The struggle for marital equality beyond Cold War political divides: transnational relationships between Polish and Spanish women lawyers in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article discusses the transnational relationships between women lawyers from Poland and Spain that developed within the International Federation of Women in Legal Careers (Fédération Internationale des Femmes des Carrières Juridiques, FIFCJ) from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. Drawing on archival material and published sources, it traces the history of relations between the Spanish lawyer María Telo Núñez and the Spanish Association of Women Lawyers, and Zofia Wasilkowska and Maria Stypułkowska from the Section of Women Lawyers (Sekcja Kobiet Prawników, SKP) of the League of Women (Liga Kobiet) in Poland. Women lawyers from both countries joined the Federation at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, and met at international meetings, two of which were held in Warsaw and Madrid. This analysis focuses on the forms and meanings of exchange between these women and their influence on legal changes in civil and family legislation in Poland and Spain during the mid-1970s. Developing a mutual interest in the family law of both countries, these women strategically framed their activity as apolitical. Transnational relationships between lawyers and activists from two contrasting dictatorships reveal the importance of professional networking in overcoming political and ideological divides in the struggle for women’s rights in Cold War Europe.