(In)visibility of feminism in the media. The depiction of the second-wave women’s movement in Spain

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe article presents a case study of the press coverage given to the first formal and organised mobilisation of women in Spain during the first years of the political transition to a democratic context after decades of dictatorship (1975–1979). This feminism was influenced by the American and European trends of the 1960s and 1970s, while at the same time representing a singular movement. Following recent related analysis and using a descriptive content approach, the study thus aims to contribute new insights on the media coverage of feminism in its most significant phases over the course of the twentieth century and in different social and political contexts. The research reveals an ambiguous coverage that contributed to making the second-wave Spanish feminism visible while, at the same time, keeping its main revolutionary claims hidden, and furthermore depicting it as a whiny and problematic. Thus, in this pre-democratic context, the movement was represented as essential for political and social pressure but as necessarily short-term and only ground-breaking within certain limits.