“In Spain, there was a radical and change-bringing female subject before the suffragette movement”

On the occasion of the publication of his essay “Las sin amo”, we return with Antonio Orihuela to the silenced history of a few women authors of the 1930s who were committed against bourgeois logic, the State, capitalism and exploitation.

As far as we know, “las sin sombrero” were the standard-bearers of the struggle of women in Spain to break free from the space and social roles that the patriarchy had assigned to them; it seemed that there had not been a feminist movement before them demanding, at the very least, equal rights with men and socio-professional recognition for women.

And suddenly, a new essay is born, whose title bears a striking resemblance to that of Las sin sombrero: Las sin amo. Escritoras olvidadas y silenciadas de los años treinta (La oveja roja, Madrid, 2024); the similarity also lies in the fact that these are women authors who, as the subtitle of the essay indicates, were forgotten and silenced in their time; or, to be more precise, silenced from their time until today, where the author of the essay, Antonio Orihuela, raised his voice to claim the leading role that has been assigned to them in the creation of a total class consciousness, synonymous with the awareness of the need to transform, after a personal transformation, each of the planes of the social reality in which life takes place, not exclusively that of women, but that of human beings. However, the similarities in the ones I mentioned are born and die, because Orihuela’s thesis takes very different paths from those of Las sin sombrero.

I consider that Las sin amo represents, in relation to the trilogy by Tània Balló Las sin sombrero and the other essays and anthologies that followed, a turning point, a going further, in the study of the role of women in the construction of female reality in the Spain of the Second Republic. If this is the case, three questions arise for me: 1) On what ideological basis did the “Sin sombrero” and the “Sin amo” act? 2) What were the socio-professional commitments of each? And 3) According to Adam Schaff’s conceptualization in his essay on ideologies, what social model beat to the rhythm of the utopian horizon of the two groups? Or, to put it more briefly: were the “hatless” reformists and the “masterless” revolutionaries? This is what you are referring to when you open your essay with an epigraph entitled “Hatless versus masterless?

Given that the three questions you ask are closely linked, I will choose to give a comprehensive, non-fragmented answer. However, I will first say that the expression “las sin sombrero” was initially nothing more or less than a commercial slogan created in the merchandising offices of the Planeta group, owner of the Espasa publishing house, in which the first volume of the trilogy was published. This expression was so well received by the public authorities and the media that economic, technical and advertising resources began to flow in for research and the dissemination of studies on the subject. Beyond the feminist media discourse, promoting these uncovered-headed artists was tantamount to repeating the centralist, nationalist and inoffensive discourse that defines the Spanish literary canon.

To answer your questions, the class identity of the “sin sombrero” is more important than their status as women. Their feminism was bourgeois in inspiration, and their class logic therefore did not take into account the vast majority of women, because they did not seek to transform society as a whole, but to involve women in the privileges, power and hierarchies that had until then been exclusively male; in the demands of this small fraction of the bourgeoisie, the right to vote and access to higher education occupied a central place. For postmodern ideology – let’s say, using Gianni Vattimo’s conceptualization, for “weak thought” – the “hatless” would embody all women, forgetting the struggles of those who, for much longer, fought against misery and clericalism, went on strike to improve their working conditions and attacked authority when injustice became unbearable. The women I am talking about were anarchists, mobilized against the high cost of living, the price of rent and the sending of their husbands and children to war. They were involved in a daily struggle for life against bourgeois logic and, in political terms, against the state, capitalism and exploitation.

This is inseparable from the origins and socio-professional commitments of both groups, i.e. the “sin sombrero” and the “sin amo”. The former came from the enlightened bourgeois class – let’s say the republican left – from families generally linked to the liberal professions, among which poetry, literature or art occupied a predominant place in their cultural education. On the other hand, the “mastersless” generally belonged to the working class by virtue of their origin and profession – there is no reality that is not affected by the exception, in this case that of Federica Montseny, anarchist and daughter of publishers.

“As for the utopian horizon of the ‘hatless’ and the ‘masterless’, it is clear that, in the first case, this horizon was realized through the attainment of the right to vote and access to university education, while in the second case, it aimed […] at the abolition of hierarchies and relations of domination.”

