Concepción Arenal Ponte

Concepción Arenal Ponte (Ferrol, 31 January 1820 – Vigo, 4 February 1893) was a graduate in law, thinker, journalist, poet and Galician dramatic author within the literary Realism and pioneer in Spanish feminism. Born in Ferrol, Galicia, she excelled in literature and was the first woman to attend university in Spain. She was also a pioneer and founder of the feminist movement in Spain.

She graduated and in 1848 she married lawyer and writer Fernando García Carrasco. They had three children: a daughter that died shortly after birth, and two sons, Fernando (b. 1850) and Ramón (b. 1852). In her later years, her health being a permanent cause of concern, Concepción Arenal lived with her son Fernando and Fernando's second wife, Ernestina Winter.

In 1872 she founded the Construction Beneficiary, a society dedicated to building cheap houses for workers. She also worked with the Red Cross helping the injured of the Carlist War, working in a hospital in Miranda de Ebro, later being named Secretary General of the Red Cross between 1871 and 1872. “a serious mistake, and one of the most harmful, to impress upon women that her sole mission is to be wife and mother; it amounts to tell her that she can be nothing by herself and to annihilate her moral and intellectual self” She had a close relationship with krausism intellectuals. She was admirer of Fernando de Castro's work about women's education and also she was a member of Ateneo Artístico y Literairo de Señoras directors’ board keeping up to date with the progress made by Asociación para la Enseñanza de la Mujer (Association for Teaching Women). Years later, she collaborated regularly with Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza [Journal of the Institution of Free Teaching] submitting articles about criminal and feminist topics.

In 1882 Arenal participated-although she was not present- in the Congreso Pedagógico Hispano-Portugués-Americano [Congress of Hispanic-Portugues-American Pedagogy] hold in Madrid and led by Rafael Mª de Labra. She presented a paper about “La educación de la mujer” [Women's education] in the fifth section of the congress dedicated to Concepto y límites de la educación de la mujer, y de la aptitud profesional de ésta [The concept and limits of women's education and her professional aptitude]. The section dealt with the debate of the similarities and difference between women and men's education, what tools were necessary to organize a good education system for women, what aptitudes women had for teaching and other jobs and women's physical education. The vice-president of this round table was Emilia Pardo Bazán. Arenal's position was supporting women's education without limitation.

Legacy Arenal's achievements were extraordinary in a largely traditional Spain, focusing her work on those marginalised in society. She wrote not only extensively on the state of prisons for both men and women, but also on the role of women in society in works such as La Mujer del Porvenir [The Woman of the Future] (1869), The education of women, The current state of women in Spain, The work of women, La mujer de su casa [The woman of the house] (1883) and Domestic service. It is this work which made her known as the founder of the feminist movement in Spain.

A monument to Concepción Arenal was erected in 1934 in Madrid, and the Library of Law, Political Sciences and Labour Relations of the University of Santiago de Compostela bears her name. Ideologically, Arenal was a reformist deeply rooted in Christian doctrine.