Feminism and translation in the 1960s: The reception in Catalunya of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique

Abstract

In 1965, two years after the publication in the United States of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, the Barcelona publishing house Edicions 62 published the Catalan translation, La mística de la feminitat, by Jordi Solé-Tura. Betty Friedan was the first feminist thinker to be translated into Catalan during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. This article studies the reception in Catalunya of the foundational essay of Anglo-American feminism The Feminine Mystique, taking into consideration that the translation prompted a similar essay adapted to the situation in Catalunya, La dona a Catalunya by Maria Aurèlia Capmany, which revolutionized the feminism of the time. The Spanish translation, published in Barcelona the same summer, is also considered. Particular attention is paid to discussing the reasons why the Catalan and Spanish translations of Friedan’s essay were promoted within different and opposing ideological contexts.