Pedagogical methodology for applying a gender perspective to the study of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes.

Session 1. Fascism vs. democracy: women under the Francoist dictatorship

Session 2. The punishment of dissidence: mental health and violence against women.

Session 3. Women as subjects of resistance to authoritarian regimes

General Objective:

To develop students’ understanding of the use of physical, symbolic and institutional violence as a tool of control and punishment against women who chalenged gender roles and/or the policies of the Franco regime.

Specific Objectives 

• Analyse the instrumental use of psychiatry: understand how the regime used institutions such as the “Manicomio de Conxo” to pathologise social behaviours or female political dissidence.
• Identify types of violence and distinguish between the physical and symbolic violence exercised on women’s bodies.
• Empower students to interpret sources, extracting critical information from historical psychiatric records and oral testimonies.
• Value political agency: recognise the trajectories of women who, despite repression, maintained active participation in the political sphere (such as Lola Rodal or Mariquiña Vilaverde).
• Be able to translate historical research and learning into a communication product.

We explore physical and symbolic violence, to analyse the instrumental use of psychiatry. We learn how mental health was used as a tool of social control, taking the Manicomio de Conxo as a case study and drawing paralels with the Italian model.

Students analyse historical psychiatric records to identify the pathologisation and punishment of behaviours deemed “inappropriate” by the fascist regime, such as political dissidence, war trauma, infidelity, or non-reproductive sexualities.

To counter this institutional violence, we focus on the history of persecuted women and their political agency, using the oral testimonies of Lola Rodal and Mariquiña Vilaverde, which students incorporate into a podcast, transforming the historical archive into a tool for communication and memory.

Student response:

 I used to think Francoism was bad, now I think it’s terrible

Student works

Podcast about Mariquina Villaverde – Rosalía de Castro