and economic circumstances. The
careful political choices of Pilar Primo de Rivera earned the support and respect of
both Franco and the Falange for over forty years.
As an unmarried woman, Primo de Rivera was an anomaly in Spanish politics,
challenging the female image of passivity and homemaking. But she simultaneously
presented herself as a meek and mild woman who accepted traditional gender roles
for women.18 Not unlike other leading women in right-wing regimes (Eva Péron for
example), Primo de Rivera balanced her concern for the traditional values of the
Falange with her increasing interest in serving the state and women. Despite the fact
that neither of them had children of their own, Eva Péron and Pilar Primo de Rivera
appealed to women because of their maternal image. Both figures, however, deferred
to their male counterparts, Juan Péron and José Antonio Primo de Rivera respectively,
in public speeches. Several clear differences between the two women include their civil
status and the longevity of Primo de Rivera’s political career. But they both proved
divisive historical players, largely because of their sex.

Women and work during the Franco regime

Francoist propaganda argued that women were the moral foundation of the Spanish
family and must dedicate their life to that purpose.19 Once married, working women
were expected to withdraw from the labour force and devote themselves to having
children and raising a family. As in Fascist Italy and Third Reich Germany, Franco
passed pro-natalist legislation after the Civil War. The regime also granted family
allowances after the second child: these gave thirty pesetas for the third child, with
fifteen peseta increments for each subsequent offspring until the twelfth, when the aid
increased to fifty pesetas. The regime, however, paid this money directly to the head of
the household, normally the father.20 Families in which the mother worked could not
enjoy these advantages. The pro-natalist policies also excluded agricultural workers.21
Franco’s policies promised benefits for families and offered interest-free state loans
for couples wishing to marry, as well as prizes for large families with more than three
children that included cash bonuses and discounts on various services.

C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
 Women, Fascism and Work in Francoist Spain 405

Spanish labour law historically treated women as the weaker sex. Protective mea-
sures were established as early as 1900 when working women received maternity
benefits.22 In 1944, a law provided women with access to a chair at their place of
employment for their ‘more delicate . . . biological and moral type’. Special policies
for women also included labour restrictions codified in 1957 forbidding them from
‘dangerous’ work, normally in industry where heavy lifting, the use of large machines
or exposure to dangerous chemicals was involved, as well as ‘morally’ jeopardising
work.23 In 1938, Franco reinstated the Civil Code of the nineteenth century, that en-
forced the policy of marital permission which made wives beholden to their husbands
for certain business transactions. Married women also suffered especially harsh re-
strictions when Franco declared the Fuero del Trabajo of 1938. This labour charter
proclaimed the goal of ‘liberating the married woman from the workshop and the fac-
tory’ in an effort to return women to their homes and out of the workplace after the civil
war.24 It is unclear, however, that this stipulation had an effect on women’s entrance
into traditional female employment, particularly in the flourishing black market.25 In
1947, women faced a law forcing them to leave their jobs, once wed, through exceden-
cia forzosa, or involuntary leave of absence.26 These legal limitations made it likely
that women were destined for the role of housewife. The government also forbade
women from entering a long list of professional roles, including lawyer, stockbroker,
prison medic, customs official and diplomat.
The census of the 1940s and 1950s counted few women working during the era of
autarky, when Franco strove for economic self-sufficiency. Both the regime’s intense
anti-work rhetoric directed at women (it was considered ‘unfeminine’) and the benefits
offered by the state for them to stay at home account in part for the low numbers of
employed women recorded in the census. Low numbers also reflect the fact that many
women worked without being documented. Only 12.1 per cent of the economically
active population was female in 1940, a decrease from previous years: 13 per cent of the
workforce was female in 1920 and 12.7 per cent in 1930.27 Further, the Franco regime
concealed the official numbers of working women in order to demonstrate the success
of its incentives promoting women’s return to ‘their duties’ (sus labores) at home.28
Despite attempts to keep women at home, the reality of the Spanish economy
of the 1950s and 1960s created opportunities for them. Women had always worked
for economic necessity, but they emerged as important actors in the budding era of
capitalism and consumerism of the 1960s in Spain.29 State strategy to boost industrial
output necessitated the inclusion of women in the labour pool.30 Official statistics
showed that from 1940 to 1960 the percentage of working women nearly doubled
(from 8 per cent to 15 per cent).31 Although most women still did not work out-
side the home or remained farm labourers, domestic servants or unofficial workers,
some began to find employment in the booming tourist and service sectors. Female
workers also replaced men who had emigrated to other European countries to earn
higher salaries.32
As Spain underwent economic and social change, the SF confronted this new
world for women. The female organisation responded with a mix of progressiveness
and standard conservatism as it offered reform but held onto its traditional gender
expectations. As early as 1952, the SF acknowledged women’s official entrance into
the workforce when it noted that ‘women, for economic necessity, have had to leave
home and face tasks and situations for which they have to be prepared’.33 Due to

