Anarchism and Sexuality in 1930s Spain

The Sobremesa Podcast

This week Catherine talks to Sophie Turbutt about one of the most widely read anarchist magazines in 1930s Spain, La Revista Blanca,

Founded by the Montseny family, this anarchist magazine featured a novelty for the time, an advice column that offered answers to questions about gender, women's bodies, sex and sexuality. - topics that were limited in their discussion and clouded by taboos, rumours and misinformed practices in a Spain still very much in the grip of Catholic morality.

Catherine and Sophie discuss both the questions and answers of these advice columns, on topics such as free love, menstruation, bisexuality and abortion, and how, Federica Montseny, daughter of the magazine’s founders, would come to legalise abortion for the first time in 1936 as minister for health minister in Catalonia.