Spanish Civil War

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A New Era for Women: How gender Roles Changed during the Spanish Civil War
By: Isabel Cassidy-Soto

An Introduction to The Civil War:
The conflict that arose in the 1930s and 40s in Spain can be defined as the struggle between the two ideologies of Spanish society; the traditionalists who wanted to hold on to conservative catholic values and the republicans who sought to embrace the wave of progressive modernism that had already swept through most of the western world. Spain was once the world’s most powerful empire, but due to clashing political beliefs, a broken and ever changing political system, and a destroyed economy, by the late 1800s it had fallen apart into a divided country where chaos ruled. Thousands lived in complete poverty and misery, working jobs that could not support their growing families. Infant mortality skyrocketed as the economy plunged. While the economy went from one crisis to another, the people began to protest the draconian censorship of the government, forcing the militaristic dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera to step down. His resignment resulted in the country’s first real step towards democracy, the Second Spanish Republic. During the municipal elections, new radically ideological politocal parties began to emerge, both on the extreme left and right wings. The right wing parties were supported by the monarchists, upperclass, conservatives, and the catholic church. However, among these parties was the small, yet rapidly growing facist falange party created by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the former dictator and a man who would have astounding influence on the lives of thousand of people, even long after his death. The falange sought to restore Spain to its former glory under the rule of one pow...

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...ell over the civil war and its aftermath. The ley forced people to recognize and talk about what their country had been through and how society could be repaired. Relatives of those who had been exiled by the Franco Regime were grsnted citizenship, public statues of Franco were removed, and civil war mass graves were revealed, along with plans to exume and rebury the corpses. This cultural phenomena truely shows us that for now, democracy and freedom rule in Spain. Under the rule of rhe socialist president Zapatero, women actually held more positions of power within congress than men. Today, women are very involved politically and in the business world, as countless laws have been passed ensuring workplace equality. Corporations are not allowed to be run by only men and atleast 40% of the municipial or national candiates representing a political party must be women.

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