Individualism and corporativism in Spanish feminism, 1890-1937

Abstract

In this study, the word corporativism is synonymous with those political descriptive terms that sometimes accompany non-individualistic ideological affirmations (as opposed to the traditional use of the word which refers to a national syndicalist principle of State organization). Since the start of the 19th C, individualism had advanced within spaces of European feminism; in Spain, however, it struggled against anti-individualist attitudes and arguments that had cloistered women in a secular and family-patriarchal corporativism of the well-to-do classes. In the same way as —or parallel to— the labour market, corporativism bound women to their condition as manual producers. This study hopes to investigate the reasons behind the continuing obstacles —individual and collective— which slowed down equal access for women to political citizenship. Finally, it will be shown how these obstacles functioned during the Franco regime so that the only sphere of corporative sovereignty for women lay with the family.