Women's sexuality in Francoist Spain was defined by the Church and by the State. The purpose in doing so was to have women serve the state exclusively through reproduction and guarding the morality of the state. Women's sexuality could only be understood through the prism of reproduction and motherhood. Defying this could have tremendous negative consequences for women, including being labeled a prostitute, being removed from her family home, being sent to a concentration camp, a Catholic run institution or to a prison. It was only after the death of Franco in 1975 that women in Spain were finally allowed to define their own sexuality. Understanding Francoist imposed definitions of female sexuality is critical to understanding modern Spanish female sexuality, especially as it relates to macho behavior and women's expected responses to it.
Female bodies were stripped of their physicality and the regime did everything in their power to desexualize them. They existed for reproductive purposes. Clothing norms were equally restrictive as they were designed to further emphasize the asexual nature of women. Women were required to dress demurely, with long sleeves or elbow, no necklines, long and loose materials.
Women were taught that their role was to belong to one man and one man only. Female virginity became very important, and women who lost their virginity before marriage were considered to have dishonored themselves and their families. They could be kicked out of their homes, be institutionalized, or be forced to take steps to hide evidence of loss of virginity by having clandestine abortions or engaging in infanticide. Lesbians were not recognized, as they challenged the regime narrative that women's sole purpose was to procreate. The regime tried everything they could to render lesbians invisible. Despite this, lesbians created their own underground culture.
Francoists defining women's sexuality Hispanic eugenics and pronatalism were viewed as key components of addressing the decline in the Spanish birth rate and the need for an increased population size to serve the needs of the Spanish state during the Francoist period. Policies around this eugenics program involved bans on abortion, infanticide, contraception and information around contraception. This practice was started as policy during the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, discontinued by the Second Republic and then picked up again as a national level policy by Francoists. Anything that was viewed by the state as interfering with women's reproduction activities and increasing the size of the Spanish population size were viewed as being in opposition to the state. All activities that stopped this began to become defined by the regime as crimes.
Because of state eugenics policies, women were unable to define their own sexuality in the Francoist period. Instead, the regime imposed its own strict and narrow definition of female sexuality upon women. They said that women were to be "submissive, devoted and devout". Femininity in the Francoist period is defined as submission and spirit of sacrifice. Morality in Spain rested upon women, with their bodies being the keepers of the country's well-being through moral behavior. Controlling women's sexuality was about the belief that doing so would make Spain a morally superior country.
Women were defined in Francoist Spain exclusively around the reproductive needs of the state, with women's sexuality only being allowed to expressed in that context. Consequently, women's sexuality was not a consideration in the Franco period. Women's sexuality was relegated in society exclusively to the realm of medicine, and only allowed to be discussed in medical literature by male doctors. Female adultery, homosexuality, masturbation and premarital sex were all considered by the regime to be forms of sexual aberrations. As much as the regime tried to control women's sexuality in the 1940s, it proved difficult to actually do so. A 1944 edition of Semanario de la SF said, "The life of every woman, despite what she may pretend, is nothing but a continuous desire to find somebody to whom she can succumb. Voluntary dependency, the offering of every minute, every desire and illusion is the most beautiful thing, because it implies the cleaning away of all the bad germs—vanity, selfishness, frivolity—by love." Women who violated the state imposed definitions of female sexuality put themselves at tremendous risk. This included being labeled a prostitute or sent away to a facility to try to change them into more moral women.
Prisons were used as places to try to reshape women's sexuality. Parents in the 1950s and 1960s exerted strong control over their daughters' sexuality.
Women's magazines were co-opted by the state to pressure women to conform to the state's definition of sexuality. The magazine told women how they should behave in the context of married life. Consultorio de Elana Francis was a radio program that aired in Spain between 1947 and 1984, where women were able to ask for advice on problems they had. Issues of marital gender violence often came up. The show was created by Angela Castells, a member of Sección Feminina, Patronato de Protección de la Mujer and Spanish League against Public Immorality, Spain's immorality police. It served a similar role, up to and including telling married women that they deserved to be raped or physically by their husbands and that these women should repent and stay with their abusers.
Student protests in the 1960s began to be a period where women's sexual liberation started to happen on university campuses. On the whole, these protests though were much more liberating for men and male sexuality than women, who might accompany men along as part of demonstration. "Sexuality is not motherhood" () became a slogan of many feminists and feminists organizations by the end of 1975.
