Tea Rooms: Working Women
Tea Rooms: Working Women is a social novel written by the Spanish communist activist, journalist and author Luisa Carnés Caballero. The work was published for the first time in 1934 thanks to a group of publishers dedicated to social denunciation. Much later, in 2016, the book was republished and returned to the literary arena by the Gijón publishing house Hoja de Lata.
After the end of the Spanish Civil War, Luisa Carnés went into exile in Mexico. Although the author continued writing until the day of her death, Tea Rooms: Working Women It was relegated to oblivion, despite the fact that its launch had enjoyed great popularity and warmth from critics. In the present, The book is an example of feminism and a recounting of society's past mistakes.
Synopsis of Tea Rooms: Working Women
Ten hours of work, tiredness, three pesetas
The novel tells the story of several women who work as waitresses in a prestigious tea room in Madrid., at the beginning of the thirties, at the dawn of the Second Republic. Each of these ladies has her own story arc: Antonia is a veteran whom no one recognizes for her work; Peca, for her part, is thirty years old and is very religious.
Marta entered the tea room desperate for a job. Laurita is a kind of goddaughter to the owner of the place, so she presents herself as the most carefree and crazy of them. Finally, there is Matilde, the alter ego of the author, a poor young girl, but with her own ideas about how society should work for women.
Villains dress noble
Both the owner of the tea room and his assistant —in addition to other people of power in general— are portrayed as unfair, abusive and undesirable, almost to the point of becoming slavers who care very little about the well-being of the employees. The manager shows an arrogant character, while she is afraid of the supreme boss, who is an “ogre.”
The work, As the name implies, focuses on reflecting on the lives of these working women, of their low salaries and the long working hours to which they were subjected. This was the feminine reality of that time, and Luisa Carnés Caballero develops it with complete fidelity, since she herself lived it firsthand. In fact, one of the protagonists of it, Matilde, is inspired by the author.
The weight on women's shoulders
The main characters of this novel are brave women, with brothers to feed and parents who can no longer work—although they always look for more than one way to earn their bread. Tea Rooms: Working Women talks about female exploitation on two fronts. On one hand, the private, where ladies are forced to marry, y for the other, in the workplace, where they are not paid enough.
Matilde dreams of a future where women are able to carve their own path without depending on a man, where they can stand on their feet and choose what they want to do with their lives. There are girls who long to go to schools where only the daughters of powerful men are admitted, others want to create their own businesses, and others simply want to take care of their families.
A novel ahead of its time
Luisa Carnés Caballero's way of thinking led her in a fight that was at least twenty years ahead of the scholars of her time. In Tea Rooms: Working Women tells how the adolescence of many girls was interrupted by the galls of hard work without adequate remuneration, as well as the harassment that women often suffered from their male bosses.
The pure social realism of Luisa Carnés is mixed with a direct narrative style, denunciation and prose feminist. Topics such as marriage, prostitution, abortion, sexual abuse, among others, are also addressed.. Tea Rooms raises something never before seen until now: the emergence of a different woman, self-possessed, who seeks emancipation through decent work.
Inside politics
During the 1930s, Spain experienced a situation of great political and social instability. There were countless complaints of terrible working conditions and unjustified treatment of workers. This context served as the backdrop for the creation of Tea Rooms: Working Women. At the time, the readers of this novel were relieved to notice that one of them—a worker—was recounting the reality of the country.
The text also mentions the class struggle, and how the most privileged would never know what it is like to go hungry or not have the freedom to decide about one's own life. This wouldn't have to be a problem, if it weren't for the fact that The protagonists reveal the systematic suffering of the poor.
About the author, Luisa Genoveva Carnés
Luisa Genoveva Carnés Caballero was born on January 3, 1905, in Madrid, Spain. She grew up in a family of working class origins, and He had to leave school at the age of 11 to work in a hat workshop due to the financial situation of your home. He devoted his little free time to independent study of the press, literature, history and politics, and published his first novel in 1928.
In 1930 she began working as a stenographer at the publishing company Compañía Iberoamericana de Publicaciones (CIAP). It is there where she met the cartoonist Ramón Puyol, who became her husband shortly after her. When the Civil War, the author focused on her career as a militant journalist. Later, once the war was over and the republican party had lost, he went into exile in Mexico.
Other books by Luisa Carnés Caballero
- thirteen stories (Hoja de Lata Editorial, 2017);f
- Rosalia (Hoja de Lata Editorial, 2017);
- From Barcelona to French Brittany (Editorial Renacimiento, 2014);
- the missing link (Editorial Renacimiento, 2017);
- Red and gray. Complete stories I (Ediciones Espuela de Plata, 2018);
- Where the Laurel Sprouted, Complete Stories II (Ediciones Espuela de Plata, 2018);
- Natacha (Ediciones Espuela de Plata, 2019).