the intellectual adventure of Margarita Nelken, pioneer of feminism in Spain

Your worries include planning and recognition of hidden female talentboring or forgetful condemnation of working conditions and deficiencies in women’s education Spanish and the defense of “the shackles of a certain feminism” that drives the parliamentary presence of a woman so that “a woman, a woman, the most feminine possible, can give the necessary feminine note in certain cases”.

The Fundamental Work collection of Fundación Banco Santander restores this relevant voice of the Spanish intellectual of the time, a pioneer of feminist influences and social action, socialist debate in three legislatures of the Second Republic and fell in exileen Life and womena collection of articles published in his mayor’s Madrid periodical El Día between 1916 and 1918, with edition and prologue by Alejandro Rodríguez Parragués.

The first two sections, “Semblances” and “Conversations”, form a catalog of female talent of the same age which arouse in Nelken feelings of admiration and demands for recognition.

From the fields of culture, intelligence, political action and charitable giving, among others composer María Rodrigo, actress Margarita Xirgu, Zenobia Camprubí (translated by Tagore, however “ante todo, la mujer de Juan Ramón Jiménez”), Angelita Romero de Torres (herman painter and connoisseur of chrysanthemums), writers Marguerite Audoux, Lucie Félix-Faure Goyau and Concha Espinadancer Thamara Swirskaya, lady of life (honored bookseller and editor), harpist Gloria Keller, condesa de Romanones (for her work in the play against tuberculosis), Narcisa Freixas (for her work in teaching music to children and adults), actress Josefina Blanco de Valle-Inclán (who believes that the wife of this gris must be social activist Virginia González, dramatist Fernanda Melgarejo de Valarino, founder of Banco de Crédito Obrero, Regina Lamo and María de Maeztu as director of the “grupo de señoritas” Residencia de Estudiantes.

Nelken rescues, among others, composers Maria Rodrigo, Margarita Xirgu, Zenobia Camprubí, Angelita Romero de Torres…

In integrated articles in “Art and Literature”, the Madrid native confirms her knowledge of European culture with texts about Selma Lagerlöf, Séverine, House of muñecas de Henrik Ibsen, Marcelle Capy, Colette, Marie Curie (with a reason to visit Madrid) or Marie Lenéra (for her fallecimiento).

Free from his German father and French mother, Nelken studied classic French literature, traveled the continent, and published his first art criticisms in magazines in Paris and London.

Moose Essays on feminism and suffragism they take up a separate quarter of the work. Nelken recalls the predecessor of Olympe de Gouges, the defender of Louis XVI (the first “active” feminist of France), reflects (with an eye on England) the social teaching of the “future voters”, acuña the concept of “necessary desire” (a lingo a él, el de “masculinizado”) (she studies the example of the International Feminist Congress Z19 “humanitarianism”) and Ibsen’s “feminist inspiration” explains one of their most controversial positions: on opposition to women’s suffrage in Spain.

Nelken, as Victoria Kentwhich he praises (representing a “well-understood democracy”) is “or now, here, against the political rights of woman”. And not to create the Spanish woman “in worse conditions than men”, but rather “to create her inferior in social preparation”.

Approved in European examples, confirms that in Spain women’s political rights will rise to “the advent of reactionary government”. Because the Spanish woman “is not of sufficient capacity to make her control truly progressive” (as the approval of woman suffrage in the United States is considered appropriate, “it is natural that in a country where education is cultivated for equal men and women, it is equally understood that men and women share equally in the management of public affairs”).

As I write this story, more than ten years ago, the first woman to vote in Spain (Nelken and Kent were subsequently opposed, not like Clara Campoamor), was in 1933 in the municipal elections in April and the general elections in November, in which the former formation was CEDA (Confederacy Española de Derechas Autonomas).

As an aside, let’s mention only the article dedicated to Gregorio Martínez Sierra por Feminism, feminidad, españolismo. Nelken recognizes herself in the analysis of the feminist ideas developed in this “transcendental” work (with chapters “of exquisite subtlety and sensitivity, as well as admirable common sense”), which is “a sermon, from the first line to the last, for woman to be the greatest possible woman, to do more than ever.” As we now know, the books signed by Martínez Sierra (for Nelken, “the most ardent defender of feminism”) were written by him, María de la O Lejarraga.

Social life is the focus of the last block of this revival. Nelken reflects on women, peace and war (we were in 1917), “women workers” in Spain, lack of education, the colors of giants in European countries, working conditions of mothers, salary level, child carehousework, the situation of telegraph operators, telephone operators and cigarette manufacturers, the problems of the “middle aged” or, to quote Stuart Mill, feminism advocated by men.