The Women Section of FET-JONS: “half-measures” for a dictatorship

Abstract

This research brings up a serie of starting hypothesis regarding the achievement or not of the ideals of the national syndicalism, the evolution of the militants of the “Movimiento” along the dictatorship, the social incidence of these and their impact over the status of citizenship of women and their feminist conscience. To give an answer to these questions, the analysis of the development of the Sección Femenina starting with the socialisation network of the “apostolado seglar” in the first third of the twentieth century and especially alter its appearance during the civil war, as part of that fifth column operating from the contrarevolutionary front.

The central arguments of this work are dedicated to the transformation of the Sección Femenina from a political role entrusted to mobilise the masses to another of an assistance nature through organisations such as the “Auxilio Social”, the vertical trade unions, “Hermandad de la Ciudad y del Campo” and others. The objective was to mitigate the general misery of the postwar. This role suffered a definitive change after the fall of the Falange in 1956. The organisation became more professional and bureaucratic in nature, retreating to the rural zones in order to guarantee its survival confronted by the ever more powerful competence of state agents.