Dealing with current events in France and Spain, this is the only comparative study of its kind, investigating how women construct their identities within the public sphere and highlighting the ways in which traditional or modern values impact on female identity in these countries. Which female figures are proposed for our admiration? Who proposes them and what values do they represent? This is an evaluation of womens lives at the end of the 20th Century the Century of Women celebrating the achievements and looking to opportunities presented by the century to come.