Starting in the 1970s, the feminist movement has started a movement to give women control over their own bodies and reproductive capacity, something which they believed men had historically controlled through coercion and violence. Sexuality is covered in this context using a variety of political and cultural concepts, including abortion, gender roles, violence against women, reproductive health, contraceptives, family planning, sexual orientation and marriage. Sexuality is a private thing which requires the contradictory need to be discussed in a public political and legal context to insure that rights around sexuality cannot be ignored or separated from other aspects that can result in a loss of rights. Feminists have also pushed for a discussion and understanding of these issues and how they impact women's everyday lives.
The definitions of women's sexuality in the Francoist period are important for understanding the climate around women's sexuality in the 2010s, especially as it relates to macho behavior and women's expected responses to it.
Physical appearance and physique In Francoist Spain, the female body was stripped of its physicality and made into a desexualized object. They existed only for utilitarian reasons only. They were things for use by the state to discover female moral and criminal transgressions. Despite Francoist invocations to desexualize women and transform them exclusively into mother figures, society still had idealized feminine forms that were often most visible in films of the era. In the earlier Franco period, this ideal feminine form was one with wide hips, prominent breasts and round faces. It would change, after the post war period, to involve women who were thinner by choice, as opposed to a result of starvation.
Physical education for women was often frowned upon by the regime. While exercise was viewed as important for preserving a women's ability to procreate and to avoid health problems, too much physical activity was frowned upon. Some sports like athletics were discouraged because participation in them was considered masculinizing.
Because of the support of sport for women in Spain through organizations like Sección Feminina, the ideal female body type was one that showed her strength. Attractive women were also much more likely to be flat chested. This notion of female beauty and body type was found in literature of the Francoist period. Because women's breasts were largely inaccessible to the male gaze as a result of clothing and cinematographic censorship, female beauty in the Francoist period often focused on legs and ankles. Agustina de Aragón was the first Spanish movie to feature a woman's naked breast. Released in 1950, the naked breast largely passed without comment as it was attached to a nursing mother, and breasts of nursing women were consider asexual.
Women themselves had contradictory desires over their own idealized form. On the one hand, women wanted to be slender, but on the other, they wanted prominent breasts and hips and to be voluptuous. Many of these women, no matter the contradiction in their beliefs around beauty, strove to maintain a beautiful external physical appearance for the purpose of finding a good husband. She wanted a body that was sexual, but that also signified she was caring and loving. At the same time, her thoughts around her own body had to be guarded as there were social consequences for appearing vain or coquettish. Good, wholesome, innocent and pure girls did not appear to give considerations for their body shape. Sección Feminina defines this for women, saying,Is it good taste to exhibit the physical charms when you have a perfect body? It is not in good taste or good manners to display it blatantly; our education and our coquetry will agree to what extent discretion and decency allow us to reveal our charms.
Clothing and hair
Women were required to dress demurely, with long sleeves or elbow, no necklines, long and loose materials. Women were prohibited from wearing shorts or transparent materials. The regime purpose for this was to try to force women not to gain attention as a result of their bodies. Women "should be properly dressed, that is, with long sleeves or elbow, without necklines, with baggy skirts that will not indicate the details of the body nor they grab undue attention. The clothes could not be short and much less show through. Young women should not go out alone or be accompanied by men who were not from the family." Loose clothing was often worn to hide a woman's figure.
During the Franco regime, women were required to cover their hair in many contexts. This was to prevent them from showing their femininity and being sexual beings. Veils were quite common among conservative Catholic women even into the 1980s.
Women tried to fight these definitions in the 1960s by having short hair and wearing pants. In that same period, straight lines and geometric shapes began to play an important role in fashion, and more and more skin began to be exposed.
Virginity Female sexuality as defined by the regime involved the woman being the property of one man. As a result, virginity was important, and women were expected to remain virgins until they married. Girls were taught that their virginity was the most precious gift they had that they could give to a future husband. A girl losing her virginity outside of marriage was a moral crime. If a girl lost her virginity before she got married, her whole family could be disgraced. In order for some women who became pregnant to maintain the illusion of being virgins, they had clandestine abortions or committed infanticide. Some girls who found themselves pregnant and not married were kicked out of their family homes by their parents and forced to live on the streets; this was done to save the honor of the rest of the family. Single-sex education was designed to prevent girls from losing their virginity.