As for the utopian horizon of the “hatless” and the “masterless”, it is clear that, in the first case, this horizon was realized through the attainment of the right to vote and access to university education, while in the second case, it aimed, as advocated by Léopold Lacour’s integral humanism (1897), towards the abolition of hierarchies and relations of domination, while advocating the subversion of traditional identities, symbols and gender roles, as well as the transformation of socio-economic and cultural structures that should give way to a society based on freedom, equality, solidarity and reciprocity. Therefore, reformism among the “hatless” and revolution among the “masterless”. Thus, before the suffragette movement existed in our country, there was already a female subject opting for radical and revolutionary change.

Is there not a certain contradiction between, on the one hand, Marx’s assertion that women’s liberation would become a reality by integrating into the labor market of industrial capitalism, and, on the other hand, that this work would be the cause of a new servitude and what Ludwig Feuerbach, one of the great contributors to social morality in Marxism, called “alienation”?

Indeed, this paradox is indisputable; the integration of women into the labor market will mean for them, on the material level, new forms of submission and exploitation, but also, on the intellectual level, professional training, culture and political awareness, support for the ideal of their emancipation. Exploitation would disappear once the separation between capital and labor was abolished, when hierarchy would be replaced by cooperation and selfish individualism would be overcome by love of humanity.

What sources did you use to achieve the objective of your essay?

Your question leads me, first of all, to point out that the main objective of my essay was to find out about the participation of women libertarians in all the editorial projects aimed at promoting and disseminating the literature and social and revolutionary thought of the twenties and thirties in Spain. It is important to understand that, for anarchism, the book was one of the most valued tools in its project to create an autonomous cultural field in the face of the capitalist conception of culture as private property and as an object of passive, de-problematized and happy consumption.

Consequently, the sources I have used come from one of these editorial projects, specifically from the collection “La Novela Ideal”, promoted by the anarchist publishing house La Revista Blanca, based in Barcelona. Its creators, the Federica Montseny’s parents, launched it thanks to private subscriptions and the financial support from the libertarian world. The weekly collection began publication in 1925 and remained active until 1938, with 594 novels published, most of them written by self-taught authors who had been anonymous and inexperienced until then, factory workers and peasants, mainly with libertarian ideology or advanced social ideas. Of these 600 or so novels, 113 (19.0%), and this is already a discovery in itself, were written by women, whom I have called “masterless”, in response to the “hatless”. Although it may be unnecessary to point out, I must say that the number of novels written is less than the number of women writers, which I have estimated at around twenty. There is, of course, a marked contrast in the novel production of each; the most prolific have been Federica Montseny (43 titles and probably 3 others under a pseudonym), Ángela Graupera (40 titles) and, further behind, Regina Opisso (14 titles); the other authors have between 6 and 1 title. From a socio-professional point of view, the diversity of the “masterless” contrasts with the homogeneity of the “hatless”: workers, teachers, nurses, students and, incidentally, journalists, columnists or reporters from the anarchist or various left-wing press of Republican Spain.

Which publishers could be interested in the publication, for commercial purposes, of the novels of the “masterless”, knowing that in Spain in the 1930s, the illiteracy rate reached 40% of the population and, in some regions, such as Extremadura, 60%?

In accepting this reality, some nuances must be made. First of all, the “La Novela Ideal” collection, the territory of the “masterless”, generally had a print run of 10,000 copies, sometimes reaching 50,000 copies, which had a favorable economic impact from the company’s point of view. Secondly, these novels were short, barely 32 pages long. Thirdly, they were affordable for the proletariat, thanks to the lower prices of the editions made possible by the new printing techniques and to the fact that the publishing house was not seeking profit in the capitalist sense of the term, but sought to reinvest in new editions and to pay the authors of the novels decently. And fourthly, and most remarkably, the progressive literacy of the masses favored the rise of novels among the proletariat.

“The novels of La Novela Ideal were sold by anarchist activists and were destined to play a key role in the education of the proletariat. It is clear that these novels broke with the stereotype of the bourgeois and right-thinking popular novel, which was the equivalent of the romance novel.”

In addition to these four positive factors, there were the possibilities offered by books, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and brochures for the dissemination of political ideals. The more than fourteen thousand titles listed by the Intellectual Property Registry between 1901 and 1936 are good proof of this. The novels of La Novela Ideal were sold by anarchist activists and were supposed to play a key role in the education of the proletariat. It is clear that these novels broke with the stereotype of the bourgeois and right-thinking popular novel, which corresponded to the romantic novel. In a social environment certainly marked by illiteracy, the dissemination of the contents of the novels in the “La Novela Ideal” collection also relied on the habitual practice of reading in popular circles, libraries and other places of working-class sociability; the readers could not read, but they understood the content of texts written in a simple and very explicit language.

