Economistas liberales y cuestión femenina. El singular discurso de la domesticidad de la escuela economista española (1861-1909)

The texts by the Spanish Economist School (second half of the 19th century) –so called liberals- valued the role of women in the economy and the society in a way which strongly confronted the prevailing discourse that defended a unique and exclusive role for all women: housewife and mother. Most members of the Spanish liberal economic trend defended female work in the factories, arguing in terms of wages; they even asked for professional training for illiterate women (who in many cases could not even write and read for the fact of being a woman). The texts of those economists provided new ideas about the economic and social role of women in a Spain dominated by a discourse that denied the need for female work even for poor working class families