LIDIA FALCÓN O’NEILL

Spain’s most outspoken feminist

© Silvia Cuevas-Morales

In 1994 the International Women’s Bookfair was held in Melbourne, Australia. One of the attendants at the fair was Lidia Falcón, who visited Melbourne with her assistant and life long friend Elvira Siurana. I too attended the bookfair and met these two women who made such a big impact on my life that I now live and work in Spain.

Over the past ten years I have learnt to appreciate Lidia for her dedication to the feminist cause. During the Franco regime she did not fear imprisonment, beatings, insults, she fought for a better future for all Spanish women, and denounced the oppression that women suffered during the last decades. She has suffered a lot but has never dwindled in her belief that an egalitarian society can and should be a reality. Today she’s still as active as she was when she first started. She continues to give conferences all over the world, continues to write in many newspapers and magazines. When all her peers that began the Women’s Movement in Spain have either become disillusioned, or have ended up accepting “comfortable” jobs, or have retired, Lidia is

still working hard and has recently returned to her Women’s Buffet in Barcelona where she works as a lawyer.

A bit of history

Lidia Falcón was born in Madrid in 1935, not long before the Spanish Civil War. Daughter of a generation of writers and activists, she discovered feminism and literature at an early age. She studied Dramatic Art at the Drama Institute of Barcelona and later studied Law and Journalism, graduating in both fields. She also completed her Doctorate in Law at the University of Madrid.

During the 60's she practised law, defending political prisoners, union leaders, workers and women with marital cases. Her legal profession is reflected in a number of published works dealing with the legal status of women in the Spanish Society, Los Derechos Civiles de la Mujer (The Civil Rights of Women, 1963), Los Derechos Laborales de la Mujer (The Labour Rights of Women, 1964), Mujer y Sociedad. Análisis de un Fenómeno Reaccionario (Woman and society. Analysis of a Reactionary Phenomenon, 1969), a collection of sociological and legal essays dealing with women and history, women and politics and revolution; La Razón

© Foto – M. Wry.

Feminista I (The Feminist Reason I, 1981) and La Razón Feminista II (1982), two works which deal with the concept of women as a social and economic class; and the exploitation of women with regard to human reproduction; Violencia Contra la Mujer (Violence Against Women, 1991) and her Doctoral thesis Mujer y Poder Político (Woman and Political Power, 1992) which investigates the evolution of the feminist struggle from the French Revolution to the present.

Due to her political activism and her frankness, Lidia soon made herself known as a feminist activist on the left, which led to her persecution and imprisonment in 1972 by Franco's dictatorial regime. Her crime - distributing clandestine literature denouncing fascism. She spent six months in the Women’s jail “La Trinidad”, Barcelona. When released she continued her work of solidarity and analysis of Spanish society and in 1974 she was imprisoned again, falsely accused of collaborating with ETA, the Basque Independent Group. She spent nine months in jail and a trial was never held. Her experience in jail make up her work En el Infierno. Ser Mujer en las Cárceles de España (In Hell. Being a Woman in the Jails of Spain, 1974) and Viernes 13 en la Calle del Correo (Friday the 13th on Correo Street, 1981).

In 1975 Franco died and political parties reappeared, and Lidia published her novel Es Largo Esperar Callado (It's a Long Wait When Waiting in Silence), which attacks the machismo and reformism of the Spanish Communist Party. That same year she published the first feminist magazine in Spain - Vindicación Feminista which after thirty issues had to close in 1979 due to financial problems. However, that same year she founded the theoretical magazine, Poder y libertad (Power and Freedom), and founded the “Club Vindicación Feminista” (Barcelona), and most importantly, the Feminist Party of Spain, which was legalized in 1981.

Apart form writing for all major newspapers and giving conferences on women’s issues, in 1982 she was invited to the United Stated where she gave more than thirty conferences in all major cities. She was also a guest speaker at New York’s Pen Club, the Women’s Salon, and at the United Nations. Between 1984 and 1985 she was a guest lecturer at The University of Río Piedras and Universidad Interamericana of Puerto Rico, guest lecturer at Montclair University, and took part in the Women’s International Congress in Nairobi. In 1986 she moved to Madrid and with Elvira Siurana opened another branch of the “Club Vindicación Feminista”. A drop in centre where women could have access to lawyers, psychologists, social workers and enjoy vibrant cultural offerings.

Apart from acting as a lawyer, feminist leader and activist, and raising two children, Lidia managed to pursue one of her interests - the theatre. Following her feminist line, her theatre deals with the current situation of women in Spanish society. Two of her plays "A Little Bit of White Snow" and "The Ones Who Always Win" show her political and social preoccupations. 1982 saw the emergence of "The Women Walked with the Fire of the Century" which deals with feminism and syndicalism, confronting the old with the new. This play has been staged in Spain, Athens, New York, New Jersey and Puerto Rico. Some of her other plays deal with violence

against women and children, and sexual harassment. She has written and staged more than twenty plays.

Apart from her plays she has published hundreds of articles, and novels, all dealing with Spanish reality and specifically with the role that women have played or have not been allowed to play. Amongst her novels we find Cartas a una Idiota Española (Letters to a Spanish Idiot, 1974), Los Hijos de los Vencidos (Children of the Defeated, 1978), El Juego de la Piel (Skin Playfulness, 1983), Rupturas (Break-Ups, 1985), Camino sin Retorno (Road of no Turning Back, 1992), Clara (1993), Postmodernos (Postmoderns, 1993), Asesinando el pasado (Killing the Past, 1997). She has also more recently published her memoirs Memorias Políticas 1959-1999 (Political Memoirs, 1999), Los Nuevos Mitos del Feminismo (The New Feminist Myths, 2000) La Vida Arrebatada (A Stolen Life, 2003) her third volume of memoirs, La Violencia que no Cesa (The Violence than Doesn’t Cease, 2003), a compilation of her published articles dealing with violence against women, and very soon she’ll publish a compilation of her articles dealing with employment, all analysed with a feminist perspective.

Lidia Falcón is undeniably a versatile woman, and it is a difficult task to summarise her life and work into one single article. She has written so much that because of space I have not included all her titles, neither have I included all her prizes or special mentions, but I would only like to add that in 1984 she received a medal form the Puerto Rican Senate in recognition for her dedication to the women’s cause all over the world, and more recently, she was awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Wooster. Lidia Falcón is no doubt, Spain’s most outspoken feminist, and although in her own country many people don’t recognize her work and prefer to turn to foreign authors, her reputation has crossed frontiers and she continues working tirelessly to keep women’s issues in the forefront of the political arena, because she continues to believe that “feminism is the eternally betrayed revolution – a revolution that has always been postponed”.

Published in Rain & Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal of Discussion and Actvism, Issue 24, Autumn 2004. (USA).

* If you want to find more about her books please visit Vindicación Feminista Publicaciones: www.vindicacionfeminista.com also www.aconcaguapublishing.com Aconcagua Publishing has just published The Feminist Reason in its English version.