C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
406 Gender & History

the ‘pronounced growth’ of working women in all sectors, the SF saw the need to
empower and protect women in their jobs.34 The SF began to provide for working
women through labour legislation and job training, including an insurance programme
entitled The National Foundation for Domestic Service (Montepı́o Nacional del
Servicio Doméstico) in 1957 for one of the largest groups of working women.35 These
initiatives began to establish the SF as the official mediator between female workers
and the state.36

The Law for Political, Professional and Labour Rights for Women
The SF’s most notable response to the emergence of the ‘new’ Spanish woman was
the creation of the Law for Political, Professional and Labour Rights for Women (Ley
de Derechos Polı́ticos, Profesionales, y de Trabajo de la Mujer) of 1961, amended in
1966. The 1961 measure signified the beginning of a new course for women’s labour
rights in Spain. It opened opportunities and expanded work privileges, as it promoted
equal pay for men and women and discouraged discrimination in the workplace on
the basis of sex or civil status. The law proclaimed women’s rights to vote for and
to be elected to public office, and stipulated that they could compete with men for
the same civil service jobs by way of national exams, hitherto forbidden. It also
recognised a married woman’s access to employment, overturning conservative popular
opinion and legislation. It continued, however, to require marital permission for wives
who wished to work. In another example of adherence to conservative Spanish legal
tradition, the law also recognised some old precedents for women’s labour restrictions
for ‘dangerous’ work. The legislation juggled the two ideologies of tradition and
progress. With the proclamation of the labour bill, the SF firmly established itself as
an advocate for reform, albeit in a limited manner within the parameters of the system.
The law also maintained some traditional discrimination against women despite
its progressive features. Like prior legislation, Article 3 of the 1961 law excluded
women from professions considered ‘dangerous or unhealthy’ for their physical, spir-
itual and mental wellbeing.37 The bill reinforced this restrictive legislation for women
according to Pilar Primo de Rivera ‘not due to the notion of [their] lack of ability or
responsibility to fill such posts, but rather to protect their feelings from certain actions
that carrying out the job would make unavoidable’.38 Despite the expanded opportu-
nities and egalitarian promises, the law continued to circumscribe certain professions
for women. It prohibited them from entering the military or military schools (except as
military nurses in the Merchant Marine).39 It also, surprisingly, forbade women from
being magistrates or prosecutors, except in cases of guardianship of youths. Primo
de Rivera claimed that the work of a judge might be ‘too hard and disagreeable for
women’.40
The 1961 law’s final stipulation, Article 5, recognised the old policy of marital
permission, requiring the approval of the husband for his wife to work. Under the
new legislation, however, the wife could challenge her husband’s refusal in court if his
decision was ‘made in bad faith or with abuse of rights’.41 So while married women now
had the opportunity to work, they still needed their spouse’s blessing (although they
had legal recourse to challenge him) until marital permission was officially abolished
in 1976. This aspect of the law earned it a reputation for hampering the cause of
reform for women, since it required permission from the husband in forma expresa

C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
 Women, Fascism and Work in Francoist Spain 407

for his wife to work.42 However, the legislation still made piecemeal headway in the
advancement of women’s labour rights. The SF legislation effectively overturned the
1947 law that obliged newlywed women to leave their jobs through excedencia forzosa.
On 1 February 1962, Spanish law formally declared that, upon marriage, women could
choose to stay in their jobs, take a leave of absence for up to five years at which point
they could return to the same post, or voluntarily leave their job for good.43
Members of the Spanish cortes had mixed reactions to the law, in particular the
fact that married women were now allowed to work. This proviso caused political
discussion and debate. When confronted with Primo de Rivera’s proposal for the
law, some Spanish politicians argued that married working women threatened their
husbands’ authority and the balance of power in the home. Families, they warned,
would suffer if women were allowed to work as they would devote less time to
motherhood. One cortes member and head of a labour syndicate argued of the law
in 1960: ‘it seems to me that it could be the beginning of the loss of harmony in the
family’.44 Admiral Francisco Bastarreche, another member and ultimately a supporter
of the proposal, wrote in a letter to the head of the SF:
women are necessary at home. The absence of [working] men [at home] is a relative disturbance
for the future, the absence of women is a catastrophe, because there is no one to bring up the
children . . . men know how to teach but not to raise [children], this is what women know, and
especially Spanish women45

