Date of Award
Spring 5-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
International Studies
First Advisor
Victoria Carty
Second Advisor
Nancy Rios Contreras
Third Advisor
Andrea Molle
Abstract
What happens to women’s rights when a country transitions from an authoritarian regime to a democratic state? This thesis examines how Spain’s transition from authoritarianism to democracy impacted the advancements of women’s rights through a specific analysis of violence against women. While democratization created the institutional framework for progress, this study contends that structural political change alone is insufficient to dismantle deeply entrenched patriarchal norms. By employing a triangulated methodology that combines historical analysis, thematic analysis of oral testimonies from the Mujer y Memoria database, and statistical trends from the 2022 European Gender-Based Violence Survey, this study provides a multidimensional understanding of how women's rights have evolved from the end of the Franco regime to the present. The findings reveal an underlying culture that enables violence against women, fosters limited institutional trust, and exposes a gap between de jure protections (policies safeguarding women's rights) and de facto realities (lived experiences), ultimately challenging the assumption of linear progress. By foregrounding women’s lived experiences and examining the interplay between legal, institutional, and cultural change, this study contributes to broader debates on democratization, gender justice, and post-authoritarian transition calling for greater intersectional understanding of democratic development.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Aguilera, R. I. (2025). Tracing violence against women from the Francoist dictatorship to democratic Spain [Master's thesis, Chapman University]. Chapman University Digital Commons. https://doi.org/10.36837/chapman.000692
Included in
Domestic and Intimate Partner Violence Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Global Studies Commons, Other International and Area Studies Commons, Peace and Conflict Studies Commons, Policy History, Theory, and Methods Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons, Social Justice Commons