Women and Social Change: On the articles of Barbara Biglia, Ángel Gordo and Pilar Parra

Abstract

In their articles, the three authors analyze the life stories of various Spanish women born during the seventies and eighties, that is, women who grew up and were educated during the democratic period of Spanish history. Some of them belong to the working class, others to the middle class. These stories show us that the lives of Spanish women have changed and that their lives are very different from the lives of their aunts and mothers, and light years away from the lives of their grandmothers. The life stories of their mothers and grandmothers serve as contexts to understand the contrasts, but also the social changes that have taken place across these different generations of women. Today, the younger generations of Spanish women no longer accept old mandates; they yield to their impulses and desires and are open to new possibilities. They experiment, they change, and they correct their mistakes along the way. But what is it that motivates and guides them? It seems that there are still some links with the past and that there is still something that makes them choose to live their lives in ways similar to past generations of women.