The mobilization of women in exile: The case of the unión de mujeres antifascistas españolas in France (1944–1950)

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes We will study this organization only in France, even if the Unión de Mujeres Españolas was also present in Latin America, particularly in Mexico. With this analysis we in no way mean to denigrate oral history or the elaboration of “life stories.” Quite the contrary. Our criticism is aimed at the “depoliticization” of the female experience, frequently presented through its relationship with emotional issues, the family and the domestic environment. This aspect, which is certainly interesting and worthy of being discussed and theorized (something which is frequently avoided), has the perverse effect of sidelining women's public activity and collective action and thus provokes their invisibility as a collective subject. Many women's activities which are perceived as related with the domestic sphere should be reinserted in the political sphere, as we have shown in other studies (See Yusta Yusta Mercedes “La resistencia al franquismo de las mujeres aragonesas.” Les Espagnoles dans l'histoire. Une sociabilité démocratique (XIXe – XXe siècles) Ed. Danièle Bussy Genevois Paris PUV 2002 223 234 [Google Scholar]). PSUC activist, exiled and active in the resistance, she was deported to Ravensbrück during the war. For several years she led the Unió de Dones de Catalunya and took charge of editing the magazine Mujeres Antifascistas from 1948 onwards. She is the author of De la resistencia y la deportación. 50 testimonios de mujeres españolas (Barcelona: Península, 2000). The department is the basic administrative unit in France; it corresponds to the Spanish province. Activist in the Juventudes Libertarias during the Civil War, she went into exile in France in 1948 and there began to be active in the Mujeres Antifascistas Españolas. She is currently President of FACEEF (Federación de Asociaciones y Centros de Emigrantes Españoles en Francia).