Concepción Arenal

 

    While in Spain I had the opportunity to learn lots about Concepción Arenal! Something that I learned about her is that in order to go to law school she had to dress like a boy. She had to do this for the men's sake. This really stuck out to me because I feel like we are still being told how to dress because of how males will take it. It is crazy that she died 110 years before I was born but we can both relate to this. Another thing I have learned about her is that she was an advocate for women in prison. She cared about how they were being treated and took action. I found it crazy that she was fired from being a prison inspector just because she was trying to help them. I think this makes her very honorable.

    Concepción Arenal was an amazing feminist that fought for the right of women's education! I think this is a huge deal. It is because of women like her that I have the ability to go to BYU and write this blog post! I also think her contribution in women's prisons has been really important. Prisoners are real people and it is important that they are treated as such. I think her help has inspired others to make sure prisoners are being treated like humans. I do not exactly know how the conditions used to be and how they are now but I have a feeling that they have improved! 

    I do not think she has been commemorated well. She has a nice big statue but it is very far away from things. The chances of someone just randomly finding her statue are not very good. I did not know who she was before this class and I have a feeling I am not the only one. People like me need these statues in an area where we will easily find them. Seeing a statue and reading its plaque can help introduce you to amazing people. Everyone needs an introduction to someone or something in order to learn more about it. Because of this I think her statue should be in a much better place. A more central place in Madrid that lots of people go by.


Comments

  1. Hannah BryanMay 19, 2024 at 5:41 AM

    Hi Molly! You did a great job on this blog post. I don't think that the comment prompt really encourages me to respond to what you wrote, so I'm just going to reply to the prompt here.

    As discussed in lecture, the statue of Concepcion Arenal we visited is on the margins of the village of Madrid, meaning it is quite out of the way and difficult to find without the specific intent of finding it. I think that because her commemoration is sidelined, Arenal is kept from contributing to cultural creation in the area where she conducted her academic pursuits and activism. This exclusion helps us to understand that as a society we assign more value to cities that highlight the achievements and accomplishments of men than we value cities that center women and their lives.

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  2. Kaia HathawayMay 23, 2024 at 6:41 AM

    Hi Molly! Great post. As you mentioned, Concepcion Arenal faced issues of being a women during her time. She had to dress as a man in order to go to law school. And I liked how you mentioned how we still dress according to men or for the sake of men. Whether that means we can't dress provocatively otherwise we "tempt" men or for some other reason. I think we still see these issues today, even though she made a step in the right direction in changing these standards. As for understanding her in relation to the city, we can learn about her contribution and how she is commemorated. I do think it's tricky how she is commemorated. We can see what the city still thinks about her and her contribution to society in this way.

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