Women in PSOE in Francoist Spain had been involved in important socialist activism since the 1930s, including behind the scenes during the Asturian miners' strike of 1934, even as the party offered few leadership roles to women and address the issues of women. During the Civil War, the party was one of the few left wing actors to reject the idea of women on the front, believing women instead should take care of the home.

Socialists continued to have a fraught relationship with feminism during the post-war early Franco period with 10% female membership, and Partido Comunista Española (PCE) overtook PSOE in importance as the dominant left wing group in the Spanish interior. Most of the prominent socialists leaders and many women in PSOE fled to exile abroad. Those who remained were subject to severe repression. Many were imprisoned. Some were executed. During the 1940s, PSOE's interior activities were clandestine. Toulouse would become the home of leadership on the exterior, with exile women in France and Mexico playing important exterior roles. Leadership faced numerous challenges in the 1950s as a result of regime repression. In the 1960s, interior and external divisions came out into the open with women like Josefina Arrillaga and Carmen García Bloise playing critical roles in the unfolding drama. The early 1970s saw a period of renewal and renovation of the PSOE executive committee. Addressing women's issue was not something PSOE was able to do, as women in power understood that an attempt to do so would lead to internal party divisions. Divided amongst themselves, PSOE aligned women would be at the forefront of introducing more explicitly socialist and politically class focused third-wave feminism to Spain.

The transition would see Adolfo Suarez's Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD) come to power in 1977 following Franco's 1975 death. Ignoring women's issues would be one of the reasons UCD lost the 1982 elections and PSOE come into power. PSOE would declare its explicit support for feminism by 2019.

Background

Francoist Spain was a pseudo-fascist state whose ideology rejected what it considered the inorganic democracy of the Second Republic. It was an embrace of organic democracy, defined as a reassertion of traditional Spanish Roman Catholic values that served as a counterpoint to the Communism of the Soviet Union during the same period. It came into exist in 1939 following the end of the Spanish Civil War. Misogyny and heteronormativity where linchpins of fascism in Spain, where the philosophy revolved around patria and fixed gender roles that praised the role of strong male leadership.

In July 1936, the Spanish Civil War started with a military coup attempt launched from the Spanish enclave of Melilla. In October of that same year, Franco took over as the Generalissimo and Chief of State in Nationalist zones. On 19 April 1937, Catholic and Falangist parties were merged, making Falange Española Tradicionalista the official state party behind Nationalist lines. On 30 January 1938, the first National State Cabinet meeting was held, with the Spanish Civil War formally coming to an end on 1 April 1939 and an official government formalized on 8 August 1939.

The Franco regime banned all political parties and trade unions. The only permissible type organization was Falange, founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1933. An election was held in 1966, where people were given the option to affirm or deny Franco's leadership. With more voters than electors, Franco was affirmed as Head of State. Prince Juan Carlos was appointed as Franco's official successor in 1970, with Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco being the unofficial successor. Carrero Blanco was assassinated in 1973 by ETA. Franco died in November 1975.

History

Pre-Francoism period Pablo Iglesias founded PSOE in 1879, and its union, Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) in 1888. Early growth for the party was slowed as it was in competition with an anarchist trade union that focused on reaching out to Spain's working class. PSOE also had a rigid Marxist ideology coupled with anti-clericalism. This was sometimes difficult for Spain's small industrial working class population who had many other left-wing political options to choose from. In 1921, a split developed inside PSOE which resulted in the creation of Partido Comunista Española (PCE). Despite this, during the 1920s the party continued to grow and was the largest one in the country by 1931 when the Second Republic was founded.

Women played roles behind the scenes in one of the first major conflicts of the Second Republic, when workers' militias seized control of the mines in Asturias. Originally planned as a nationwide strike, the workers collective action only really took place in Asturias. Some women were involved in propaganda and others in assisting the miners. After the government quelled the insurrection by bringing in Moroccan legionaries, some 30,000 people found themselves in prison and another 1,000 were put into graves. A large number of those put into prison were women. Women also played an advocacy role in trying to see their husbands and male relatives released.

Civil War period (1936 - 1939)

PSOE continued to ignore the unique problems of women during the Civil War. When women were interested in joining the party, they found themselves locked out of leadership positions. PSOE also refused to send women to the front, perpetuating the sexist belief that a woman could best serve the war effort by staying at home.

PSOE was one of the only major actors on the left to immediately reject the idea of women participating in combat. The idea was too radical for them, and they believed women should serve as heroes at home, providing support to civilian populations well behind the front lines. Women who were members of PSOE who found their way to combat did so by joining communist and socialist youth groups. One of the few publicly socialist identified militia women in this period was María Elisa García, who served as a miliciana with the Popular Militias as a member Asturias Battalion Somoza company.

