Twelve key moments in feminism in Catalonia

Certainly, the 20th century is not the century of Einstein or the atomic bomb; it is the century of women. Here in Catalonia, the 20th century was prolific in feminist demonstrations, which we need to understand in order to build an even more feminist 21st century. Provided, of course, that we don't want to perpetuate the mess that is the world today.

Like the links in a chain, Pilar Godayol (Manlleu, 1968), professor at the University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia—a specialist in gender studies and author of, among other works,Where are the women? Lives and manifestos It now traces a journey through a dozen key moments in Catalan feminism. Twelve adventures that have allowed us to get to where we are now, whether in the form of people, books, magazines, publishing houses, or even feminist fairs.

The journey of Women in struggle It does not begin with the magazine of the same title –born during the Transition–, but rather starts at the beginning of the 20th century with the legendary magazine Feminine, which existed by the grace of Carme Karr, an exponent of bourgeois feminism. She continues the pioneering work of Francesca Bonnemaison at the Institute of Culture and Popular Library for Women—through which thousands of young women passed—and focuses on the radically free figure of the writer Aurora Bertrana, who dreamed of building a women's workers' university.

In the second half of the century, the author highlights the publication of three key books: Women in Catalonia, from the teacher Maria Aurèlia Capmanyand two translations, The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir and The mystique of femininity by Betty Friedan. She then elaborates on the fruitful First Catalan Women's Conference, which in May 1976 brought together four thousand women. She focuses, of course, on the magazine that gives the book its title and the country's first feminist publishing house, La Sal, Women's Editions. She concludes with the 1990s, highlighting three key moments: the Feminist Book Fair held at the Drassanes in Barcelona in 1990, the analysis of an emblematic text by Maria-Mercè Marçal in which she acknowledges her debt to symbolic mothers and recalls the twentieth anniversary of the aforementioned Conference, an anniversary that cemented the feminist commitment in our country.

Although it is an enjoyable read, don't expect a simplistic approach to these goals, but rather a complete and well-documented contextualization that reveals lesser-known aspects of this journey toward the consolidation of feminism in Catalonia. Did you know that the fledgling Women's Popular Library, besides being the first in the world, held a highly successful raffle of figurines every Sunday? That the publisher Castellet promoted the Catalan translation of Betty Friedan's book? That the first Catalan Women's Conference was financed by none other than Jordi Pujol?

Women in struggle It is a valuable contribution to the construction of our collective memory. I personally would have added a thirteenth chapter on women's associations in the 1930s, embodied in the Women's Sports Club and the Barcelona Lyceum Club, but although he doesn't dedicate an entire section to them, Godayol already addresses this topic.