La mujer que no canta no es … ¡ni mujer española!: folklore and gender in the earlier Franco regime

As a conservative, Catholic regime with fascist influences, Francisco Franco's dictatorship confined Spanish women primarily to the domestic sphere and subordination to men. However, folk music activities organized by the Sección Femenina were indeed a national conscience-building programme which gave women a political role in the construction of the nation. Through the examination of speeches and publications of the Sección Femenina and musical criticism in the period 1939-1953, this article explores how the involvement of women in traditional music was used to overcome two of the main fears of the regime: separatism and modernity. The article will also show how the discourse changed to accommodate new political and diplomatic circumstances in the late 1940s, when female folk music performers were used as cultural ambassadors