In response to these more cautionary voices, Primo de Rivera offered consolation and
assured them that the law would not challenge the traditional Spanish family. She
convinced the cortes that ‘every necessary precaution has been taken so that the law
does not disturb in any way married life’.46 If women could move beyond their small
sphere, she argued, they would be better prepared to fulfil their other, more essential
female roles. She claimed that ‘a cultured, refined and sensible woman . . . is a much
better teacher for her children and companion to her husband’.47 Primo de Rivera
further maintained that she presented the labour law ‘without any feminist inclination,
that would horrify us’.48 She lobbied on behalf of the law, ‘For a sense of justice, never
of feminism, contrary to our way and to Spanish characteristics’.49 She made apologies
and maintained allegiance to her brother, the founder of the Falange:
It doesn’t even resemble a feminist law, we would be unfaithful to JOSÉ ANTONIO if we made it
that way, it is only a just law for working women50

Careful not to jeopardise her allegiance to Falangism and the regime while advocating
reform for working women, including married ones, Primo de Rivera did not make
waves. Her party line justification for the labour rights of married women ultimately
convinced parliament to accept the law without further delay.
The labour law passed on 15 July 1961 after Pilar Primo de Rivera gave an effective
speech to the cortes and earned a standing ovation. It also made front page news in
several of the largest Spanish newspapers.51 Fernando Herrero Tejedor, a member of
parliament, praised the work of Primo de Rivera and the merits of the labour law. He
justified its passage since it was ‘a law that by its popular and social character, Christian
and just, deserves the assent of Spaniards’.52 With political adeptness, without stepping
on anyone’s toes, Primo de Rivera successfully pushed the labour law through even
with its controversial allowances.

C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
408 Gender & History

The law took effect on 1 January 1962 yet, despite clear labour reform, women
still endured certain work restrictions. One woman from Valencia welcomed the new
legislation but stated ‘the work accomplished by the Sección Femenina for this purpose
has been immeasurable, without forgetting that there are still many mountains to
climb’.53 A young Spanish woman in Figueres, asking for help in her job in a post
office, attested to both the novelty and limits of the SF labour reform. She wrote:
One of the things that the new state has most achieved . . . [is] the acceptance of women in jobs
that before were exclusively for men. We women owe this to [Pilar Primo de Rivera] and we can
never thank [her] enough . . . We are aware of [her] great fondness and zeal for defending women’s
interests. Nevertheless . . . there are still posts that are prohibited to us. For example, the corps of
urban mailmen. Within this [group] there are many services that are currently entrusted to men and
that we could do perfectly.54

Miriam Gros, one of the very few female bullfighters, called into question the defini-
tions of the labour law and its impact on her line of work. With the new categorisation
of occupations for women, female bullfighting on foot (torera a pié) was prohibited. In
addition, the female torero noted that other roles including bullfighting on horseback
(el rejoneo), female trapeze artists and parachutists, all formerly permitted, would now
be forbidden. She suggested striking the term ‘dangerous’ from the law arguing that
her profession already suffered from sexism prior to the new legislation.55
In spite of the real hardships suffered by some working women even after the
1961 legislation, the SF achieved a limited victory with its labour law. In the 1960s
and 1970s, the passing of the law inspired women to turn to the SF for help and advice
regarding labour issues, as well as more general legal matters. A female employee of
the phone company in Barcelona contacted Primo de Rivera asking for clarification of
the law. She wrote:
in the name of Spanish women with so much fondness you have been the highest
representative . . . I sincerely congratulate you for attaining the triumph of the past 15th in the
parliament with the unanimous approval of the Law of Political, Professional and Labour Rights
for Women.56

Although the SF law met with approval, it did not apply retroactively and did not solve
everyone’s individual problems. The phone company worker argued that she and other
women who began working before the SF law passed should also be able to benefit
from the legislation. She wrote: ‘I approve of and respect with all my heart the recent
laws, since as long as they are beneficial it is right to pass them, but those of us who
have been working for years in the same business . . . also deserve, I think, to take
advantage of the laws and rights’.57
The law symbolised for some a victory for Spain rather than a political victory
for the Falange or the SF. By the 1960s, many Spaniards recognised the need for
their country to catch up with other ‘modern’ countries in economic and social terms.
Marı́a Amparo Gámir de Ferreres, a working woman from Valencia, expressed her
contentment at the esteem that the law brought Spain. She commented to Primo de
Rivera in a letter:
I praise you a thousand times over because you lifted your voice to defend our case and our
rights . . . I am taking the liberty to bother you to prove to you my sympathy and enthusiasm (like
most Spanish women) for your ideas to change a state of antiquated and we could say, like the rest
of Europe says, ‘African’ things.58


