Democratic Memory

Bar Guixot del Raval recalls the bar that occupied the same premises 40 years ago: laSal, a feminist bar-library and women’s publisher’s.

It was 6 July 1977 when laSal, a feminist bar-library, opened at Carrer de la Riereta, nº 8, in Raval, and April 1978 when laSal, a women’s publishers, was founded. Two feminist initiatives with the aim of meeting “the crying need we women have for a space, information, a possibility of expression and a platform for action” to take the street and the public sphere.

Painted violet, with lights covered by a white shade, and a place where simple, home-made meals were served, laSal was set up as a meeting point for discussing and exchanging information, as well as somewhere to get training and legal advice.

It was one of the first examples of women’s self-management which was noted for being a hybrid experience, halfway between a bar, a cultural centre and a space for reflection. A place that accommodated the different positions of feminism, which represented a vital experience in the evolution of the Catalan and national feminist movement in the post-Franco Spain of the 1970s.