We are still a long way from achieving equality between men and women. This is one of the conclusions reached yesterday by the majority of the speakers who staged a new Vanguard Forums at Casa Seat in Barcelona. Under the title “The challenges of feminism”, four leading women in different sectors –Laura Freixas, novelist and columnist for La Vanguardia; Gemma Lienas, novelist, editor and currently PSC deputy in Parliament; Estrella Montolío, professor and author of several books that analyze the mechanisms of communication; and Anna Mercadé, director of l'Observatori Dona Empresa i Economia- wanted to take an X-ray of the situation of women in today's society, and the deductions they reached were not very encouraging.
To break the ice, the moderator of the event, the journalist from La Vanguardia Cristina Sen, asked them about the progress made towards achieving equality between men and women, and there was a certain consensus that the goal was still a long way off. "We are not advancing," said Anna Mercadé. And she listed a whole string of figures to exemplify it. Among these, that 50% of the companies do not yet have a plan against harassment, that 70% do not have any women in their management leadership and that 75% of the reduced shifts correspond to women. "It's devastating," she stressed, later lamenting that the panorama is identical to that of the 1980s. "Nothing has changed," she maintained.
Laura Freixas was also pessimistic. She acknowledged that there had been "conquests", but she stressed at the same time that she still perceived many "showcase gestures", such as giving the Cervantes prize to a woman. In her understanding, gestures of this type are just that, gestures, while the harsh reality is observed paying attention to other parameters. Which is it? Well, for example, in the latest edition of the Arco contemporary art fair. “93% of the artists who exhibited were men,” she lamented.
Gemma Lienas was not much more optimistic. Quite the opposite. "Women's rights are going backwards," she snapped at the outset, to later add that from the
Unlike her predecessors in the use of the word, Professor Estrella Montolío wanted to provide a somewhat more optimistic reading. She admitted that she was detecting "a lot of setbacks", but she added that "something has been gained". She also asked for a common denominator between the different feminisms to join efforts and row in the same direction. “Are we better than before? Yes. Do we have to be satisfied? No. You have to continue at the barricade, ”she wielded.
In the division between the feminist movement that Montolío pointed out, Gemma Lienas wanted to delve into, assuring that "after each feminist wave there is a reaction from the patriarchy." And how does the other party react? Trying to divide women: "I think there has been a patriarchal entryism to confront feminists," she said while the rest of the speakers nodded in agreement. "Men have always tried to divide women," Mercadé added.
There was also unanimity in identifying social networks as a new form of violence against women. "80% of complaints about harassment in the networks are from women," said Montolío, to then ask himself: "And what will happen in the metaverse?" “We have expanded the space for violence,” she continued. "In this world, when women speak out in public they are harassed," she concluded. Lienas was totally in tune with that statement and recalled the women journalists "who had had to close their accounts on the networks due to the harassment they received."
Lienas also wanted to put on the table the problem of pornography in the education of young people. She explained that while she was on her way to Casa Seat to participate in the debate, she had received an alert explaining that five minors had been arrested for sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl in Badalona. "We are teaching young people, through porn, to get turned on by violence against women," she denounced. Freixas picked up her glove to affirm that it is necessary to "question pornography" and point out what, for her, is the greatest attack against women: the free choice of gender. “How can you defend equality and gender identity?” She asked herself, adding that “to correct inequality you have to know who is a boy and who is not”, because otherwise “statistics cannot be made”. "If we start not having disaggregated data, it will be very dramatic," Montolío explained.
As a climax, Gemma Lienas provided the proof of cotton that certifies, in her view, the prevailing inequality between men and women: motherhood. "Women realize that equality does not exist when they are mothers," she settled.
