ABSTRACT
Mónica Burguera re-assesses women's position and status over the nineteenth century, a period traditionally considered static with women subservient in a Catholicized culture. Yet nineteenth-century Spanish liberalism did provide opportunities for women to construct new identities. Women were not simply passive participants but could be protagonists in ensuring that concepts of citizenship recognized them. Whilst women were excluded from official political representation they were able to engage in certain roles and subjectivities depending on the circumstances. New visions of a reformist woman emerged at times within liberal culture, though mostly of benefit only to the middle classes. From mid-century, social and women's questions had greater visibility within republican cultures and female writers established a presence in a growing print culture. However, these developments produced a response in conservative and strongly Catholic cultures in the construction of a cult of domesticity. A proto-feminism had emerged, though subject to divergent ideological interpretations.
