Bolaños inaugurates Clara Campoamor's exhibition: "The Memory Law repairs the repression exerted against women"

MADRID, 15 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, opened this Friday the exhibition 'Clara Campoamor Rodríguez: woman and citizen (1888-1972)', organized by the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, the Library Nacional de España and Acción Cultural Española, for the 50th anniversary of the death of the feminist.

"The Memory Law recognizes what the role of women was and repairs the repression exercised against them during the war and the dictatorship," said the minister at the National Library of Spain before visiting the exhibition, after approval yesterday at the Congress of Deputies of the bill for the Democratic Memory Law, which will now continue its processing in the Senate.

In this sense, Bolaños, who has been accompanied by the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, and the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, has highlighted that in the Law of Memory approved this Thursday the role of women in history " it is a transversal role" throughout the standard. "I would like the law to be read, I encourage those who think of it to read the law so that they can see how it makes Spain a better, more European, fairer country," he said.

The minister insisted that the law makes Spain "a better country because it recognizes the role of women and the repression they suffered during the dictatorship" and makes it a "more dignified country because it denounces discrimination, the whole situation with so many problems that women had to face during the dictatorship, the coup and the Civil War".

"It makes Spain a more dignified country because it denounces and brings discrimination to the fore, what was the situation of discrimination, of repression during the dictatorship. That is why we want to value the role of women in the fight for freedoms" , has manifested.

For the Minister of the Presidency, "it is incomprehensible that there are those who want to repeal or denigrate this law that writes the complete history of men and women." "That our history be written complete and not incomplete, that all the role and difficulties of women throughout history be incorporated, many more difficulties than men", he has claimed.

Regarding the exhibition, she has indicated that the title 'Woman and citizen' is "totally correct" since she was a woman "pioneer in many aspects" and an "exemplary citizen for being a feminist" and has warned that we must "continue working every day because rights are not guaranteed": "You can always go back".

The minister recalled when Clara Campoamor "fought and made an effort so that the professions intended for men were also occupied by women". Thus, she has pointed out that "she faced the lead, concrete ceiling" because at that time "it was not a glass ceiling", and "she managed to denounce the discrimination and repression suffered by women".

At this point, he has made reference to his "historic" intervention in Congress "defending the female vote", a vote that "was won by four votes". For this reason, she has emphasized that in Congress "sometimes the social majority is not defended, but other interests that are more difficult to explain are defended."

In her opinion, Clara Campoamor is a "symbol of the best Spain" at a time when "despite having everything against her, she fought for advances in rights and to achieve small parcels of freedom." "Women were a victim, perhaps the most unjust of all of the war and the dictatorship, they were victims for being women," she lamented.

During her speech, the director of the National Library of Spain, Ana Santos, celebrated the opening of an exhibition to "claim and publicize the figure of those who were capable of opening paths."

In this way, he has defended that the figure of Clara Campoamor "had to be vindicated for many reasons". "Women of all ages can see themselves recognized in this brave woman who took the reins of her life by herself and opened paths unthinkable in those years", Santos commented.

The exhibition approaches the life of Clara Campoamor, one of the first Spanish lawyers, a deputy in the Courts of the Second Republic and a feminist activist, and the tour is part of a double context: international, referring to the first feminist movements that inform her thought; and national, which includes the position of women in society and its evolution from the end of the 19th century.

In the exhibition, which can be visited from July 16 to October 16 in the Sala Recoletos of the National Library of Spain, a total of 368 pieces are exhibited, of which 61 belong to the BNE, and come from numerous institutions and public and private, national and international collections.

Among the pieces that can be seen in the exhibition are engravings, medals, photographs, scenery with original furniture, personal objects, electoral propaganda sheets or paintings.