The list of Western writers, poets, playwrights, philosophers and scientists who contributed to the culture of the “Masterless” is as impressive as it is fascinating; a list that I have counted at around one hundred and fifty authors who lived from several centuries BC, such as Homer, Socrates and Plato, to contemporaries and people relatively close in time to the “Masterless”, such as the great anarchist theorists Bakunin, Kropotkin and Malatesta; a list that is also characterized by the broad ideological spectrum of its members. In this respect, it is surprising that among the authors there are no such emblematic names of the Hegelian left and the class struggle as Feuerbach, Marx, Engels or Rosa Luxemburg; did the “masterless” not consider them worthy of consideration?

The answer to this question is as brief as it is indisputable: the works of the authors you mention, and more particularly those of Marx, were received in Spain practically two decades after those of the two great anarchist thinkers Bakunin and Kropotkin. In terms of the workers’ struggle and revolution, when Marxism began to spread in Spain in the 1880s, Giuseppe Fanelli, Bakunin’s delegate, had been visiting our country for about ten years to make contact with the workers’ leaders; they were the first to adopt the idea that the emancipation of the proletariat was totally incompatible with the existence of the State or any other authority of domination and organization foreign to the regulatory horizontality of relations between individuals.

To what extent did the proclamation of the Second Republic encourage the publication of libertarian literature?

This literature had already been published, at least since the 1920s, even if, as could only be the case, the period of the Republic favored the production of La Novela Ideal. From 1931, the context having become more favorable – without being massive – women were able to strengthen their presence in public life. Ideologically, they gradually gained awareness and participated in political and professional life through electoral campaigns, rallies, demonstrations and strikes; they also participated in the press, on the radio, at the university and, sometimes, as political prisoners, in prison. This does not mean at all that they managed to overcome the patriarchal order; the presence and participation of women in public life was merely a simple readjustment of gender roles compatible with the domestic and family duties assigned to them by this order. That said, it was indisputable that the political events had unleashed a dynamic of modernizing change that went beyond the limited objectives of republicanism.

“This does not at all mean that they managed to overcome the patriarchal order; the presence and participation of women in public life was merely a readjustment of gender roles compatible with the domestic and family duties assigned to them by that order.”

During the war, left-wing organizations ended up challenging, albeit hesitantly, the de facto patriarchal structures; such a context qualitatively provided a much more conducive environment for women to acquire a political consciousness and begin to question patriarchal ideology, gender roles, the culture of beauty, the concern for the couple and reproduction, thus breaking the mold and creating new spaces for direct action and female initiative.

One of the characteristics that you highlight in the literature of the “Masterless” is the diversity of its content, to the point that you have identified fourteen themes; moreover, I would say that nothing escaped their attentive and critical gaze, if we consider, for example, that they reflected on questions that, in relation to the hard core of the socio-economic and the political, might seem tangential, such as art or nature. But are there one or more subjects for which the “masterless” have a particular predilection?

The question is problematic, as is the answer, because the subject addressed by the anarchist authors is one of the central questions of my essay. To determine precisely which subjects were of most concern to these authors would require an exercise in quantification, impossible to carry out from a methodological point of view. In any case, I can highlight trends or recurrences, the most notable of which would be anticlericalism, i.e. the perception of the Church as a power structure, the clergy, religious morality and all ecclesiastical institutions that convey Catholic social doctrine, such as schools, asylums, hospitals, orphanages, etc. The list of topics to be emphasized should also include the family and sexuality, both of which are at the heart of complex universes: family formation, choice of spouse, couple relationships and bonds, gender-based violence, divorce, eugenics, abortion or homosexuality; the central theme in this respect in the reflections of the novelists is that of free love. Other topics covered will be those you mentioned, namely art and nature, education, the relationship between the countryside and the city, social warfare, attacks, colonialism and its military implications, with particular reference to Morocco, and the revolutionary strike. One subject that deserved special attention was the prospect of social revolution that opened up in Spain in 1936 after the victory of the Popular Front in the February elections.

In the chapter “The construction of female identity”, you devote a section to “anarcho-feminism as opposed to humanist feminism”, which gives me the opportunity to ask you about the content of both types of feminism and to find out whether they were irreducibly antagonistic.

On the other hand, I was somewhat surprised, when considering the denunciations of Federica Montseny and other anarchist women, by the persistence of patriarchy or “ machismo’, precisely among their libertarian comrades; for example, in the area of sexuality, they perpetuate the traditional role of women as passive subjects who use the weapon of coquetry to attract men.

