Mujer y emancipación en tiempos de la República: Historia de una maestra, de Josefina Aldecoa

Abstract

During the period of the second republic and the spanish civil War there were many women who had an innovative and important role in the struggle for gender equality and women's emancipation, ranging from prominent political figures who participated in the public sphere to anonymous women who participated in social movements. My goal is to study the representation of these female historical figures in the literary narrative. The aim of this article is to check if the analyzed figures are presented by the writers as heroes and mythical worriers, or mere human beings influenced and limited in their choices by the environment. It will revise what the role the politics plays in their lives, and the influence exercised by the commitment and political activity in their concepts of  themselves. This article focuses on the tension between being a woman and political commitment from the perspective of personal conflicts of the protagonist of The History of a Teacher, a primary school teacher who decides to endorse the social project of education promoted by the reforms introduced during the second spanish republic.