The delegate of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion of RTVE, Montserrat Boix, has presented her resignation after the election of the song Zorra, by the Alicante duo Nebulossa, as representative of Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest, which will be held in May in Malmö (Sweden). ). “Bitch is neither empowerment for women, nor feminism,” the journalist wrote this Friday on her social network account X (formerly Twitter) when announcing that she is resigning from her position. “I apologize to the victims of gender violence,” she writes, alluding to the fact that “zorra” is the sexist insult uttered by the perpetrators when committing the attack, according to women's protection associations.
“The problem is more serious, and has nothing to do with artistic creation or individual opinions,” explains Montserrat Boix in a telephone conversation with La Vanguardia. “It has to do with the responsibility of RTVE as a public institution in the commitment to equality and the fight against gender violence, at a time when women's protection associations have raised the alarm about this song,” he continues. Boix–. When protesting, what I have been told is that this is about points of view, that 'this is what you say and other people think something else.'"
Montserrat Boix (Polinyà, Barcelona, 1960), a journalist with a long career in equality and women's issues, considers that “the problem has grown in crescendo when trying to justify this song as empowerment; “To say that you are a feminist is an escape forward, even though RTVE has a specific mandate, and is in the State Observatory of Violence against Women.” After days of internal struggle, Boix decided to resign. “It was not a hasty decision, I have been hallucinating for more than a week; "I have felt the ethical obligation to resign."
The Catalan journalist remembers that her first job as an Equality delegate – a position attached to the General Secretariat of RTVE – was to change the bases of the Benidorm Fest at the request of José Manuel Pérez Tornero, then president of RTVE, after the controversy when the song SloMo by Chanel won the 2022 Benidorm Fest. “There was a reifying message, and Pérez Tornero was worried about the argument they gave him that nothing could be done because it was not in the bases; That is why we incorporated into the bases before a notary an explicit reference to the fact that the contents could not be contrary to RTVE's commitments in terms of equality,” explains Boix.
On the other hand, RTVE sources indicated this Friday night that Montserrat Boix's work as RTVE's Equality, Inclusion and Diversity delegate "was going to end shortly", so they consider that her resignation several days after the Benidorm Fest seeks the controversy.
In another vein, Montserrat Boix regrets the endorsement of the song by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who on Monday said that “the fachosphere would have liked to have Cara al Sol.” With that phrase, Boix maintains, Sánchez “has tied up the socialist feminists, with the exception of Elena Valenciano, Soledad Murillo and a few others.”
Other ministers have come out in defense of the song. The head of Equality, Ana Redondo, endorsed it last Monday, although avoiding the term feminist and praising that “it breaks stereotypes, breaks molds, breaks with ageism.” The Ministers of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, and Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, also supported Nebulossa's song this Friday. Urtasun called her “groundbreaking, fresh and new,” and Grande-Marlaska said that he conveys her message “with his own lexicon.”
