Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines how sexual politics, specifically those surrounding the modernization of a consumer economy, are key to understanding the transformation of Spain from isolated dictatorship to modern state. It focuses on issues concerning modernity and the commodification of the female body under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in the 1950s and 1960s. These two decades are critical to understanding this transformation because they coincide with the opening of markets, the freer movement of people in and out of the country through tourism and emigration, and the embracing of the 'American way of life' popularized in Hollywood movies. From a gender perspective this 'in between moment,' in Homi Bhaba's terms, from autarchy to consumerism favored the transition from the virginal female model, prescribed by the regime, (what the author calls 'True Catholic Womanhood') to a seductive modern woman that the media sold to Spanish women. The originality of this study resides in Dr. Morcillo's use of feminist theories of the body to study archival sources of the Francoist years.
Trade ReviewMorcillo (history and women's studies, Florida International U.) explores the gender politics of Spain's Franco dictatorship, focusing on the interplay between the metaphorical use of gender imagery in the political discourse of the 'nation' and the ways that attempts to discipline and control women's bodies were an essential part of the (Foucauldian) 'bio-power' deployed by the Franco regime as Spain shifted from autarky to consumerism in the 1950s and 1960s. With this shift, the official doctrine of 'True Catholic Womanhood' became progressively undermined and subverted by the image of the rebellious, carefree, and sexually adventurous consumer in popular media, the implications of which also played out in the political sphere. * Book News, Inc. *