C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
 Women, Fascism and Work in Francoist Spain 409

She viewed the work of the SF as modern and instrumental in Spain’s progression
away from its ‘primitive’ past. The letter writer hailed the new law as a remedy for the
Spanish economy. If married women were allowed to work, they could contribute to
the household income and become larger consumers now that they could earn a salary.
She wrote that the law ‘would have a repercussion in the whole economy of the nation,
since in the homes where women contribute their help, the economic wellbeing is much
greater and this translates to more extravagances, therefore aiding the Spanish market
in all branches’.59 Another woman commended Primo de Rivera for the legal victory
and expressed a similar sentiment, claiming the SF ‘has done a job and completed a task
that enhances our country, giving it more prestige and assuring justice and equality in
the treatment of its women, who are the base and foundation of the future generations
who have to rule our Fatherland’.60 Clearly these women valued the improvements the
law brought to the conditions of women, but they also stressed the good that it did for
the image and future of Spain.
After the passing of the 1961 labour law, women expected the SF, and Primo de
Rivera in particular, to fight for continued reform. In many letters, women referred
to Primo de Rivera as a mother, or family member, to whom they turned in times of
trouble. They also connected her name and life with those of her father and brother. For
example, in a letter to Primo de Rivera in 1963, Marı́a Jesús Costillas Núñez, a female
teacher in a public school, wrote, ‘Your Excellency: I don’t mean to write this letter
to the amazing dignity of a person, but to the heart of a woman, sister and daughter of
martyrs who gave their lives for the Fatherland, for justice and for the well being of
Spaniards and I know that these same passions have ruled your life, Excellency’. She
continued, ‘I know how much you have worked in favour of women . . . with all of my
heart, as if I left my problems in the hands of a mother, I leave them in your hands,
asking you with the utmost respect to help us and protect us’. She wrote to the head of
the SF, ‘I appeal to your influence and efficacy . . . I implore you to use your enormous
value and influence’.61
With the implementation of the labour law, women began to increasingly look to
Primo de Rivera and the SF to represent their needs in the government. Another author
anonymously wrote in 1969, thanking the head of the SF for ‘the huge deed [she had]
accomplished in favour of the Spanish woman’.62 This single woman complained that,
at the age of 43, she felt undervalued at her work and suggested that Primo de Rivera
consider supporting a law to provide her with a better retirement package. She wrote
‘since you are not just humane, but truly influential in the government’ with ‘sufficient
intelligence’ she trusted her to pursue her request. She signed her letter from a ‘sister
who already considers [her] as a mother’.63
Correspondence shows that the SF labour law clearly opened the discussion of
women’s issues and reform.64 A similar inquiry came in 1967 from Marı́a Alonso
Alonso, a woman married to an employee of RENFE, the national railway. She ques-
tioned her benefits and pensions as his second wife in the event of his death. She wrote
to Pilar Primo de Rivera since ‘she was the one to defend women’s rights so that they
could catch up with the same rights as men’ in hopes that ‘all Spanish women would
have the same rights’. Although there was nothing the SF could immediately do in her
case, it reminded her that ‘everything that affects women is the object of our attention’.65
Women directed their requests to the SF in the hope that it would continue to
advance their rights. In 1970, Primo de Rivera received a letter from a group of