Since anarcho-feminism is a response to humanist feminism, I will first talk about the latter.

In the context of the Second Republic, misogyny and the objectification of women by patriarchal ideology were initially enemies to be defeated by the supporters of interclassist bourgeois feminism. This humanist feminism, let’s say the one advocated by “les sin sombrero”, certainly went beyond the other dominant archetype of women as angels of the home, so common in Christian and Muslim societies.

Anarcho-feminism emerged during the Republican period, at the dawn of the civil war, expressing both a feminist consciousness and a collective and organized response to the historical subordination of women. More specifically, it emerged in a context of class struggle, integrating two emancipations: that of the proletariat and that of women.

“As for anarcho-feminism, it emerged […] expressing both a feminist consciousness and a collective and organized response to the historical subordination of women […] in a context of class struggle, integrating two emancipations: that of the proletariat and that of women.”

Based exclusively on the criterion of quantity, I observed the preponderance of the urban woman as a protagonist in the novels of the “masterless”. Does this mean that the peasant woman played only a secondary role in anarchist fiction? And if that were the case, would we not in a way be perpetuating the somewhat contemptuous image that Marx had of the peasant, since in his eyes there was no real proletariat other than the industrial proletariat?

It is undeniable, in fact, that the privileged setting for the action in the novels of the anarchist authors – all city dwellers – is the factory, much more so than the farm. The relationship of the “masterless” with the countryside and rural environments has always been conflictual; one could even say ambivalent, just as was the Marxian conception of the peasantry. In reality, the protagonists of the novels of the “masterless” could only be city dwellers, insofar as the peasant woman was considered to perpetuate traditional morality, clericalism, fanaticism, superstition, illiteracy and social conventions, precisely the heritage of tradition that anarchism sought to liquidate.

But on the other hand, these writers were conditioned by the acratic and thoroughly Rousseauist conception of Nature and, consequently, of the countryside, the antithesis of the degraded capitalist urban landscape, a territory of overpopulation, insalubrity and speculation of all kinds; a territory where use value had been defeated by exchange value. Anarchist writers resolved this conflict or contradiction by arguing that the mission of the men and women of the city committed to libertarian ideology was to educate the villages, by instructing the peasants, by educating them and teaching them to love books and hygiene. In this respect, a novel by Ada Martí published in 1936 could serve as an example: an urban anarchist is exiled to a remote village in the Pyrenees, where he befriends a day laborer; the exile devotes all his energy to educating the villagers, founding, amid general enthusiasm and fierce opposition from the priest, an Ateneo Libertario (Libertarian Athenaeum) with a library, a theater troupe, a school for children and adults, etc. By cultivating the intellect and practicing creative leisure activities, the peasants gained access to emancipatory ideas and transformed their way of seeing the world and interacting with each other, while learning to respond to power, whether it be of the State, the Church or Capital.

With this heritage, the peasantry will be able to confront the forces that capitalism has elevated to the rank of myth: the deification of science, productivism, consumerism, competitiveness, the spectacular staging of life, etc. Ultimately, it will be the shortest path to access the great sanctuary of which we are a part and which we call Nature, by overcoming all dualism, decentering the ego and experiencing a deep communion with other living beings.

Among the members of the “Masterless” group, would you name one or more who, through their proposals, could take the lead of the group?

Without a doubt, Federica Montseny would occupy this place, both for her novel production and for the radical nature of her proposals. As I have already said, her moral rigorism and her strict demands even lead her to criticize the women belonging to the anarchist organization Mujeres Libres, whom she considers incapable of rebelling individually against the boss and against men, without needing to group together institutionally. Montseny defends women from positions of categorical individualism that oppose the collectivist and communitarian orientation of the writers linked to this organization; for the latter, the personal development of each member of society, whether woman or man, is not a personal issue, but goes hand in hand with the development of all in unison.

Among the latest books published by Antonio Orihuela are El arte de no hacer arte. Una deriva desde el dadaísmo al artivismo (La Vorágine, 2022); El refugio más breve. Contracultura y cultura de masas en España (1962-1982) (Piedra, papel Ed, 2020), Camino de Olduvai (Ed. Irrecuperables, 2023) and Las sin amo. Escritoras olvidadas y silenciadas de los años treinta (La oveja roja, 2024)

Source: EL SALTO

Rebound:

• “PATRIARCHY” – Social Ecology ABC

Translated by TerKo with the help of a free translation tool.