La sección femenina de la Falange española y su papel en la formación de la mujer rural durante la dictadura del General Franco. (Spanish).

Abstract

In all of the totalitarian states of twentieth-century Europe, the political parties that sustained them created women's organizations dedicated to serve the new political order both as instruments of ideological indoctrination and as the means to develop a specific model of 'woman'. This model generally subordinates a woman to a man, situating her primarily in the domestic domain as wife and mother. In Spain, this political party was the Spanish Falange and, within that organization, a Sección Femenina (Women's Section) emerged that maintained and significantly increased its activity between 1934 and 1977. Upon completion of the Civil War, with the victory of the rebel soldiers, the new dictatorial regime led by General Franco, fused together in the so-called Movimiento Nacional (National Movement) its various political sources, including the Falange, forming an ideological magma known as National-Catholicism. The Women's Section, while retaining its Falangist inspiration, was fully integrated into the mechanisms of the Movement and the State, basically discharging two types of functions: social relief or welfare and the education of women, especially in rural areas. Over the course of its history, this organization would launch many institutions and educational programs, among which stands out a program of traveling or itinerant schools, «Cátedras Ambulantes» made, in a way, in the image of the Misiones Pedagógicas (Educational Missions), which had been very active during the Second Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]