Thinking sex, changing sex: Spanish women middle and higher education in the 1950s

Abstract

The Spanish university under Francoism was regulated by Law of 1943. This law defined the scholar identity the next thirty years. In this article the author argues that although the law did not exclude women explicitly from higher learning the definition of “True Catholic womanhood” was intrinsically opposite to the scholar subjectivity. Through a Foucaldian reading of the LOU of 1943 as well as the laws issued in the 1950s to regulate the middle education women were discouraged to pursue higher learning or in the best case pursue a career appropriate for her sex. The article focuses in the period of the 1950s when the regime experiences a transition from autarchy to consumerism and gender roles need to be redefined for the new economy.