Resumen de Sugaring the Pill: Emilia Pardo Bazán, John Stuart Mill and the Biblioteca de la Mujer
This article establishes how the pioneering feminist Emilia Pardo Bazán sought to introduce to the Spanish public John Stuart Mill’s polemic The Subjection of Women. It does so by examining the Biblioteca de la Mujer series, the publishing project Pardo Bazán established in 1892 to spread awareness of the growing moves towards female emancipation in Europe. It looks at the frame provided by the other volumes in that series and their efforts to re-establish the claims of Spanish women to prominence in the nation’s cultural imaginary. The discussion then focuses in detail on the text of La esclavitud femenina, the title given to Mill’s tract in Spanish, and on the questions of authorship that surround the text. Particular attention is paid to the subtle amendments incorporated into the translation to strengthen its feminist case and also to attenuate its potentially controversial aspects.
