FEMALE BODIES UNDER SURVEILLANCE: GENDER FICTIONS AND THE DISCOURSE OF HYGIENE (SPAIN, 1850s-1930s) BY MARÍA DEL CARMEN RUBIO-CAMPOS DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Spanish with a minor in Gender and Women’s Studies in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Joyce L. Tolliver, Chair Associate Professor Luisa-Elena Delgado Professor John C. Wilcox Assistant Professor Melissa Monique Littlefield Abstract From the mid nineteenth century onwards, the publication of prescriptive literature for and about women increased in Spain and reached its peak by the turn of the century, when manuals, essays, treatises and textbooks for girls experienced an unprecedented boom. This project studies the diachronic trajectory of the discourse of hygiene in manuals for women, as well as the alternating echoes of and antagonism toward this discourse which are found in prose fiction of the same period. I argue that the particular Spanish ambivalence about modernity vs. tradition is embodied in the self-contradictory discursive hybridity characteristic of the Spanish hygiene manual. This same ambivalence is mirrored in the literary production of the period: novelists endorsed or contested hygiene’s standards, establishing a collaboration or antagonism with literary style at the root of this debate. Attitudes toward foreign influence played an important role in this ambivalence for scientific authority was associated with the foreign, while conservative Spanish ideals were incarnated in ideals of domestic womanhood. This is true regardless of the ideological positioning of the texts: for instance, while hygienist doctor Pedro Felipe Monlau promulgates the myth of the authoritative foreign-influenced physician in contrast with the passive Spanish “angel of the home,” novelist Alejandro Sawa’s raw attack on the biases of the Spanish medical establishment ironically echoes the privileging of gendered foreign authority found in Monlau’s text of several decades earlier. In this way, both genres, the hygiene manual and the novel, expressed in gendered terms the preoccupations about modernization and economic change in Spain, shifting gender roles and cultural colonization. ii Main hygiene manuals studied: 1850s-1860s: Pedro Felipe Monlau’s Higiene del matrimonio o El libro de los casados (Hygiene of marriage or The book of spouses, 1853), Elementos de higiene privada o arte de conservar la salud del individuo (Elements of private hygiene or the art of preserving the health of the individual, 1875), Elementos de higiene pública o arte de conservar la salud de los pueblos (Elements of public hygiene or the art of preserving people’s health, 1862). 1880s-1890s: Francisco de Paula Campá’s Calendario de la preñez (Calendar of pregnancy, 1887). 1910s-1920s: Pablo Areny de Plandolit’s Cultivo de la estética y belleza de la mujer (Cultivation of female beauty, 1923). 1930s: Amparo Poch y Gascón’s La vida sexual de la mujer: pubertad-noviazgo- matrimonio (Women’s sexual life: puberty- engagement- marriage, 1932), Félix Martí Ibáñez’s Mensaje eugénico a la mujer (Eugenic message to women, 1937). Literary texts studied: 1850s: María Pilar Sinués de Marco’s El ángel del hogar (The angel of the home, 1859). 1880s-1890s: Alejandro Sawa’s Crimen legal (Legal crime, 1886). 1910s-1920s: Felipe Trigo’s El médico rural (The rural doctor, 1912). 1930s: Federica Montseny’s Una mujer y dos hombres (A woman and two men, 1932). iii To my family and friends, for their love and support iv Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to my advisor and mentor Prof. Joyce Tolliver for her wise guidance, great patience, and all the encouragement I have received from her to help me complete this project. I wish to thank all my committee members, Prof. Elena Delgado, Prof. Melissa Littlefield and Prof. John Wilcox for their help and their valuable comments to improve this work. My parents and Wito, who were always there when I needed them. My dear friends Carmen, Iván, Clara, Sonia, Yolopattli, Will, Cibele, Chino, María José, Guillermo, Maite, Mar, Nav, Irune and Pablo, who cheered me up and advised me wisely during the process of writing this dissertation. Finally, this research was possible thanks to the support of the University of Illinois Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies’ Tinker Research Grant, the Graduate College’s Dissertation Travel Grant, The Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States Universities, and Madrid’s Biblioteca Nacional. v Table of Contents Introduction ………………………………………………………………………..….…1 Chapter 1. Hygiene manuals and Isabeline domestic novels: Pedro Felipe Monlau, María Pilar Sinués de Marco and the power of hybridity……………………………….35 Chapter 2. Hygiene manuals and the “romance” of health: idealism, radical naturalism and the Spanish doctor…………………………………..