Complicating matters in Spain was the duty to the State that the Franco regime saw as a natural extension of these Catholic (and admittedly pan-Western) traditional beliefs of gender roles and the proper actions and attitudes for women to hold. At times, this belief and the demands that it placed on Catholic women in both Italy and Spain were in conflict with other expectations placed on them by the family and the Church. In her book True Catholic Womanhood: Gender Ideology in Franco's Spain, Aurora G. Morcillo asserts that "the language and true nature of Catholic womanhood was not fixed," and that the women of Spain (and by extension Italy) had to navigate an increasingly complex world of often conflicting demands while largely attempting to retain their traditional Catholic identities.

This is not to suggest that women quietly accepted traditional limitations in the period of prosperity following the war. Rather,...
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