C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
410 Gender & History

married working women who wrote that they benefited from the labour law but also
suffered from its limitations.66 Despite their praise for Primo de Rivera and her work,
they expressed concerns regarding their rights. The first question involved affordable
daycare for their children. The other issues involved further equality with men and the
shortcomings of this legislation for women. The letter complained that married women,
although able to work and earn a salary, could not access their savings in a bank without
their husband’s permission. Inadequate daycare for the children of working women
had troubled the SF for decades, but in 1969 the problem increased. The growth in
numbers of working mothers strained the daycare system in Spain and the SF wanted to
create a national daycare network. The SF already sponsored 33 childcare centres of its
own in the provinces of Madrid, Andalucı́a, Levante, Murcia, Elche and in the Canary
Islands, but these did not suffice due to high demand. The funding and administration
of these centres had taxed the SF greatly. Therefore, the SF proposed a national system
of daycare for working mothers that would involve several branches of the government
including the Ministry of Labour, local government councils and the SF.67
In response to the dissatisfaction of some women, Primo de Rivera and the
SF offered a gesture of further reform. In 1966 they remedied one of the major
shortcomings defined in the 1961 law when Pilar convinced the cortes to overturn
the article that prohibited women becoming magistrates – a clear anomaly in the
‘dangerous’ job category. Of the prior legislation, Primo de Rivera claimed ‘it doesn’t
seem right, or logical anyway, depriving [her] only because she is a woman, from
pursuing her calling’.68 The amendment of 1966 stated that with economic expansion
‘the moment of total equality in this sense between men and women has arrived’.69 By
1966, according to Pilar, women were ready to enjoy new privileges.70 She justified
revoking the restriction on the post of magistrates by pointing also to the voluntary
nature of the job. No woman who did not want to enter this type of career, she argued,
would be forced to do so.71 The legislation was therefore modernised but, in keeping
with the SF ideology, did not stray far from the traditional definition of gender roles.
As the 1960s progressed, the organisation managed to retain its reputation as both
a staunch supporter of the conservative family ideals encouraged by the Franco regime
and a reformer for women. As Lidia Falcón, founder of the Spanish feminist party,
claimed of the law in 1965, ‘it was a noble effort made by Spanish legislators . . . to
arrange such conflicting criteria and interests . . . therefore it is essential to overlook,
for now, the many failures that it contained, on account of the good intentions with
which they were committed’.72 By evoking custom and tradition in its reforms, the SF
encouraged incremental changes and managed to push through its progressive agenda
without incident. As it expanded working rights, the SF claimed that women were
‘perfectly suited [for work] without any more limitations than their female condition
poses’.73 It qualified its progressive legislation by adding that, above all else, the most
important mission of women remained that of ‘mother and housekeeper’.74
The Franco regime reaffirmed the labour laws of 1961 and 1966 in a 1970 decree
and the SF continued its movement in the realm of women’s reform. The 1970 decla-
ration went a step further, announcing maternity benefits for women. It also allowed a
woman to take up the same position with her employer in her new home in the case of
moving due to the husband’s work. Although the law still excluded women from taking
certain ‘dangerous’ or unhealthy jobs, it announced that by 1972 this clause would be
re-evaluated with the aim of ‘eliminat[ing] possible discriminations . . . based on sex’.75

C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
 Women, Fascism and Work in Francoist Spain 411

The SF continued to champion reform in the early 1970s. The state legislature
announced the formation of a commission (that included the SF) to study the issue
of women and labour rights. In 1971 and 1972, the Ministry of Labour created this
group, tasked with assessing the conditions of women’s work and enforcing the proper
application of the 1961 law. Primo de Rivera sat on the board along with representatives
from other government institutions. In 1973, the SF again helped to reform labour laws
for women. Carmen Salinas, a legal representative of the SF, lobbied to change the
Penal Code for their rights. She challenged old legislation such as the loss of Spanish
nationality if a woman married a foreigner; she also questioned male jurisdiction over
women’s economic actions.76
The SF took on the role of crusader for women’s labour rights, ensuring their
protection in the workplace while at the same time imposing certain limitations. The
legislation continued the piecemeal process of reform led by the SF. It also began
the public debate of equal rights, inspiring women to call on the SF to lobby for
reform. Through Pilar Primo de Rivera’s political victory, the SF also demonstrated
its influence in convincing the Spanish cortes to pass a law that acknowledged the
evolving role of women in Spanish society. The labour law represents the change of
tide in the regime of the 1960s and women’s precarious position in this movement
towards modernity.

Notes
1. Miriam Dobson explores the use of letters as a primary source. She writes ‘[Letters] . . . allow the careful
historian to examine the complex web of relationships between individual, family, and society that shapes
a person’s sense of self and their understanding of the world they inhabit’. Miriam Dobson (ed.), Reading
Primary Sources: The Interpretation of Texts from 19th and 20th Century History (New York: Routledge,
2009), p. 69.
2. Archivo General de la Administración (AGA), Madrid, 23/34.407–34.509, signatura 445, 11 April 1970.
3. See e.g., the work of Stanley Payne: Falange (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965); Fascism in Spain,
1923–1977 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999).
4. Notwithstanding the new research on the women’s group, few assessments acknowledge the SF beyond
the 1940s and overlook its achievements in the post-war years. Likewise they interpret the regime itself
as static and impervious to change. See Kathleen Richmond, Women and Spanish Fascism: The Women’s
Section of the Falange, 1934–1959 (London: Routledge, 2003); Inbal Ofer, Señoritas in Blue: The Making
of a Female Political Elite in Franco’s Spain – The National Leadership of the Sección Femenina de
La Falange (1936–1977) (Sussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2009); Inmaculada Blasco Herranz, Armas
femeninas para la contrarevolución: La sección femenina en Aragón, 1936–1950 (Malaga: Universidad de
Málaga, 1999); Marı́a Teresa Gallego Méndez, Mujer, Falange y Franquismo (Madrid: Taurus Ediciones,
SA, 1983); Antonieta Jarne, La Secció Femenina a Lleida (Lleida: Pagès, 1991); Rosario Sánchez López,
Mujer española, una sombra de destino en lo universal (Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 1990).
5. Victoria Enders, ‘Problematic Portraits: The Ambiguous Historical Role of the Sección Femenina of the
Falange’, in Victoria Lorée Enders and Pamela Beth Radcliff (eds), Constructing Spanish Womanhood:
Female Identity in Modern Spain (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), pp. 375–97.
6. Also much like the SF, the housewife associations ‘rather than rejecting the Francoist female citizen as
retrograde and anachronistic, tried to modernise her, to provide her with a civic education and create a public
space for her to defend her own interests’. Pamela Radcliff, ‘Citizens and Housewives: The Problem of
Female Citizenship in Spain’s Transition to Democracy’, Journal of Social History 36 (2002), pp. 77–100.
7. Mary Vincent, Spain 1833–2002: People and State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 177. For
another recent account of the waning regime, see also Nigel Townson (ed.), Spain Transformed: The Late
Franco Dictatorship 1959–1974 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
8. Aurora Morcillo, True Catholic Womanhood: Gender Ideology in Franco’s Spain (Dekalb: Northern Illinois
University Press, 2000).
9. Real Academia de Historia (RAH), Madrid, carpeta 103, serie roja, document 9.
10. RAH, Madrid, carpeta 103, serie roja, document 5, 1963.


