How have women's roles changed from the 19th century to the 20th century in Spain?

Essay by VicenteCollege, Undergraduate May 2004

download word file, 3 pages 5.0

Throughout history, women are rarely mentioned and are not talked about in

class. They are kept aside and we tend to focus on what men have done in history and

focus and their accomplishments and their failures. Scholars do not realize the

importance a woman has in history and their contribution to many things that they have

done over time. In Spain, women contributed a lot during the civil war, the revolutions,

and basically they had a very important impact during the nineteenth and twentieth

century. Because of this women's roles have changed quite a bit from the early 1800s to

the late 1900s.

Spain experienced an economic and political transformation during the Spanish

Revolution of the early nineteenth century, 1808 and 1843. Men in Spain were giving

birth to a new gender idea that took down women's participation in the social and

political transformations that were taking place. While the public and political jobs were

for the male worker, women were left at home to do house shores.

By the middle of the

nineteenth century Spain was a world of separate principles, women stayed at home and

men went out to work. There were strict rules for women to follow too, married women

were to obey their husbands and if they disobeyed they could be fined or incarcerated.

However, Spain's changeover to democracy in the twentieth century brought many social

changes to women and to the country.

The new reforms challenged traditional family obligations and the relationship of

men and women. In comparison to other European nations, Spain has become a modern

industrial country with many benefits; however those benefits are mostly for men's jobs.

Although Spain is moving quickly on the way to advanced financial and democratic

development, it's still stuck on old cultural and religious ideas that...