LIDIA FALCÓN O’NEILL

Spain’s most outspoken feminist

© Silvia Cuevas-Morales

In 1994 the International Women’s Bookfair was held in Melbourne, Australia. One
of the attendants at the fair was Lidia Falcón, who visited Melbourne with her
assistant and life long friend Elvira Siurana. I too attended the bookfair and met
these two women who made such a big impact on my life that I now live and work
in Spain.

Over the past ten years I have learnt to appreciate Lidia

for her dedication to the feminist cause. During the
Franco regime she did not fear imprisonment, beatings,
insults, she fought for a better future for all Spanish
women, and denounced the oppression that women
suffered during the last decades. She has suffered a lot
but has never dwindled in her belief that an egalitarian
society can and should be a reality. Today she’s still as
active as she was when she first started. She continues
to give conferences all over the world, continues to
write in many newspapers and magazines. When all her
peers that began the Women’s Movement in Spain
© Foto – M. Wry. have either become disillusioned, or have ended up
accepting “comfortable” jobs, or have retired, Lidia is
still working hard and has recently returned to her Women’s Buffet in Barcelona
where she works as a lawyer.

A bit of history

Lidia Falcón was born in Madrid in 1935, not long before the Spanish Civil War.
Daughter of a generation of writers and activists, she discovered feminism and
literature at an early age. She studied Dramatic Art at the Drama Institute of
Barcelona and later studied Law and Journalism, graduating in both fields. She
also completed her Doctorate in Law at the University of Madrid.

During the 60's she practised law, defending political prisoners, union leaders,
workers and women with marital cases. Her legal profession is reflected in a
number of published works dealing with the legal status of women in the Spanish
Society, Los Derechos Civiles de la Mujer (The Civil Rights of Women, 1963), Los
Derechos Laborales de la Mujer (The Labour Rights of Women, 1964), Mujer y
Sociedad. Análisis de un Fenómeno Reaccionario (Woman and society. Analysis of
a Reactionary Phenomenon, 1969), a collection of sociological and legal essays
dealing with women and history, women and politics and revolution; La Razón
Feminista I (The Feminist Reason I, 1981) and La Razón Feminista II (1982), two
works which deal with the concept of women as a social and economic class; and
the exploitation of women with regard to human reproduction; Violencia Contra la
Mujer (Violence Against Women, 1991) and her Doctoral thesis Mujer y Poder
Político (Woman and Political Power, 1992) which investigates the evolution of the
feminist struggle from the French Revolution to the present.

Due to her political activism and her frankness, Lidia soon made herself known as
a feminist activist on the left, which led to her persecution and imprisonment in
1972 by Franco's dictatorial regime. Her crime - distributing clandestine literature
denouncing fascism. She spent six months in the Women’s jail “La Trinidad”,
Barcelona. When released she continued her work of solidarity and analysis of
Spanish society and in 1974 she was imprisoned again, falsely accused of
collaborating with ETA, the Basque Independent Group. She spent nine months in
jail and a trial was never held. Her experience in jail make up her work En el
Infierno. Ser Mujer en las Cárceles de España (In Hell. Being a Woman in the Jails
of Spain, 1974) and Viernes 13 en la Calle del Correo (Friday the 13th on Correo
Street, 1981).

In 1975 Franco died and political parties reappeared, and Lidia published her novel
Es Largo Esperar Callado (It's a Long Wait When Waiting in Silence), which
attacks the machismo and reformism of the Spanish Communist Party. That same
year she published the first feminist magazine in Spain - Vindicación Feminista
which after thirty issues had to close in 1979 due to financial problems. However,
that same year she founded the theoretical magazine, Poder y libertad (Power and
Freedom), and founded the “Club Vindicación Feminista” (Barcelona), and most
importantly, the Feminist Party of Spain, which was legalized in 1981.

Apart form writing for all major newspapers and giving conferences on women’s
issues, in 1982 she was invited to the United Stated where she gave more than
thirty conferences in all major cities. She was also a guest speaker at New York’s
Pen Club, the Women’s Salon, and at the United Nations. Between 1984 and 1985
she was a guest lecturer at The University of Río Piedras and Universidad
Interamericana of Puerto Rico, guest lecturer at Montclair University, and took part
in the Women’s International Congress in Nairobi. In 1986 she moved to Madrid
and with Elvira Siurana opened another branch of the “Club Vindicación
Feminista”. A drop in centre where women could have access to lawyers,
psychologists, social workers and enjoy vibrant cultural offerings.

Apart from acting as a lawyer, feminist leader and activist, and raising two children,
Lidia managed to pursue one of her interests - the theatre. Following her feminist
line, her theatre deals with the current situation of women in Spanish society. Two
of her plays "A Little Bit of White Snow" and "The Ones Who Always Win" show
her political and social preoccupations. 1982 saw the emergence of "The Women
Walked with the Fire of the Century" which deals with feminism and syndicalism,
confronting the old with the new. This play has been staged in Spain, Athens, New
York, New Jersey and Puerto Rico. Some of her other plays deal with violence
against women and children, and sexual harassment. She has written and staged
more than twenty plays.

Apart from her plays she has published hundreds of articles, and novels, all dealing
with Spanish reality and specifically with the role that women have played or have
not been allowed to play. Amongst her novels we find Cartas a una Idiota Española
(Letters to a Spanish Idiot, 1974), Los Hijos de los Vencidos (Children of the
Defeated, 1978), El Juego de la Piel (Skin Playfulness, 1983), Rupturas (Break-
Ups, 1985), Camino sin Retorno (Road of no Turning Back, 1992), Clara (1993),
Postmodernos (Postmoderns, 1993), Asesinando el pasado (Killing the Past,
1997). She has also more recently published her memoirs Memorias Políticas
1959-1999 (Political Memoirs, 1999), Los Nuevos Mitos del Feminismo (The New
Feminist Myths, 2000) La Vida Arrebatada (A Stolen Life, 2003) her third volume of
memoirs, La Violencia que no Cesa (The Violence than Doesn’t Cease, 2003), a
compilation of her published articles dealing with violence against women, and very
soon she’ll publish a compilation of her articles dealing with employment, all
analysed with a feminist perspective.

Lidia Falcón is undeniably a versatile woman, and it is a difficult task to summarise

her life and work into one single article. She has written so much that because of
space I have not included all her titles, neither have I included all her prizes or
special mentions, but I would only like to add that in 1984 she received a medal
form the Puerto Rican Senate in recognition for her dedication to the women’s
cause all over the world, and more recently, she was awarded a Doctorate Honoris
Causa by the University of Wooster. Lidia Falcón is no doubt, Spain’s most
outspoken feminist, and although in her own country many people don’t recognize
her work and prefer to turn to foreign authors, her reputation has crossed frontiers
and she continues working tirelessly to keep women’s issues in the forefront of the
political arena, because she continues to believe that “feminism is the eternally
betrayed revolution – a revolution that has always been postponed”.

Published in Rain & Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal of Discussion and

Actvism, Issue 24, Autumn 2004. (USA).

* If you want to find more about her books please visit Vindicación Feminista
Publicaciones: www.vindicacionfeminista.com also www.aconcaguapublishing.com
Aconcagua Publishing has just published The Feminist Reason in its English
version.