C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
412 Gender & History

11. Luis Suárez Fernández, Crónica de la Sección Femenina (Madrid: Asociación Nueva Andadura, 1993),
p. 30. José Antonio was killed in jail by Republican sympathisers at the start of the Spanish Civil War.
12. Timothy W. Mason, ‘Women in Germany, 1925–1940, Family, Welfare and Work’, in Timothy W. Mason,
Nazism, Fascism, and the Working Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 131–211,
here p. 172. He notes that National Socialism had a strong populist character that distanced itself from
other bourgeois parties.
13. Alice Kelikian, ‘The Church and Catholicism’, in Adrian Lyttelton (ed.), Liberal and Fascist Italy, 1900–
1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 44–61.
14. La Sección Femenina: Historia y organización (Madrid: Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS,
1952), p. 20.
15. With the defeat of the Axis powers and fascism in 1945, the Falange began to represent a ‘chief liability’
for Spain internationally. As a result, Franco began to slowly phase it out of the public sphere in an effort
to attract foreign support. In 1945, Franco dismissed many Falange representatives, and only two Falange
leaders remained in power, retaining control of press and propaganda, the labour and youth sector, and the
social welfare system. Franco granted the Falange these responsibilities only to counter other right-wing
forces like the Monarchists. He thus continued his balancing act between the Falange and its rivals. Stanley
Payne, The Franco Regime, 1936–1975 (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), pp. 431–2.
16. In 2002, José Marı́a Escrivá de Balaguer was canonised by Pope John Paul II.
17. By the late 1950s, members of Opus Dei began to dominate the Spanish government, replacing Falangist
ministers. They took charge of two key ministries: Mariano Navarro Rubio headed the Finance Department
and Alberto Ullastres the Ministry of Commerce. Payne, Falange, p. 262; Frances Lannon, Privilege,
Persecution and Prophecy: The Catholic Church in Spain 1875–1975 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987),
p. 229.
18. For further discussion of Pilar’s contradictions, see Jessica Davidson, ‘“Never of Femi-
nism”: Pilar Primo de Rivera and the Spanish Right’, World History Connected 7 (2010),
http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/7.1/davidson.html>.
19. Despite the official Church and state pronunciations on morality, women could work legally in prostitution
until 1956. This fitted in with a larger Mediterranean trend to abolish prostitution after the Second World
War. France outlawed it in the 1940s and Italy in 1958.
20. Geraldine Scanlon, La polémica femenista en la España contemporánea (Madrid: Sigloveintiuno, 1976),
p. 321.
21. Steen P. Mangen, Spanish Society after Franco: Regime Transition and the Welfare State (Basingstoke:
Palgrave, 2001), p. 36.
22. Marı́a Amparo Ballester Pastor, La normativa protectora de la mujer (Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 1994),
p. 182.
23. Marcos Basora Francesch, Derecho del Trabajo (Barcelona: Ediciones Ariel, 1964), pp. 126–7.
24. Fundamental Laws of the State: The Spanish Constitution (Madrid: Servicio Informativo Español, 1967),
p. 45.
25. See the work of Mary Nash, Mujer, Familia y Trabajo en España, 1875–1936 (Barcelona: Anthropos,
Editorial del Hombre, 1983); Carme Molinero, ‘Mujer, franquismo y fascismo: La clausura forzada en un
“mundo pequeño”’, Historia Social 30 (1998), pp. 97–117.
26. At the same time that women received special provisions and restrictions, the constitution of 1945 stated
that every Spaniard, presumably even women (though not married women), had the right to work: ‘todos
los españoles podrán desempeñar cargos y funciones públicas, según su mérito y capacidad’, article 11,
Spanish Constitution, p. 45.
27. Nuevo análisis de la población española (Barcelona: 1992), p. 165.
28. ‘Sus labores’ was the term used to describe the occupation of housewives in official records. Ministerio
de Asuntos Sociales, Instituto de la Mujer, Las mujeres en el medio rural (Madrid: Servicios geográficos
Colomina, 1989), p. 42.
29. Raymond Carr, Spain: 1808–1975 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). In 1960, the census counted 20 per
cent of the total workforce as women (a 28 per cent increase since 1950). Despite the national decline in
agriculture, the largest number of women in the 1960 census still worked as farm labourers and as artisans.
The lowest number of women appeared in the mining profession and as directors and administrators, Censo
de la población de España (Madrid: Instituto Nacional de Estadı́stica, 1960). In 1950, 1,708,830 women
were economically active out of a total active population of 10,793,057. In 1960, 2,379,764 women were
economically active out of 11,816,569. The category of domestic service was not included in the 1960
census.
30. Scanlon, Polémica femenista, p. 343.


