This article analyzes the changing meaning of femininity in the first quarter of the 20th Century in Spain, by looking at the political role of the communist leader Pasionaria. Focusing on the image of Dolores Ibárruri as a woman of the people first and then as the unique woman leader of the Communist Party, this article draws attention to how close her image was to masculine values. However, as the Civil War progressed, her symbolic meaning changed. Republicans put the stress on the figure of

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... he mother as the core of femininity in an attempt to preserve gender order. Dolores Ibárruri then became a caring and self-sacrificing mother. All this reinforced the activism of republican women as mothers in the rearguard and, at the same time, this process reinforced the heroic role of republican men as combatants. The representation of Pasionaria as a heroic mother also contributed to consolidate the II Republic as the most authentic of the Spanish national expressions.