from 1936 to 1939. Founded by
, Mercedes Comaposada, and Amparo Poch y Gascón as a small women's group in Madrid, it rapidly grew to a national federation of 30,000 members at its height in the summer of 1938. It emerged from the Spanish anarcho-
union, the FAI federation, and the FIJL youth wing. Many women who participated in these groups felt that their issues were being ignored by the predominantly male anarchists. As a result, the autonomous
both women's liberation and the anarchist social
revolution. They argued that the two objectives were equally important and should be pursued in parallel. Aiming towards the
empowerment of working-class women, they organized activities ranging from
education programs and technical classes to childcare centers and maternity care.
As participants in the anarcho-
syndicalist movement,
Mujeres Libres believed in the abolition of the state and of capitalism. Many anarchists at the time presumed that gender inequality was a product of these economic hierarchies, and that it would disappear once the social
revolution had been achieved. However, following their negative experiences within male-dominated anarchist groups, the anarchist women who founded
Mujeres Libres began to reject the idea that the struggle for
gender equality was subordinate to the wider class struggle for economic
equality.
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