C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
 Women, Fascism and Work in Francoist Spain 413

31. Marı́a Angeles Durán, El trabajo de la mujer en España: Un estudio sociológico (Madrid: Editorial Tecnos,
1972).
32. Lourdes Benerı́a, Mujer, economia y patriarcado durante la España franquista (Barcelona: Editorial
Anagrama, 1977), pp. 42–3.
33. Falange, Sección Femenina, p. 42.
34. Teresa, C.T., June 1971, pp. 4–5. The SF referred especially to a growth in female industrial workers.
35. Spanish law had systematically ignored domestic workers who received poor pay, worked many hours and
enjoyed ‘little freedom’. The SF sought to provide women who worked in domestic service legal protection
and benefits including ‘a larger salary, health and disability insurance, [and] retirement benefits’. Mónica
Plaza, a SF representative in the cortes, spent several years lobbying for this protection of housekeepers
(amas de casa) and convinced its opponents, some of whom felt it was not an essential piece of legislation,
to pass the proposal. Pilar Primo de Rivera also supported the project, which she hoped would ‘embrace
and resolve once and for all the Domestic Service problem’. The SF also mobilised women in domestic
service to lobby for their rights. In 1958, with SF backing, a union of domestic workers was formed.
This programme benefited more than 600,000 women by 1961, according to SF statistics. These large
numbers, however, must be viewed with caution since they appeared in an SF propaganda pamphlet. The
SF even created, solely for the purpose of supporting working women, the National Labour Department for
Women in 1967 headed by Mónica Plaza. The domestic worker plan became the Mutualidad Nacional de
la Seguridad Social de las Empleadas de Hogar after a decade, and was then integrated into the national
insurance programme in 1969. Suárez Fernández, Crónica de la Sección Femenina, p. 316; Scanlon,
Polémica femenista, pp. 82–3, 90–91; author’s interview with Mónica Plaza, Palencia, Spain, 18 April
2001; AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–304, signatura 3, 20 October 1950; 25 Años de Polı́tica Española, AGA,
Madrid, 23/27.304, signatura 3, 1961, pp. 45–8.
36. In 1958, the reform of the Civil Code represented another change in the legal status of women. The reform
stipulated that under certain circumstances, a married woman did not need her husband’s approval for
business transactions. In addition, women could become legal guardians, although wives required their
husband’s consent. The SF ‘looked at . . . the limitations of the law confirmed in the 1958 reform of
the Civil Code’ and realised it needed to continue the process of reform specifically regarding married
women’s rights to work – which became one of the major achievements of its 1961 labour legislation.
Sixty-six articles of the traditional legislation changed ‘in favour of women, who suffered most under the
Civil Code’. The same source claimed that ‘it was the first step towards achieving the law of equal rights’.
John Hooper, The New Spaniards (London: Penguin, 1995), p. 167; Derechos polı́ticos, profesionales y de
trabajo de la mujer, Sección Femenina, 1961, p. 38; Suárez Fernández, Crónica de la Sección Femenina,
p. 316.
37. This category included judges and lawyers until 1966 when the SF revoked the prohibition of this profession
to women.
38. Suárez Fernández, Crónica de la Sección Femenina, p. 521, from Ley de 28 de Diciembre de 1966.
39. Women were not admitted to military institutions until 1988.
40. RAH, Madrid, carpeta 108 A, serie azul, document 8, 1966, Palabras de Pilar Primo de Rivera, a las Cortes
Españolas en defensa de la Ley de 1966.
41. Derechos polı́ticos, profesionales y de trabajo de la mujer, p. 40.
42. Gáspar Bayón Chacón and Eugenio Pérez Botija, Manual del derecho del trabajo, 2 vols, (Madrid: Marcial
Pons, 1968), vol. 1, p. 324.
43. Oficina de Trabajo (Geneva: H. Studer, 1969), p. 62.
44. AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–21.304, signatura 12, José Poveda Murcia, 10 August 1960. Many such responses
can be found in the archive, e.g. AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–21.304, signatura 12, Emilio Lamo de Espinosa,
16 May 1960.
45. AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–21.304, signatura 12, Francisco Bastarreche, 2 September 1960.
46. AGA, Madrid, 23/25.201–25.302, signatura 534, Pilar Primo de Rivera, 1961.
47. AGA, Madrid, 23/25.201–25.302, signatura 534, Pilar Primo de Rivera, 1961.
48. RAH, Madrid, carpeta 108 A, serie azul, document 8, 1966, Palabras del Pilar Primo de Rivera, a las Cortes
Españolas en defensa de la Ley de 1966.
49. AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–21.304, signatura 12, Pilar Primo de Rivera, 16 July 1960.
50. AGA, Madrid, 23/25.201–25.302, signatura 534, Pilar Primo de Rivera, 1961.
51. See e.g., ABC, 16 July 1961; La Vanguardia Española, 16 July 1961; 25 July 1961.
52. Derechos polı́ticos, profesionales y de trabajo de la mujer, p. 29.
53. RAH, Madrid, serie roja, carpeta 103, document 1.
54. RAH, Madrid, serie roja, carpeta 103, document 54.


