Women in Partido Comunista de España in Francoist Spain
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Women in Partido Comunista de España in Francoist Spain faced many challenges. Partido Comunista de España (PCE) had been made illegal by the new regime, which banned all political parties and trade unions. In the final days of the Civil War and during the first days of Francoist Spain, women were imprisoned just for being related to "reds". They were also investigated, harassed, imprisoned and executed for expressing sympathy for Republicans or belonging to any leftist organization. Many women in PCE were caught up in this. PCE women's organization Agrupación de Mujeres Antifascistas survived the war, and shifted their priorities to assisting political prisoners in Francost jails.
PCE itself emerged as the dominant clandestine political organization in Spain. Women would find getting involved difficult as the Communist party became very patriarchial, with women being locked out of leadership positions, locked out of guerilla organizations, not allowed to attend political training, and told that any Communist activism they did could not interfere with their role as housewife. More militant involvement was viewed as morally unacceptable.
The situation for women only began to change in PCE during the 1960s, with more women's Communist groups being created. Women faced new challenges, including pressure to have sex with male membership to prove they were liberated. Barcelona founded Movimiento Democrático de Mujeres became the dominant Communist women's organization in this period, holding on to this position up until the death of Franco in 1975.
PCE was legalized in 1977. This change brought in a generational shift. While PCE announced itself as "the party of the liberation of women", it did little to follow up on this. They were abandoned by many feminists and women more generally. They began to fade into political obscurity by the 1982 Spanish general elections.