The women of the loyalist zone were a crucial component of the antifascist imagined community the volunteers believed they were fighting for. Chapter five shows that Spanish women ߝ although largely absent from subsequent accounts of the International Brigades ߝ were a major presence in the volunteersߣ lives, whether in the form of loyalist posters depicting heroic mothers beneath the shadows of German aircraft, news articles highlighting the tireless antifascist work taking place in rearguard factories, or letters from relatives back home encouraging the soldiers to fulfil their masculine duty by continuing to fight the enemy at the gates. Encounters could be even more direct, with many volunteers striking up relationships with young women in villages, finding themselves looked after by Spanish nurses in hospitals and pursuing opportunities for sex in brothels. To understand the origins, reception and impact of these encounters, this chapter investigates the volunteersߣ gendered assumptions about masculinity and femininity at a time of war. In so doing, it argues that encounters with women directly fed into their overlapping identities as men, as soldiers and as antifascists.