Conclusion

This study has shed light on the dis/continuities of the past and present. Hampered by 40 years of Francoist historiography that wrote women out of history, various generations of women know little about Spain’s early twentieth-century feminists. This historical blindness is detrimental to feminist progress, as young feminists might not realise that, while progress has been made, there are still issues that are resistant to change. While the tension between femininity and feminism has been a constant in women’s subjectivity, we have traced different definitions of these terms through historical periods. In the series discussed in chapters two to five, femininity is constructed by a patriarchal world, used for political reasons and the narratives illustrate how society ruthlessly restricts women. In chapters six and seven the representation of women is not embedded in a phallocentric imaginary anymore and overcomes binary gender constructions. We move from femininity/masculinity to gendered discourse that operates across fe/male characters and narratives. We included several series and genres that might have been unlikely choices for this study. Supposedly conservative genres such as period dramas and melodramas make interpretative space for feminist messages and, more importantly, the potential to reach an audience that might not otherwise engage with feminist thought.