Cultural Impacts of Social Movements: Feminism within the Catholic Church in Spain

Abstract

This article studies the cultural impacts of social movements targeting non-state institutions. Using printed primary sources, bibliography and press clippings, the case of the feminist protest within the Catholic Church in Spain after 1975 is analysed from a comparative perspective. This research shows that cultural products (books, articles and other published texts) constitute a principal cultural outcome of the aforementioned protest. Some characteristics of the targeted institution, such as the intransigency of the Church hierarchy to feminist demands, made policy consequences impossible. Yet activists managed to produce cultural outputs and disseminate them to their movement constituency thanks to allies’ support; the use of the Spanish language as a vehicle for mobilisation; and the utilisation of activists’ locations within the Church and in society as sites from which to spread their world-views and demands.