Domesticity Amidst Devastation: Representations of Women's Economic Roles in the Magazines of Early Francoism (1939–1948)

Abstract

Abstract Following Spain's Civil War, half a million homes were left without a male breadwinner, and Spanish women balanced numerous economic roles to keep their families afloat. Yet Franco's regime sought to control their human capital, confining their work to the home. As a domestic ideology could not be imposed by force alone, women's magazines served as crucial mediators between the regime and women. This essay analyzes magazines’ discursive strategies alongside economic data, exploring how their domestic doctrine displaced responsibility for regime-caused problems onto women, while also highlighting opportunities for alternative reader interpretations and evidence of readers’ dissenting points of view.