Feminism to take to streets of Malaga on 8 March as an example of unity: ‘Equality is still in its infancy’

The Malaga feminist movement is taking to the streets this 8 March, International Women's Day, well aware of the challenges still facing the struggle for equality. Anabel Santos, from the Puntos Subversivos feminist women's association, summarises these challenges for SUR:

"We have to promote equality and co-responsibility in care and housework and also in women's access to decision-making positions. In all these things we are still in our infancy."

There is still work to be done to achieve equality at home, in the street and in high positions, as Santos says, "the abolition of patriarchy, all abolitions [in a veiled reference also to prostitution]; feminism is abolitionist".

Lola Rodríguez is a veteran feminist from Malaga and founder more than twenty years ago of the lobby group against gender-based violence, Violencia Cero. She adds another concern with which women will attend this 8 March rally: "We have, no matter what, to protect the right to abortion. It is at risk. We have to fight for it, because with what is coming..."

In a conversation with SUR, feminists from Malaga bring up the example of France, since there the parliament approved a move to enshrine abortion in its constitution, in contrast to how in the US they have taken steps backwards in its recognition.

Abortion is a prime example of the paradox that surrounds the feminist movement: laws recognise rights, but there is always - more or less explicitly - the threat of moving backwards.

Many of the women SUR speaks to find it ironic that they began fighting for abortion rights decades ago, before they thought about becoming mothers, and have to continue defending those rights after biology has put an end to their reproductive calendar. But they are very serious when they point out that it is a right that still cannot be exercised in many places in Spain and the world.

Because the law, they say, is not being complied with. And it is not only this one. "We still have to continue demanding labour rights, better working conditions for women, and more public services," adds Carmen Martín, president of the Violencia Cero platform against gender violence.

Glass ceilings, sticky floors, greater job insecurity among women than men, part-time contracts, wage gaps. These are still obstacles that affect women in their day-to-day work.

Pilar Iglesias Aparicio, member of the support group for victims of reprisals and of the Puntos Subversivos association, adds that there are other aspects included in legislation that have not yet been applied: relationships and sex education, the training of judicial workers in gender perspective so that they know how to apply the laws well - "it is clear that there are many judges who act without such training", she says. Rosa Gómez Torralbo, who was part of the team that built the Andalusian Institute for Women, also urges the revision of the protection procedures for women, because she considers that they are not working.

"We are seeing that violence is becoming more and more structured," they all agree. And they are even critical of the way in which the money earmarked for combating gender-based violence and supporting women is used: "Resources are being made available, but the problem is that there is no monitoring of their use," insists Martín.

The campaign against gender-based violence has its own day marked on the calendar, 25 November, but this, and every, 8 March, it is an issue that takes much prominence.

"We are losing the battle against violence, not only on the part of partners or ex-partners, but also with sexual violence against increasingly young children. And we have a commitment that I think is important, which is that pornography should not be freely accessible to children or adults either. And we also demand compliance with the law that prohibits reproductive exploitation, the 'commodification' of bodies, and surrogate wombs. In addition, we have proposed a law abolishing the prostitution system," summarises Carmen Martín, who insists: "We have an agenda; we have proposals."

"It is the only agreed global agenda," says Anabel Santos. This is what characterises the fourth wave of feminism, the current one.

However, in addition to these challenges, there are others to which Santos herself refers: "A very important challenge ahead of us is good dialogue between all feminists and international pressure, to recover political dialogue." What she means by this is that the feminist movement needs to unite and from there have a voice in international organisations, in the UN, for example, after having agreed on a global agenda.

Women and the global social movement they have built and which has never been as active as in recent years, need to be heard.

Rocío López, president of Fórum de Política Feminista, says: "The feminist movement has proven to be the only one that has maintained its strength after the pandemic and this fourth wave is global."

But this effervescence has also coincided with a fracture of feminism, or with a greater visibility of the different aspects that compose it (that of equality, that of difference, socialist, liberal, libertarian...).

What most reaches ordinary people is that it has split in two in many cities where on 8 March there is not a single demonstration, but two: that of feminism that has come to be called "classic" and that of other orientations influenced by queer theory, which makes gender identity and sexual identity something more fluid, not so much determined by biology as by choice, social negotiation and rebellion against established dualism. This also implies a diatribe on who makes up the subject of feminism, whether only the biological woman or whether it can be extended to people who feel women.

In Malaga, however, as has always been the case, a single demonstration has been planned in which all sensibilities, banners and slogans, which in some cases include veiled attacks on each other, will coexist. And if it is possible to walk united from the difference, explains Andrea Barbotta, vice-president of the Andalusian council of women's participation, is because the feminist movement in Malaga is very solid, to which Anabel Santos adds: "There is a lot of training in pacts and negotiation or other leadership models. And that makes integration possible and division is not made visible, although it does, de facto, exist.

Unity is also possible because feminism in Malaga has deep roots and in many ways is a pioneer, with many women who were part of the movement that reached the institutions, with one of the first women's centres in Spain, with the beginnings of the Andalusian Institute for Women, with associations of women victims of gender-based violence dating back to no less than the eighties.