C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
414 Gender & History

55. AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–21.304, signatura 12, letter from Miriam Gros, 31 August 1961.
56. AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–21.304, signatura 30, letter from Marı́a Ángeles López Llamazares, 20 July
1961.
57. AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–21.304, signatura 30, letter from Marı́a Ángeles López Llamazares, 20 July
1961.
58. AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–21.304, signatura 30, caja 12, 17 September 1960.
59. AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–21.304, signatura 30, caja 12, 17 September 1960.
60. AGA, Madrid, 23/21.209–304, caja 12, letter from Lolita San Esteban de Cañorgo, 16 July 1961.
61. RAH, Madrid, serie roja, carpeta 103, document 62, 1963.
62. RAH, Madrid, serie roja, carpeta 103, document 87, 1969.
63. RAH, Madrid, serie roja, carpeta 103, document 87, 1969.
64. A married, working woman from Valencia worried about her social security benefits and encouraged Primo
de Rivera to look into a new law that would help her receive more insurance. She wrote with ‘the same
motive . . . it simply deals with the so called Rights of Women’. She continued ‘I only hope that in the new
Foundation for social security, the very uncomfortable position that Spanish female workers are exposed
to remains clear’. The SF informed her that the law she referred to was pending. RAH, Madrid, serie roja,
carpeta 103, document 1, 21 November 1963.
65. RAH, Madrid, serie roja, carpeta 103, document 21, 1967.
66. AGA, Madrid, 23/34.407–34.509, signatura 445, 11 April 1970.
67. Teresa, Marı́a Nieves González Echevarrı́a, February 1969, pp. 45–9.
68. Derechos polı́ticos, profesionales y de trabajo de la mujer, p. 44.
69. Suárez Fernández, from Ley de 28 de Diciembre de 1966, p. 521.
70. Derechos polı́ticos, profesionales y de trabajo de la mujer, pp. 44, 48.
71. Moreover, the public did not need to fear a rush of women into the new field opened by the 1966 legislation.
The first female judge, Carmen Venero, appeared in Spain in 1971 thanks to the amendment of the SF
legislation. Scanlon, Polémica femenista, p. 345.
72. Lidia Falcón O’Neill, Los derechos de la mujer (Madrid: Editorial Montecorvo, 1965), p. 128.
73. Derechos polı́ticos, profesionales y de trabajo de la mujer, p. 39.
74. AGA, Madrid, 23/27.406, signatura 2, 1964 or 1966.
75. AGA, Madrid, 23/34.407–34.509, signatura 445, 1970.
76. Pilar Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos de una vida (Madrid: Ediciones Dyrsa, 1983), p. 195.


C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Copyright of Gender & History is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed
to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However,
users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.