During the Franco regime, women faced at least three forms of censorship: official censorship, self censorship, and gender censorship. This analysis follows the study of censorship from a gendered lens across nearly four decades of Franco’s dictatorship, detailing how women writers navigated constraints and how censors interpreted and controlled female voices. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
The regime’s censorship evolved over time. The victorious period of the 1940s differed from the 1950s and 1960s, and the people enforcing censorship in the early years were not the same as those two decades later. Societal shifts, regulatory changes, and evolving criteria for officers all shaped how censorship was practiced. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
As political power shifted to stronger factions within the regime, such as Catholic and Falangist groups, censorship tended to tilt toward moral or political lines, a trend that intensified through the 1960s. The Fraga Law marked a turning point by replacing prior mandatory censorship with a post-publication system. Publishers could publish without pre-approval but risk legal penalties if later deemed infringing. Self-censorship became the most common strategy under these conditions. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
Although censorship rules existed on paper, it remained inherently subjective, shaped by the discretion, goodwill, or bias of individual censors. Some works were approved without transparent justification, illustrating how gender and social position influenced outcomes. Book projects from the CIS publishing house, for example, included histories of labor movements that were deemed dull or irrelevant when authored largely by women. Female intellect was often undervalued, and young women faced particular scrutiny. This dynamic, as described by scholars, reflects the broader pattern of gender bias in the censorship apparatus. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
NATIVE AND EXCLUDED Domesticated and excluded
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argued that a social group gains existence through recognition within a historical or literary tradition. In Francoist Spain, the canon was deeply patriarchal, privileging male-authored texts and consolidating power around women-led organizations aligned with the regime, including the Women’s Division of the Falange. This created a narrow literary canon that silenced many alternative voices. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
In the 1930s Spain, women achieved new political rights and joined public institutions, yet the Women’s Branch aimed to regulate women’s public roles and reinforce traditional gender norms. Leaders of this branch traveled to rallies and spoke publicly, yet their influence was tethered to male authority. The messaging emphasized housekeeping, child-rearing, and women as a national lineage, intended to secure future generations for the regime. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
Even within the Women’s Arm, women rarely held permanent censor roles. The term used by the government, readers, and similar phrases indicated limited access to sustained positions. Some female collaborators focused on children’s literature, reflecting the regime’s gendered expectations. The profile of these women aligned with values endorsed by the regime, shaping who had influence in censorship decisions. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
dishonest profession
The era’s inequality and repression affected women who aspired to write professionally. Many used pen names to protect family life or to avoid stigma, and they faced exclusion from literary events, prizes, and cultural institutions because of gender. Writers often altered their topics to fit what publishers and censors would accept, limiting both genre and content. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
Several women favored male protagonists or masculine perspectives, arguing that such choices lent greater seriousness and market appeal to their works. The presence of male characters sometimes facilitated approval, while women authors faced added obstacles. Certain genres appeared easier to approve, regardless of author gender, making nuanced censorship harder to discern. Poetry, particularly when addressing sensitive censorship themes, could evade broad scrutiny due to its compact form. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
Historical memory remains a central issue in Spanish democracy. Even after more than four decades, institutions have not only repaired harms and pursued accountability but also confronted attempts to erase or discredit authors who faced repression. Recognizing and giving visibility to those writers is part of reclaiming cultural heritage lost to censorship. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
It is not possible to know every piece of the cultural heritage erased by censorship. Many works survive only in censored forms within historical archives. The General Archive of the Administration in Alcalá de Henares is believed to hold records of the censored and the approved works, awaiting further study by historians to salvage this largely unknown literature. [Citation: Feather Women, 2022].
‘Feather women’
Gabriela de Lima Grecco and Sara Martin Gutierrez
Stone Paper Books
63 pages | 6 euros