Women in the Spanish Civil War

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Women in the Spanish Civil War
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Women in the Spanish Civil War saw the conflict start on 17 July 1936. The war would impact women's everyday lives. Feminist solutions to problems of women in this period often took an individualistic approach. For women of the Second Republic, by close of the Civil War their efforts for liberation would fail.

While various parties were working to encourage women to their ranks, it was often about reinforcing their own membership numbers and women would be locked out of opportunities for advancement and women's concerns would continue to be ignored on both the Nationalist and Republican sides.

Unlike previous wars including World War I, women for the first time would be involved in large numbers in combat and in support roles on the front. Republican women had the choice to be actively involved in fighting fascism. The first Spanish Republican woman to die on the battlefield was Lina Odena on 13 September 1936. The May Days of 1937 would see leftist women turn on each other, with a number of women being imprisoned, killed or forced into exile, not at the hand of fascists, but by Stalinist Communists on their own side.

The war ended in 1939, with thirteen women executed as part of a larger group of fifty-six prisoners in Madrid on 5 August 1939 because of their membership of United Socialist Youth. The war also saw the folding of Mujeres Libres, the anarchist women's organisation (1936-1939), and women facing horrible conditions in prison.