‘Modalidades de violación’ in Lidia Falcón’s En el infierno: Ser mujer en las cárceles de España (1977)

Abstract

The nefarious nexus of patriarchy and nationalism that characterized Francoist Spain (1939–75) made sexualized violence inflicted on the state’s female prisoners an immanently political act. Focusing on En el infierno: Ser mujer en las cárceles de España (1977), the prison memoir of the communist and feminist activist Lidia Falcón, this article draws on theories of trauma, victimhood and memory to interrogate how Falcón navigates questions of (self-)representation and agency through the portrayal of rape and sexualized violence in Franco’s women’s prisons. Rape, for Falcón, is a multifaceted act that violates both the female body and the collective body politic, while the various manifestations of abuse – ‘las modalidades de violación’ – reify sexual and political dominance. By speaking on behalf of the female prison population, Falcón utilizes the collective voice so as to presuppose a collective victimhood that fosters solidarity amongst women and resists subjugation by the masculinist state.