Editorial 8M | Feminism: better on the street than in politics

In a 8M held after an eve of tripping in the Congress of Deputies on account of the necessary reform of the law of ‘only yes is yes’ and the appropriation by the socialist party of the parity law It would be easy, but inadequate, to summarize that the day of protests has developed marked by, or despite, the division of feminism. It would be unfair for the political action of the parties in matters of equality to cannibalize the reality of a broad social movement. It would be wrong to consider that the internal disputes between the formations of the government coalition are simply reflected in the existing positions a much richer, more diverse and independent collective. Feminism in the political sphere is not at a precisely exemplary moment. But that does not mean that feminism, as a social phenomenon, as one of the underlying currents that most influentially defines the transformations we have experienced in recent years, is not taking significant steps and reaping achievements that a little more than a decade ago were aspirations. That they were living demands, but shared by a much less majority than today.

The bloody cases of gender violence that shock us almost daily reach our ears because they don’t shut up anymoreThey are not hidden but are reported. Situations of labor inequality, in the distribution of responsibilities and care burdens within families or in the most diverse positions of power are identified as such because they are no longer assumed to be natural. Even the disturbing resurgence of uncomplicatedly macho positions, when not aggressively violent, is still the cornered response of those who see that reality no longer bends to the will of their privileges and desires.

So we say that political reality is in dissonance with social reality. Although, unfortunately, beyond the movement experienced by adolescents who are redefining their role, the day-to-day life of businesswomen, managers or workers who are changing the culture in work environments, of the groups that denounce situations of abuse from the college To Showbiz, If we talk about organized feminism, it seems that their confusion reflects what happens in the field of politicslocked in self-absorbed divisions.

In the dialectical struggle that has created one of the biggest cracks in the established feminist movement, the one that surrounds the recognition of the rights of trans people From a specific definition of gender ideology, one of the two sectors in contention disqualifies the other with the term trans-exclusionary. That may be an exclusive vision, but there are too many more: in other debates that feminist organizations have sparked, such as that of the legalization or abolition of prostitution or what are the practical consequences of reconciliation policies, and the overload that the claim of women as essentially caregivers can entail.

What has to be achieved is still a lot. The threats that what has been achieved will succumb to a reactive wave are all too real. Feminism, explained the influential Rebecca Solnit, has won the battle of the narrative. But it should not be just a discourse but an effective and shared instrument of transformation.

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