Fourth-wave feminism in Spain is about digital participation in virtual spaces, encouraging debates and using collective force to enact change. It is about fighting patriarchal systems, denouncing violence against women, and discrimination and inequality faced by women. It is also about creating real and effective equality between women and men. It has several major themes, with the first and most important in a Spanish context being violence against women. Other themes include the abolition of prostitution, the condemnation of pornography, the support of legal abortion, the amplifying of women's voices, ensuring mothers and fathers both have access to parental leave, opposition to surrogacy (), and wage and economic parity.
Major influences in this wave include Andrea Dworkin, Chilean feminist Andrea Franulic and works such as How to be a woman by Caitlin Moran, Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, We should all be feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and El diario violeta de Carlota by Gemma Lienas.
Fourth-wave Spanish feminism came out of a response to conservatism in the 1980s and a broader problem of feminists in Latin America and Europe succeeding in their goals, with feminism then largely coming under state control. These forces converged in the 1990s, as lipstick feminism, consumerist feminism and American queer theory were rejected and women started to make demands around gender and sexist violence in response to events like the murder of Ana Orantes in Granada on 17 December 1997. This led to media discussions around the portrayal of women and violence against women. Jokes about women being hit by boyfriends and husbands were no longer acceptable on television. This violence against women, coupled with female activists using the Internet to mobilize women to act, led to the fourth-wave advancing in Spain. 2018 would be the year that fourth-wave feminism began its peak in Spain as a result of a number of different factors, with women mobilized on a large scale to take to the streets. In 2019, issues important to fourth-wavers would be at the heart of many political conversations and the 2019 Spanish general elections.
There were a number of important events that helped spur this wave. This included the 2009 murder of Marta del Castillo, 2014 Tren de la Libertad, the first International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women march in 2015, the murder of Diana Quer in 2016, the 2018 International Women's Workers Day general strike, and the 2018 La Manada rape case. Many of these events represented a first for Spanish feminist in that they represented the first period where women mobilized to protest against and condemn the institutional sexism of Spain's judiciary. Previous waves had focused on being allowed into the political sphere.
Wave context Much of the study of feminism uses Anglo-Saxon models of discourse. According to Italian academics like Rosi Braidotti, Gianna Pomata and Paola di Cor, this model can be problematic in the context of Mediterranean feminism as it ignores specific cultural baggage for women from the region. To compensate for this, Pomata suggests further elaboration of socio-historical context be given to properly situate this feminism in a broader global context.Pomata, Gianna: "Histoire des femmes, histoire du genre". In Perrot, Michelle, et DUBY, Georges, eds.: Femmes e histoire. Colloque organisé par G. DUBY, M. PERROT, et les directrices de l'histoire des femmes en Occident. Paris, Plon, nov. 1992, pp. 25-37. These models are also particularly problematic in a Spanish context as they fail to address the very nature of Francoism that sought to purge all female identity from society through forced assimilation legitimized by fear and violence. Internationally, comparisons can be difficult. Anglo-Saxon first-wave feminism is second-wave for Europeans and Latin American feminists. Second-wave American and British feminism is also third-wave for Europeans and Latin Americans.
Spanish feminism went through several waves in the Francoist period. Broadly speaking, they are first-wave feminism taking place from the mid-nineteenth century to 1965, second-wave feminism taking place from 1965 to 1975, and third-wave feminism taking place from 1975 to 2012.Nielfa Cristóbal, Gloria. Movimientos femeninos, en Enciclopedia Madrid S.XX Fourth-wave feminism in Spain began in the mid-1990s. When resolving waves around the work of important Spanish speaking feminists discussing wave theory like Amelia Valcárcel, the Spanish fourth-wave may at times actually represent an international fifth wave, not a fourth one.
First-wave
First-wave Spanish feminism was about women assisting other women in improving their lives. Spanish first-wave feminism drew from eighteenth century with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Despite the revolutionary nature of the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Civil War as it related to the rights of women, neither resulted in a fundamental change in Spanish society's attitudes towards women. Patriarchy continued to play a huge role in the lives of Spanish women across both periods, and then into the Franco era. Following the end of the Spanish Civil War, many of Spain's leading feminists were forced into exile. Feminists in the Francoist period were largely divided by age and side of the Civil War they were affiliated with. The two primary age groups were those women born between 1910 and 1930, and those women born between 1930 and 1950. For Republican women born between 1910 and 1930, they often found themselves forced to submit in ways they had not had to previously and many of these feminists faced active persecution. Feminism and socialism continued to have a fraught relationship during the early Francoist period.