………......95 Chapter 3. “Upright lemons:” early twentieth century hygiene manuals meet eroticism …………………………………………………………………...……..147 Chapter 4. The Spanish Second Republic and the Civil War: angels or soldiers? ….....203 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………..262 Works cited……………………………………………………………...………….......270 vi Introduction “Austera para mí y seductora, en cuanto me sea posible, para los demás.” Esta es la fórmula de toda mujer cristiana [...]. Muchacha, si quieres ser práctica en tu hogar y realizar la completa misión que aquí se te viene explanando, sé austera; y para serlo, niégate a ti misma, toma tu cruz y sigue a Jesús (Enciso Viana, La muchacha en el hogar 1958, 118).1 A few years ago, going through some dusty, old books from my mother‟s youth which had been around our flat for decades, I found a manual from a Father Emilio Enciso Viana published in the nineteen fifties. Its title was La muchacha en el hogar (1958) a guide about how to be the perfect Christian young lady within the family and in Spanish society. The torn and faded cover clearly portrayed the author‟s domestic ideal: a young woman sitting on a sofa, happily sewing and looking at the reader with a warm and wide smile of satisfaction. As soon as I started browsing through the manual‟s crumbly pages, what struck me the most was its flowery rhetoric, which from a point of view of a twenty first century Spanish young woman was amazingly cursi (affected to a ridiculous extreme) but fascinating altogether. Besides this romantic style praising motherhood, the Spanish family, the home, and Virgin Mary as the perfect role model for the young reader to follow, this priest also seasoned his very canonical advice with most 1All translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated. (I must be austere for myself and as much charming as possible for others.” This is the formula for every Christian woman [...] Young girl, if you want to be useful in your home and carry out the complete mission which is being explained to you here, be austere; in order to be so, negate yourself, take your cross and follow Jesus) 1 bizarre analogies in order to inspire divine love and respect for paternal authority in the young girl. For example, Father Enciso Viana connected the authority figures of God, the chief of state (Francisco Franco) and the father with the help of modern technology: the young girl had to imagine the National Radio of Spain transmitting a program in which her father‟s voice and Franco‟s could be heard through the speakers. The Pope‟s voice could also be heard, although through Radio Vatican. For the author, these male authoritative figures became the speakers through which God transmitted; they were the ministers of God on Earth and the representatives of Christ. The hierarchy went in crescendo, from the lowest authority to the supreme authority of the Pope; the father was the monarch of the little state called home, Franco of Spain, and the Pope of all Christianity: Transmite Radio Nacional: Habla el Jefe del Estado. A través del altavoz, la palabra de la autoridad suprema de la nación llega a vosotras, orientadora y normativa. ¿Le obedecéis? Sí; que no es el altavoz el que habla, sino el Jefe del Estado [...] ¡Atención! Transmite... ¿Quién? Tu padre te habla; te manda... ¿Tu padre habla? Te habla Dios. -¿Dios? No lo veo. Veo a mi padre. Sus labios se mueven; su voz vibra... Coge el prisma de la fe; mira. Tu padre no es más que un altavoz. (La muchacha en el hogar 32)2 In another manual from the Muchacha collection, La muchacha en el noviazgo (1947), the author used another metaphor of transmission, in this case an electric charge. The 2 (National Radio of Spain transmitting: The Chief of Spain speaking. Through the speaker, the guiding and normative words of the supreme authority of the nation are coming to you. Do you girls obey him? Yes, because it is not the speaker that talks, but the Chief of State. Attention! Who is transmitting...? Your father is speaking to you, commanding you...Your father is speaking? God is speaking. -God? I don‟t see him. I see my father. His lips move, his voice vibrates... Look through the prism of faith; look. Your father is only a speaker) 2 female reader had to understand that, to be the perfect Christian girl, she also had to set an example in the home and in society, pass on her sanctity and love for Christ to family and strangers: El acumulador eléctrico se carga previamente de la energía que ha de comunicar a los demás. Y si se encienden las bombillas o se mueven los motores, es porque el acumulador está cargado de electricidad. Si tú has de comunicar santidad, tienes que llenarte primeramente de ella, y así encenderás las inteligencias de tus familiares con la luz de Cristo y moverás sus corazones con la fuerza del amor divino.