9
journal, published it in the Galician language, and addressed issues of “national” independence
and the destruction of the patriarchal and capitalist systems.
17
Feminist nationalism constitutes more than a celebration of Galician culture and language
by way of publications. The feminists’ local identity has also become a source of public policy
goals. In all of Spain, since the 1980s, feminists have fought to transform the education system
into a non-sexist system, which promotes a variety of women’s identities and “herstory”. To
that end, feminists and bureaucrats have designed curricula and children’s books that are written
in non-sexist language
18
and that feature important women from Spanish history. Successful
education results for Galician feminists require a certain degree of Galician nationalism.
Galician feminists want educational materials to be both in Galician and to be non-sexist.
Moreover, feminists want to promote famous Galician women in the schools in order to capture
the community’s unique women’s history. Since the mid-1980s, the feminists, in cooperation
with the education union STEG (Union of Education Workers of Galicia - Sindicatos de
Traballadores e Traballadoras do Ensino de Galicia), have distributed lessons about Galician
women to the schools.
At times, Galician nationalism has gone beyond simply establishing difference from
Madrid, “the center.” Rather, the feminists have seen national politics and politicians as
obstacles to success. In 1984, the feminists protested the national Women’s Institute by burning
informational brochures from the institute. Much of the dissatisfaction with the national
administration at that time was due to the feminists’ disapproval of the national abortion
measures put forth by the socialists.
19
The Galician feminists have continued to take issue with
Madrid over the years and they have particularly disliked the national state feminism of the
center-right People’s Party (1996-2004). They believe that the PP’s policies at the national level
were too conservative and they have tied the PP’s national actions to the regional PP-G
administration.
17
Both groups of feminists prefer to express their feminist opinions in a form of the Galician language that appears
more like Portuguese than the Galician version that is more like Spanish. Thus, they do not utilize the Galician
language norms established by the PP-G. For more information on language disputes, reference footnote 9.
18
In Spanish, one can refer to female students by calling them alumnas rather than alumnos. The same is true for
the word for teacher, e.g. profesoras and profesores. Feminists want education publications to reflect the feminine
words rather than referring to groups of boys and girls as simply alumnos. The gender-sensitive way to say students
is alumnas y alumnos and the way to say teachers is profesoras y profesores. For more on non-sexist education in
Spain, see Santos Guerra 1984; Subirats and Brullet 1988; Subirats Matori 1994; González et al 2002.
19
A limited abortion policy was passed in 1985. The policy allows for abortion in cases “when women have been
raped; when pregnancy seriously endangers the physical and psychological health of the mother; and when the fetus
has malformations” (Valiente 2001, p. 115).
Convention