Democratic Memory

On July 6, 1977, a feminist bar-library that turned Barcelona’s cultural world upside down opened in this location: LaSal. In April 1978, LaSal women’s publications opened at number 8, Carrer Riereta. Its presentation read: “we publish books written by women that are the expression of women.”

The bar and publisher were two pioneering feminist initiatives in both the city and country. They sought to fulfil “women’s essential need for a space, information, the ability to express ourselves and a platform for action” to occupy the streets and the public sphere. LaSal was a space for training, socialization and legal advice in Barcelona at the end of the Franco dictatorship. This regime imposed legislation and social and cultural practices that closed women up in the intimacy of their homes, submitted them to the male authority of their fathers and husbands, and persecuted anything that violated the mandates and morals of the Catholic Church.

Four decades later, the Barcelona City Council remembers and pays homage to these women’s struggle.