María Lacrampe had joined UGT in 1932 and become involved with the 1934 Asturian Revolution. In November 1937, she became the secretary of the Asociación Socialista de Madrid. As part of her work, she assisted in bringing Spanish Republican children into exile in Belgium. At the conclusion of the war, she unsuccessfully tried to escape via boat by claiming she was a French citizen. By June 1939, she was in the Las Ventas Prison in Madrid, where she used her time to work as a nurse assisting children of other female prisoners. She would also be present right before many women were put to death, with many of these women offering her their last testimonies.

UGT and PSOE were both banned by Franco in 1938.

Post Civil War period (1939 - 1945) Following the end of the Spanish Civil War, PCE was the most successful organization when it came to rebuilding their organization. PSOE in comparison faced a lot more internal and external struggles to rebuild. Despite these challenges, PSOE sought to re-organize its structure by merging the youth branch (JLE) with the main arm of the party. This re-organization first took place in Spanish prisons, before being implemented into PSOE's clandestine structure outside prison walls. Following a round of pardons in 1943 that benefited many socialists, structural changes within PSOE accelerated, culminating in the first National Executive Commission being held in 1944. Prior to that, the last Executive Committee had been elected in 1939, with its chair José Gómez Osorio executed in 1940. Feminism and socialism continued to have a fraught relationship during the early Francoist period. Partido Comunista de España became the dominant clandestine political organization in Spain following the end of the Civil War. It would retain this position until the death of Franco saw PSOE replace it.

Most of the resistance in Spain during the early Franco period was a result of guerrillas, who coordinated their activities in the interior both with political militants in exile and with militants in prison. Most of Spain's militant women who remained in Spain were in prison or had gone underground where they served as important figures in coordinating activities between all three groups. Prisons in this case proved invaluable for many militant women as they allowed them to rebuild their activist networks or create new networks. They were also one of the biggest sources of female resistance to the Franco regime by exercising daily resistance behind prison walls.

Following the end of the Spanish Civil War, the leadership of PSOE went into exile and reconstituted themselves externally with leadership largely based in France. Inside Spain, PSOE shrank to all but a few militants mostly based in the Basque country and Asturian UGT strongholds.

Socialist women also went into exile during and after the Spanish Civil War. Oran, Algeria would receive around 7,000 members of PSOE and UGT who fled into exile as a result of the Spanish Civil War. UGT and PSOE party member Selina Asenjo Puello went into exile in Argentina after 12 years in France. María Lejárraga also spent time in exile in many European and South American countries. Spanish Socialist women in general found their most welcome home in Mexico. Four of PSOE's five Second Republican female deputies eventually sought exile in Mexico. These women included Veneranda García Manzano, Matilde de la Torre, Julia Álvarez Resano and Margarita Nelken.

Socialist women, along with mothers, daughters and wives of male socialist party members, were subject to severe repression. Women only connected to the socialist movement because of family members were tortured to draw those family members from hiding. Some Asturian socialists went into hiding near family members in the region. Women took great risks on a daily basis, in some cases for years, to provide them with supplies.

Socialist women found themselves in prison in the post-Civil War period. Ángeles Malonda was one of the socialist women imprisoned during the Franco regime as a result of her involvement with the party during the Civil War. Claudina García Perez served as a member of UGT's Executive Committee from October 1937 to April 1939. By May 1939, when the Spanish Civil War was officially over, García Perez was in the Las Ventas Prison in Madrid. The case against her was dismissed in 1940, and she was released from prison. Dulcenombre del Moral was married to a prominent Andalusian socialist, Ventura Castelló, and arrested in July 1936 to try to lure him out of hiding. She would stay in prison until her release in 1939. By that time, she had replaced her husband within PSOE and would be arrested multiple times more including in 1941, 1942 and 1944. PSOE and UGT militant Ángeles García Ortega was sent to prison for three years in 1939. PSOE and UGT militant Pilar Pascual was arrested in March 1939 in Yecla for writing an article about socialism. Sentenced to death, she would spend time in prison in Yelca, Murcia and Las Ventas in Madrid after her conviction was commuted. After leaving prison, she rejoined PSOE and was active with the organization until she died. PSOE and UGT militant María Añó was involved in clandestine PSOE organizations, and would be sent to prison several times as a result of her political activities. PSOE and UGT militant Julia Vigre played a central role in organizing clandestine union and party activities. She went to prison several times as a result. Mujeres Antifascistas member and PSOE militant Josefa Lirola was detained dozens of times for her involvement in protesting the regime.

Some women were executed because of their involvement with the party. María del Rey was executed by the regime because of her PSOE party membership.

1940s