Throughout my time in Spain, I became increasingly more interested in their political past from the 1940s to the present. The reason this patch of history is so interesting is because it contains “la edad del franquismo”, or the dictatorship of Franco. Though unifying Spain under specific standards and expectations, this was also a period of terror for many Spaniards that were jailed for minute offenses such as wearing skirts above the knee, red lipstick before marriage, being outside of the home at night, or saying anything at all contrary to the dictator’s political agenda.
This period of history was brought to my attention by my professor Maria Luisa, who was named such because she was born during Franquismo, in which it was illegal to name baby girls anything other than “Maria” (for religious reasons). Her her recollections of the changes that took place in her life after the dictator’s death enthralled me: buying her first swimsuit, seeing the night sky for the first time outside of her house, and the frustration of being only months too young to vote alongside her country for the first time since 1939.
Knowing the history of Spanish liberty and lack thereof through these conversations with Maria Luisa give me a fuller context of understanding the nation that I was living in, especially why many Spanish women dress so formally. Just as the United States values religious observance and sexual purity before marriage because of our Puritan origins in the colonial era, of COURSE today’s Spanish women would retain the expectations of class, domesticity and formality that were expected of them during the reign of Franco.
Though women were highly discouraged from pursuing careers during the dictatorship since “all women are called to be mothers just as Mary mothered Christ”, certain courtship customs suggest a more independent role in society than American women. For instance, when I asked profesora Paz why Spanish women don’t change their last name in marriage, she haughtily responded, “I am still my own person after marriage. I am equal to my husband, not an addition to him”. Just as living under a patriarchal dictatorship in the 1970s may still hold the residual effects of proper dress and etiquette in Spanish females, it also seems to have formed a hyper-aversion from submission to male authority.
Of course these are not the only elements at play in peninsular female identities, but I am thankful to be able to apply these historical factors to more fully understand the psychology of the men and women I am interacting with every day!
