Ciemposuelos is a municipality located 35 kilometers south of Madrid at an altitude of 568 meters. The origins of the town likely date to the Roman period. It has been served by a rail connection to Madrid since 1851.
History
Ciemposuelos was home to one of the reformatories for women labeled deviant by the Francoist state. It was not a women’s prison. It held girls and women aged 16 to 25. Once there, women were separated from their families, stripped of identification, institutionalized, cut off from the rest of the world and left completely helpless. It was one of the largest of its kind in Spain, specifically for women of this age. It was also the prison of last resort for women sentenced here, with no possibility of leaving. Inside it, there was another level for even more desperate cases called “Las Patronatas”. It was a hidden prison system inside Spain, to which very little continues to be known. Life for women was similar to living between a military barracks and a prison. The only way out from Las Patronatas was escape, with only a few women managing to do that. For cases labeled extreme by the state, some women were put into straight-jackets and tied to the bed. Many sought release by trying to kill themselves or actually committing suicide.
See
Calle Rosa Chacel is a street located in the town. It is named after the writer Rosa Chacel, who was born in Valladolid on 3 June 1898. A member of the Generación del 27, she would write her autobiography Acrópolis which discussed being a lesbian in Spain in the 1920s.
Calle Carmen Conde is a street in the town named after Carmen Conde, a poet, dramatist, essayist, Spanish teacher and a member of the generación del 27. Born on 15 August 1907 in Cartagena, she was also a member of the Círculo Sáfico de Madrid, and met her partner Amanda Junquera during the Civil War and was with her until Junquera’s death in 1987.
Plaza de Gloria Fuertes is a plaza in the town named in honor of Gloria Fuertes. Fuertes was a poet and member of the Generación del 50, the first post-war generation of Spanish writers. She was a lesbian and feminist, and an important one in Francoist Spain at a time when the regime demanded conformity to strict ideological gender roles.
España Sáfica 