Empar Pineda and Cristina Garaizabal
Field of expertise: Feminist activist
Short bio: Historical figures of the feminist movement in Spain. They both regularly publish articles, particularly in feminist publications, and are invited as experts in conferences and seminars about feminist issues.

Empar Pineda was leader of the Catalan Communist movement during the democratic transition and was one of the founders of the Coordinadora Feminista de Catalunya (Catalunya Feminist Coordinating Committee) and the Coordinadora Feminista del Estado español (Spanish Feminist coordinating Committee). Afterwards, she participated in the creation of the Colectivo de Lesbianas feministas de Madrid (Madrid Feminist Lesbian Group) and the Comisión pro Derecho al Aborto de Madrid (Madrid, Committee for the Right to Abortion). She’s the spokesperson for “Altres veus feministes “ (Other feminist voices), a feminist network. In 1985, she wrote, in collaboration with Paloma Uría, “Polémicas feministas” (Feminist controversies) and, with various authors, “Un feminismo que existe” (Feminism that exists) in 2006.

Cristina Garaizabal is a feminist and a psychologist specialized in gender and sexuality. Founder of Hetaria, association working for the prostitutes’ rights. Defender also of the sexual minorities rights, has written numerous articles about transexuality and gender identity and is co-author of “Transsexualidad, transgenerismo y cultura” (Transexuality, transgenderism and culture), “Antropología, identidad y género” (Antropology, identity and gender),“La búsqueda de una identidad” (Search for an identity) and “Feminismo es y serà” (Feminism is and will be) She received the “Rene Cassin” award for human rights in 2003.

Colectivo Lanbroa
Field of expertise: Feminist association working in the elaboration and study of the feminist theory and its translation into social and political action.
Short bio: The association was created in 1986 and it gathered mainly activist women from the Movimiento Feminista de Bizkaia (Feminist movement from Bizkaia, active from 1977) with one purpose: to organise themselves independently from political parties, public institutions, etc. A common feminist project was gradually defined combining the elaboration of theory with the realization of social activities.

The main activities developed today by Lanbroa are the organization of an annual “School of Feminism”, the publication of the magazine “Lanbroa, Conspiración feminista” (Lanbroa, feminist conspiracy), the elaboration of reports and studies on the feminist theory, the organisation of acts and activities like conferences, expositions and celebrations for the 8th of march and the coordination of the Tribuna Pública de Organizaciones Feministas y Asociaciones de Mujeres (Public tribune of Feminist organizations and women’s associations).

Asamblea de mujeres de Granada
Field of expertise: Feminist cultural association
Short bio: The association became active in 1975, at the same time that many feminist groups took impulse with the celebration of the Jornadas Feministas Estatales (Feminist National Congress), organised in secrecy in Madrid. The association project has since then been centred in keeping a space for debate, outside the establishment, focused on the analysis of the women’s reality in our society and how to promote their full participation as citizens. The group organises cultural activities like debates, conferences, seminars, an annual cinema festival and publishes the magazine “Menos lobos”. Today, it aims at gathering alternative social movements to question the sexual and gender social identities and the unitary thought and to elaborate and vindicate propositions to advance towards a non sexist, diversity accepting society.

Mireia Bofill Abelló
Mireia Bofill Abelló (Santiago, Chile, 1944), professional translator, has been active in the women’s movement in Catalonia since the 1960s. Member of the organizing committee of the First Catalan Women’s Conference (Barcelona, 1976), of the Conference “20 years of Feminism in Catalonia” (Barcelona, 1996), and of the Fourth International Feminist Bookfair (Barcelona, 1990). Co-founder of the feminist review Dones en Lluita, and member of the editorial team of the feminist publishing house laSal, edicions de les dones, in charge of the feminist studies series “cuadernos inacabados” (1979-1990). Coordinator of the women’s cultural centre “Francesca Bonnemaison” during its start-up years (2004-2007), she has been a member of Ca la Dona’s managing committee since 1996.

Maria Morón Martin
Maria Morón Martin, industrial engineer and anthropologist, founding member of CEDIS (centre of Studies on women and society) and of ACTIVA, a company working in the field of women’s personal and professional development, expert in the analysis and implementation of policy programs for women’s development and empowerment, at an European, national and authonomical level. Author of many articles on women’s employment, women’s training and access to new technologies and women’s health, she has also given courses on women’s reproductive health and training for the creation of self-help groups and the promotion of women’s associationism in the Netherlands, Portugal, Argentina and Chile, as well as in Spain. Active in the feminist movement since 1978, co-founder of the Independent Feminists Assembly (1984) and of Ca la Dona (1988), where she is a longstanding member of the managing committee.

Mercè Otero Vidal
Mercè Otero Vidal (Barcelona, 1947), B.A. in Philosophy and Humanities (Barcelona University), high-school teacher and coeducation advisor, has been active in the Catalan feminist movement since 1976: founding member of the Women Teacher’s Assembly, of Ca la Dona and of the feminist network Xarxa Feminista. Member of the Philosophy and Gender Seminar at the Barcelona University, lecturer and writer on coeducation, literary, philosophical and historical feminist criticism, and translator (Duoda, Christine de Pizan, Marie de Gournay, Gilles Ménage).

Selection

Report on the selection process by the Spanish FRAGEN team

We accepted with pleasure the invitation to take part in the Fragen Project as an invaluable opportunity to make available to researchers and the general public interested in the study of the women’s movement some texts which are usually of difficult access in our country, as for a long time there has been no library or documentation centre taking care of the documents produced by the feminist movement, particularly in the first years of its second wave, i.e., during the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Most have been kept in private collections and only in the last few years have some of these been donated to our documentation centre.

Given this circumstance, we decided to do the selection process with the assistance of experts with a longstanding commitment to the women’s movement, who would be well acquainted with these still largely unknown or forgotten texts, and who might also have copies of those not available at our documentation centre.

To obtain a representative sample of the most significant manifestos, we also considered it important that the selection was done taking into account the development of the women’s movement in the different autonomous communities (regions) of the Spanish State, considering also those written in the different local languages –Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Gallego, Bable–.

We were only partially successful in this attempt, and the selection process was finally done with the collaboration of experts from Madrid, the Basque Country and Andalusia. In spite of the interest shown by experts from other regions also contacted –in particular, from Valencia, Galicia and Asturias- they could not meet the deadlines established.

As a first step to facilitate the selection process we established a first reference list based on the materials available at our documentation centre to which experts from other parts of Spain were invited to add their own choices. (Initial list available via: http://.caladona.org/)

Working from there, the experts’ final proposals showed some significant coincidences in the fundamental texts of the onset of the second wave of the women’s movement in Spain, but it was difficult to restrict ourselves to only ten texts because, at the same time, local feminist action was very strong and the influences received and the evolution of thought very diverse. We hope therefore that significant texts which could not be included in the final list may be incorporated into the Fragen database in a future new phase of the project.

In spite of these limitations, we are satisfied that our final selection offers a representative sample of the foundational texts of the feminist movement in Spain, written and published (some only as leaflets or in mimeographed copies) during the last period of Franco’s dictatorship and during the transition and the first years of democratic government, namely from 1967 to 1988. Feminism played an important part in the social and political changes of those years, particularly in the change of attitudes which prompted legal reform after the approval of the new Constitution. The feminist movement, gathering women active in political parties, in the unions, in the local communities, in the universities, and others, was a motor of change. The texts selected bear witness to its vitality and strength.