FEMALE: INTELLIGENCE SHARING "Clara Campoamor 
Miembros del Lyceum Club Femenino (1926-1939)
" LA GENERACIÓN TAL VEZ MÁS BRILLANTE DE MUJERES ESPAÑOLAS DE LA HISTORIA"
En abril de 1926, durante la Dictadura de Primo de Rivera, un grupo de mujeres pertenecientes a la burguesía illustrated founded the Women's Lyceum of Madrid, a feminist cultural association whose main aim was the struggle for equal rights for women. The Lyceum, influenced by the Lyceum Club of London, defended the full incorporation of women to education and work, in short, the inclusion of women in the group with active participation in society. Its origin is in the Girls Private , created in 1915, parallel to the Residencia de Estudiantes, which will promote women's access to higher education.
"IN HALL STREET BETWEEN INFANTAS conspires CONFERENCE AND CUPS OF TEA "
Among the members are Mary's Lyceum de Maeztu (founder), Clara Campoamor, Victoria Kent, Hildegart, Mary Lejárraga, Carmen Baroja, Zenobia Camprubí, María Teresa León, Maruja Mallo, Ernestina de Champourcin ... The Lyceum was the structure of the London Club in Madrid and established various sections: social, music, the visual arts, the international and Hispanic.
In House of Seven Chimneys , Lyceum headquarters, held exhibitions, workshops, lectures by intellectuals, writers, scientists ... (Unamuno, Lorca, feat, Alberti, Marañón ...). Women lawyers (Victoria Kent, Matilde Huici, Clara Campoamor ...) taught legal seminars. Approaching the law, women found their plight in civil and criminal code, drafted major reforms so that defended publicly.
These women maverick, fighters and daring (Classified as crazy, criminal , liceómanas, and known as "the club maridas ) knew unite, despite their ideological differences, political and religious, in a common project: to promote educational change and legal services and improve the overall situation of women. The Lyceum was, according to José Antonio Marina, an example of "intelligence sharing" a demonstration that it is possible to find a common framework of understanding from which to defend various positions.
... What the members petendían the Lyceum was to think in common. It may seem very ambitious were it not in the history of women, both thinking and study how the access to common, public, gains have been hard fought. The first English woman who attended the University needed a permit from the King Amadeus of Savoy, in 1871, the first degree in law, half a century later, it was precisely one of the founders of the Lyceum, Victoria Kent ... rouseauniano model of "angel of the hearth" tightly reigned, and not just on the right: anarchists, socialists, workers generally opposed to female labor. And although the Lyceum was not in any way militant group, in fact their statutes expressly forbidding him to see addressed in political or religious matters, "was attacked as well. What argument? It emerges that women always conquer any new ground: the alleged loss of femininity that entails. "If women choose the path of study (...) are masculinized," predicted a reporter before the founding of the club, and "the first victims (are) children. Such overseas, he added," ladies' glasses Shell makes exegesis of Kant or Hegel, while her husband pushes the baby cart or clean the dishes with his nasty (...) presence recalls the lyrics too dry the heart ... (Laura Freixas, "A generation lost, recovered).
For José Antonio Marina : Women who were part of the Lyceum as members or sympathizers constituted perhaps the most brilliant generation of English women in history. María Teresa León was right: they accelerated the time of Spain. And I paid. In sad but we added the injustice of amnesia ... sown in the wind of history, and the wind carried them away (...) Recover memory is a double sample of intelligence and justice- which basically are the same thing. ". At that time, "the women struggled to become socially and politically visible. These were years of excitement and hope, which began to dismantle the" feminine mythology "coined by the patriarchal system underpinned by the religious system. It was a contradictory mythology appearance, while glorifying a woman scorned. It was, of course, a poisonous glorification of mortal praise, because he was defending the woman was intellectually inferior to men, but spiritually superior for motherhood and its educational function and that this was important. Both, its misery and its grandeur, their disability and its goodwill, the recruit in the home.
The Civil War marked a discontinuity in the life and activities of Lyceum.En 1939, was "closed for political reasons": the winners will be handed over to the Women's Section of the Falange, the bearer of a vision women in the family and society from which women had fought the Lyceum. The Franco regime, with the support of the Catholic Church restored the patriarchal system and cloistered women in the private sphere. "freedom from slavery work" was the slogan and the three Cs-kitchen, cot, belfry-again rule the lives of women. Education Women's useless now seems dangerous as well "in women analytical knowledge can disrupt the fine arteries of their femininity" (in the journal Falangist Medina).
In the book Conspiracy of readers the authors ask whether the conspiracy of the Lyceum Club Women had disappeared or remained , concluding that his fighting spirit is still alive: "We to say that survived. With other names, other voices, other situations, but with the same impetus toward clarity and toward justice ... "
pays tribute to those women in the 20 and 30 which were proposed watch ahead of Spain in a hostile environment. Their struggle, the struggle of intellect against the immobility and injustice, example for all generations, remain: the conspiracy must continue.
Bibliography: Conspiracy of readers of JAMarina and Maria Teresa Rodriguez de Castro, "A generation lost, recovered, Laura Freixas," The Lyceum Club of Madrid, a refuge feminist in a capital hostile, Shirley Mangini, "Counter: Proceedings of the 20 writers, Marcia Castillo-Martín.
..................... .................................................. ............................ If the prototype of female cultural organization in the Republic is the Lyceum, in the Civil War one of the most representative organization will anarchist Mujeres Libres.
Alfredo Erias . 'A Princesiña of Ourense. 
