Periodismo en Cataluña, de la dictadura a la democracia: la incorporación de las mujeres a las redacciones de los diarios de información general (1966-1986)

Abstract

Since the end of the 1950s Spanish society lived through a process of opening-up that influenced the economic and social life of the country. This process, once Franco was dead, culminated in the transition and the implementation of democracy. This transformation had also an effect on the socio-occupational reality of women, a consequence that was the result of both the modifications of the system of production and the changes in law and ideology. Despite the official discourse, since the end of the 1950s, with crisis and the growing industrial development that implied a massive emigration abroad, and an exodus from country to town, along with the gradual incorporation of women to the labor market and the timid process of external openness, the idea that it is important to facilitate girls access to studies so in the future they can have a better job and even a better husband, from a higher social class, begins to spread. In this way, the protagonists from this PhD thesis, those women born in the Third Generation of 20th century (1940-1960), from upper, well-off classes, get access to elementary and secondary school with the Organization of Secondary School Act, into effect on 1953. This law regulates secondary education and, even though it requires girls to learn Housework Education and to pass a final examination that, if failed, prevents them from obtaining the diploma, it lets the presence of women in the classrooms to consolidate. For these women, access to education provided them a set of skills that, once in adulthood, let them decide to give up, not to perpetuate, the traditional model that bound women to private and/or domestic spaces. It also made them want to participate in public spaces; that is, to get a job. Thus, they broke with the model they had lived through and seen at home, a model in which the mother – in most cases – did not work outside home. On the other hand, one must not forget the role that, during those years, was played by journalists. In 1966 the Press and Publications Act (also known as Fraga Law) is enacted. This law was a direct result of the Regime’s need to have a democratizing appearance in order to adapt to the socioeconomic changes of the country. On paper, censorship was eliminated, although in fact the previous control of information was just transferred to the very editors-in-chief of newspapers; prior censorship was still imposed. This same year the Democratic Group of Journalists is formed; and in 1968, the Official School of Journalism of Barcelona is reopened. Did the new social reality that was being configured imply the massive entry of women into the editorial offices of the media? Did those women get access to those media in equal conditions as their male colleagues? Did their presence in sections of the newspapers traditionally encumbered by men increase? Did they have access to positions of responsibility? Did the newspapers with a more progressive editorial line encourage the presence and the role of women in their staff? This doctoral thesis tries to provide answer to these questions throughout a quantitative analysis of both hemerographic sources (informative units signed by women) and interviews to journalist women that exercised this profession during those years.

Date of Award	12 Sept 2017
Original language	Spanish
Supervisor	Amparo Moreno Sarda (Director)