Second-wave
Second-wave Spanish feminism was about the struggle for the rights of women in the context of the dictatorship. PCE would start in 1965 to promote this movement with MDM, creating a feminist political orientation around building solidarity for women and assisting imprisoned political figures. MDM launched its movement in Madrid by establishing associations among the housewives of the Tetuán and Getafe in 1969. In 1972, Asociación Castellana de Amas de Casa y Consumidora was created to widen the group's ability to attract members. The 1960s in Spain saw a generational shift in Spanish feminist in response to other changes going on in Spanish society. This included greater contact with foreign ideas as a result of emigration and tourism, increased educational and employment opportunities for women and major economic reforms. Feminism in the late Franco period and early transition period was not unified. It had many different political dimensions. These varying movements all intersected in their belief that the need for greater equality for women in Spain and the need to defend the rights of women. Feminism moved from being out the individual to being about the collective. It was during this period that second-wave feminism came to Spain. Spanish second-wave feminists were mobilized in this wave around three primary issues: sexual harassment, sexual assault and prostitution. Women were repressed because they were viewed as interchangeable parts of a social contract focused around make desire. Fourth-wavers built on second-wave feminists by attempting to reclaim their bodies. This includes drawing on issues of the importance of beauty and sexual harassment. Fourth-wave feminists reclaim their bodies by insisting they will not tolerate art or entertainment that suggests women in high culture play secondary roles. This includes as being only objects of beauty or victims of rape, in roles that exult macho culture.
Third-wave
Franco's death precipitated the start of the Spanish third-wave. Like many other western countries, this movement defined feminism as a social, political and cultural movement. Spanish third-wave feminism was the result of high-profile quarrels among leftist women and increasingly involvement of male dominated political organizations. This new wave of feminism was both similar and notably dissimilar to their American counterparts of the same name by being more explicitly socialist and politically focused on class in their orientation. Third-wave Spanish feminism focused on the autonomy of women in their ability to define their own priorities and strategies. The major organization in the wave's early history was Frente de Liberación de la Mujer, which was founded in 1976 in Madrid. Other third-wave feminist women founded Partido Feminist (PF) and Seminario Colectivo Feminista, an organization founded in 1976 as a result in a split inside PF. According to A. Valcárcel, "Without a recognizable feminist past, having suffered like the whole country the ablation of memory, we supplied ourselves with varied sources but it helped us a lot not to miss the very magnitude of the objectives we were facing." Third-wave feminism process wise was often about self-criticism. This process nearly destroyed feminism as a movement in Spain.
Themes
Spanish feminist authors Pilar Aguilar, Luisa Posada, Rosa Cobo and Alicia Miyares all agree that Spanish feminism has moved into a fourth-wave. Fourth-wave Spanish feminism, existing since the 1990s, draws very specific roots to sexist and machismo violence enacted upon the bodies of women, and women's responses to this. Achieving equality is framed around ending such violence against women. Like every big feminist wave, this wave too faced massive patriarchal backlash.
Fourth-wave feminism is about digital participation in virtual spaces, encouraging debates and using collective force to enact change. Fourth-wave feminism is fragmented, and is not monolithic. This has forced the movement to be a space where feminists need to engage in dialogues with others and to acknowledge other points of view while everyone works towards overcoming patriarchal systems. Fourth-wave feminism posits that as rights are acquired, they need to be consolidated to ensure the state maintains protections needed by women and policies of equality around health, education and violence against women. Fourth-wave Spanish feminism draws from both equality feminism and institutional feminism. Fragmentation in the feminist movement leading into the start of the fourth-wave have led it to sometimes being called post-feminism or post-structuralist feminism.
Feminism is plural. Feminism has never been about a singular movement, singular ideology or being monolithic. Fourth-wave feminism encompasses many variants including ecofeminism, transfeminism, difference feminism, equality feminism, liberal feminism, radical feminism, libertarian feminism, Islamic feminism, Romani feminism, lesbian feminism and postcolonial feminism. It allows new points of views and different approaches to solving problems. Fourth-wave feminism, like other waves before it, is not about the existence of a single ideology or entity or collective. It is about drawing together in collective groups to work together towards a common goal of ending violence against women in order to free women to have the options to take the paths they desire; it is about mutual commitment to other women and about supporting other women.
Fourth-wave feminism is about fighting patriarchal systems, denouncing violence against women, and discrimination and inequality faced by women. It is about creating real and effective equality between women and men. It draws many young women into its ideology and actions. Fourth-wave feminism is about women re-drawing lines around their comfort and preferences when it comes to things being done to their bodies.
Violence against women