Abstract

This article studies Spanish female activism throughout the 20th century focusing on the associations and spaces for demands that arose in the academic sphere and that were encouraged by female university students. The starting point is a series of chronological coordinates that serve to frame the presence and participation of women in the university and to situate the causes, moments, and ways in which their demands were articulated. The first milestone is the year 1910 when women were able to attend the University with all their legally recognized rights. The last one is the years 1982-1983, when the foundations were established for the creation of the first women’s and feminist university institute, the Seminario de estudios de la mujer in the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, which would be followed by others in different universities. This institutionalization process finished the creation in 1983 of the Instituto de la Mujer dependent on the Ministerio de Cultura. With this article we seek to link the advances in the presence of women in the university with the ways in which their claims were shown and, eventually, they were institutionalized in the form of associations and organizations. For this purpose, primary sources were used, which were analyzed in depth