One tactic employed by Nationalist troops was to use women to try to lure out Republican forces from concealed positions. They would use women's voices or get women to say they were civilians under siege. As a consequence, some Republican troops were hesitant when confronting women under apparent siege on the front as they did not always trust claims of needs for assistance. Spanish women supported the Republican war efforts behind the front lines. They made uniforms, worked in munitions factors, and served in women's corps similar to those organized by the US and British during World War I. In Madrid, women would go in pairs to cafes around the city, collecting money to support in the war effort. Many women on the Republican side joined JSU, serving in civilian roles near the front. Behind Nationalist lines, all women were forbidden from wearing pants. Instead, women were to wear skirts, which had to be long. Shirts were required to be long sleeved. Rape was so common that many pregnant women did not know who the fathers of their children were. Rape, along with murder and torture, were frequent tools used used by Nationalist forces to instill terror in women and keep them in line. Because of changes in society, women who wanted to be involved in the fight against fascist forces had two options: they could fight on the front lines or they could serve in auxiliary roles away from the front. Their options were not limited, like that of many women near the battlefields of World War I, where the only available role was that of auxiliary role to support men on the front. While women had been sporadically involved in combat in Spain, no large organized force of female fighters () had been mobilized prior to the Civil War. Notable women who had participated in the past included Napoleon resistance fighter Agustina de Aragón, Manuela Malasaña and Clara del Rey during the Peninsular War and Aida Lafuente, who took part in militant labor action in October 1934 in Asturias. During the Peninsular War, a writer for the "La Gaceta de Madrid" would ask why the city's women fighters exceeded their men in courage. Despite their status as national icons, these women were the exception to the rule about women's roles in war. Republican women in prisons often faced situations their male counterparts did not have to deal with. Unlike their male counterparts, many women given death sentences for military rebellion were given the status of common criminals. Some women in Nationalist zones found their husbands arrested and executed because a Nationalist soldier coveted her.