'A Spanish Housewife is Your Next Door Neighbour': British Women and the Spanish Civil War.

SPAIN; UNITED Kingdom

This article examines the role played by female British activists campaigning on behalf of the Republican government in the Spanish Civil War. Histories of the response of Britons to events in Spain have focused overwhelmingly on men, and when women’s activities have been explored, little consideration has been given to how gender affected their engagement. This article considers the varying ways British women mobilised their gender identities to participate in the war effort, and how becoming involved influenced the perceptions they held of their own female subjectivities. Through analysing contemporary coverage of the war along with personal testimonies, memoirs and oral interviews, it considers how they justified their participation and how they depicted themselves and their Spanish female counterparts. Drawing upon a range of historical and psychoanalytic methodologies to assess the material, this article demonstrates that the women who took part in the conflict held a complex and sometimes paradoxical view of their gendered subjectivities, yet overall their participation contributed to the sense of a gendered and transnational solidarity that was emerging during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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