«¡Mujer! Quiero hablar contigo...» The construction of femininity through the fan magazines during the Early Francoism

Abstract

Fan magazines were an instrument of women’s informal education during early Francoism. Their pages contributed to the spreading of the national-Catholic ideal of femininity, one based on domesticity and motherhood. Nevertheless, this discourse was full of contradictions, allowing it to be reappropriated by readers who could then confer on it a different sense from that intended by its authors. This process affected distinct areas, but was especially visible regarding one of the pillars of the regime: the family. Movie stars, particularly Hollywood stars, were used as role models to exemplify both positives and negatives attitudes. We can also see a message about the superiority of the Spanish tradition and its role against the penetration of cosmopolitan modernity. However, this attempt at the sentimental education of young women often clashed with the incongruity of the approach and with the fascination aroused by the figures who were criticised. Another major battleground in the indoctrination of women concerned sexual morality. But once again, by simultaneously employing the exhibition of the female body - in photographs of a pseudo-erotic nature  for male visual pleasure -, the possibility arose that some women would transform that image conceived as an object of desire into a potentially active sexual subject.