For over 20 years, the Spanish Women's Union (UME) was the only female organization of exiled Spanish republicans. Encompassing the period of antifascist combat in the 1930's through the beginning of the Cold War, Madres Coraje contra Franco traces the history of this organization in France, thereby situating it within a more global, European context. In addition, the UME held ties with the strongest, antifascist transnational organization emerging at the close of WWII - The Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) - which allowed female, antifascist activists from several countries to grapple for political influence in the definition of reconstruction policies and the installation of a new world order. By promoting models and behaviors valorizing traditional, feminine virtues associated primarily with motherhood, both UME and WDIF projected a clear, political signification upon them, thereby leveraging traditional notions of women as a source of legitimacy and authority for female political activism. Finally, beyond clear ties to the political strategies of the USSR during the Cold War, these organizations managed to establish an antifascist political culture that targeted women, and that emerged from the demands of a militant, maternal, female population that was then politicized as a source of legitimacy and empowerment for antifascist women.
