Women in the Popular Front in the Spanish Civil War

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Women in the Spanish Civil War
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Women in the Popular Front in the Spanish Civil War were part of a broad leftist coalition founded ahead of the 1936 Spanish general elections. The Second Spanish Republic represented a changing cultural and political landscape in which women's political organizations could flourish for the first time. It failed to empower women completely, as they were often locked out of governance roles and positions in political organizations. Many organizations continued to discriminate against women, as Marxist ideology did not see them as a unique group with special needs but as part of larger class grouping in which class equality needed to be prioritized.

The Spanish Civil War started in July 1936, and would pit the Nationalist forces of the right against the Republican forces of the Popular Front government. It took the creation of the Popular Front to persuade the left to encourage women to mobilize in large numbers in support of the Republic. This included encouraging them to leave the home and engage in activities less associated with the domestic sphere. It was in this climate that a number of important women's organizations were created or flourished. In some cases, it led to women gaining leadership of a kind they had not achieved before, such as inside militias. It did not inspire unification among women inside the Popular Front itself as many divisions existed, eventually leading to leftist-organized internal purges with Popular Front parties turning on each other.

The end of the war and the start of the Francoism saw a return for women to the traditional gender roles of Catholic Spain. It saw ostracization and imprisonment of women who fought for the Popular Front on the front. It saw many women sent to overcrowded prisons, where the children born there faced high rates of death. Many other women went into exile. Despite playing a key role for the Republican side as members of the Popular Front, the legacy of these women has largely been ignored. This stems from sexism, propaganda that said they were deviants, and a lack of primary sources.