Female empowerment through journalistic writing in 1930s Europe. Foreign female reporters and the Spanish Civil

Abstract

The Spanish Civil War received unprecedented media coverage. Representatives from Europe’s largest media outlets quickly travelled to the country to cover what was clearly a major conflict for interwar Europe. Among them were women journalists, still often overlooked or ignored, who, between 1936 and 1939, used journalism as a means of raising awareness of the events unfolding in Spain, as a cornerstone of their support for the Spanish Republic, and as a tool for emancipation and personal fulfilment in the traditionally maledominated world of international reporting. This study will focus on three journalists who covered the war as special correspondents for various French and English publications (Le Petit Parisien, Vendredi, Ce Soir, Regards, L’Humanité or The Manchester Guardian): Andrée Viollis, Nancy Cunard and Simone Téry. After emphasising that the war was the culmination of a powerful connection with writing that had begun many years earlier for these three women, we will show that the 1936-1939 conflict represented the definitive affirmation of a common conception of reporting and female war reporting for these three women.