The Potential of Local Women's Associations in Andalusia: Pursuing Culture, Enriching Lives and Constructing Equality

Abstract

This article examines the development of local women's associations in Andalusia, documents their goals and actions, and gauges the impact of women's policy agencies on them. Women in Andalusian associations pursue culture and share one another's lives. Associations foster women's social equality and receive assistance from women's policy agencies, yet they do not demand greater participation in institutional and protest politics. These findings prompt a new understanding of women's movements in Spain and worldwide.

Keywords:

• Spain
• Andalusia
• Women
• Women's Movements
• Feminism

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Lori-Poloni-Staudinger, Pepperdine colleagues and the anonymous reviewers for insightful input, and would also like to acknowledge the support of the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture & United States' Universities.

Notes

 [1] Andalusia is one of the 17 Spanish regions, or Autonomous Communities, constituted following the democratic Constitution of 1978.

 [2] Single cases explore generaliaations that may ‘be tested subsequently among a larger number of cases’ (Lijphart, 1971, p. 692).

 [3] As of 2008, abortion is legal ‘when women have been raped; when pregnancy seriously endangers the physical and psychological health of the mother; and when the fetus has malformations’ (Valiente 2001a, p. 115).

 [4] The IM is an autonomous department within the Equality Ministry as of 2008.

 [5] The 2005 illiteracy rates for Andalusian women are high compared with the rate of 14.6 per cent of women nationwide and 15.0 per cent of Andalusian men (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2006).

 [6] Population: Brenes (12,022), Dos Hermanas (117,564), Seville (699,145), and Cordoba (323.600) (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2008).

 [7] Dow Jones Factiva (2009) is a subscription library database that ‘provides access to the Dow Jones and Reuters newswires, The Wall Street Journal and over 8,000 other sources’. Examples of Spanish-language newspapers in the database are ‘El País’, ‘Ideal’ and ‘El Periódico de Córdoba’. The newswires were hand-coded by the author and a research assistant. The content analysis and resultant data are based on the analysis of 717 newswires, which comprise all available articles about women's associations in Andalusia from January 2001 to July 2008. The author designed a codebook and ran a pilot reliability assessment on 11 per cent of the newswires (80 articles). The author gauged inter-coder reliability (at 89.77 per cent) on 21 per cent of the newswires (150 articles). The unit of analysis is not the newswire itself, but the message unit of a description of associations (association goal or action). One newswire may contain three data points, if it contains descriptions of three associations or one association with three goals.

 [8] Housewives associations were ‘subject to the oversight of the Feminine Section’ (Radcliffe 2002, p. 81).

 [9] Professional and businesswomen include associations for entrepreneurs, journalists, scientists and university professors. Rural women's associations are chapters of national organisations that promote the economic and social needs of women in agriculture. Cultural associations, unlike local women's associations, exclusively focus on one cultural activity and include professional artists and poets. Progressive women are chapters of a national organisation of equal opportunity feminists affiliated with the socialist party. Jurist women self-identify as feminists and pursue the rights of women—especially in judicial realms. Neighbourhood women are associated with neighbourhood movements (movimientos de vecinos). Because local associations do not have names that indicate their local status (businesswomen and immigrant women's associations are indicated by the names asociaciones de mujereres empresarias or mujeres inmigrantes), they were identified as associations without name recognition to another type of association, unknown to the author as another type of association, and not regional or provincial-wide associations. Local associations are often identifiable by their municipalities' names.

[10] Women's councils exist in Cordoba, Seville and Dos Hermanas, yet the newswires do not portray associations' participation in them.