“You’re living the real feminist revolution”
“You’re living the real feminist revolution”, dazzling eyes, she tells me. Does a real revolution take as long as real change? The carless city is bright with her, I nod, I haven’t seen this many women in a public space and this isn’t my first women’s strike or protest for gender equality. Last year millions of women went on strike across Spain, exploding the streets and brazenly facing the police forces. In Barcelona strikers were inimical about the State’s earlier violation of human rights in the 2017 Catalan referendum and protests were directly affronting police presence.
Spain’s gender overall earnings gap is 35.7 %, a little lower than the average gender overall earnings gap of the EU’s 39.6 %. The gender overall earnings gap is a way to measure contributing factors impacting financial security and prosperity of genders.
“The gender pay gap in Spain”
In Spain women make more than 50% of the workforce and their absence in the workplace didn’t go unnoticed. Around 8am last Friday, traffic jams formed on major roads in Barcelona metropolitan and public transport was packed, it wasn’t easy to ignore the daily discrimination women face in society and the economy. The gender pay gap impacts industries differently and who could be sure of each woman’s motivation to strike that day.
Some come from job exhaustion and a paltry wage, relegated into precarious employment positions as they’re unable to push through to positions with greater job satisfaction and social impact; “ 83% of top positions in politics are held by men”. Others coming from a sense of injustice and have acquired the discourse and diplomatic tools to battle with authority and anti-feminist domains. Signs thrust with viral hashtags against the persistent violence and harassment of women, asserting the fowl reality of headlines, statistics and Spanish courts condone gender inequality.
Making their demands heard, the strike combined these voices and sights of
Strength,
Bravery,
Solidarity,
Courage,
Care,
Love,
Defiance,
And pride could be seen.
A world without patriarchy is a long walk.
Ecofeminism shines light on the fabric underneath cloaks entering chambers of justice and the coveted religious robes lighting candles, a type of cloth which has historically oppressed genders, placed suffocating roles on people and created a stressful, tense and toxic environment. Built on narrow definition of rights and responsibilities, religious apparatuses pretend to be a moral guide but omit the woman. Eco feminist school of thought suggests the exploitation of women and the earth are interwoven and this garment is unnaturally created through rigid systems of domination.
“There is an innate connection between violence against women and violence against nature, and that any endeavour to save the planet must be joined to that of freeing women from such oppression.” Joy Pincus. http://www.wloe.org/Uprooting-the-Patriarchy.435.0.html
This violent connection, which is the subject of the strike and march on international day of women is the same fight people living close to nature confront. Corporations and profit-motivated entities threaten groups and activists defending ecological rights.
These injustices fleetingly enter mainstream news and we’re reminded how our modern consumerist value system permits destruction of land for superfluous goods.
“If we don’t see the that we are utterly imbedded in the natural world and dependent on nature, not technology, not economics, not science — we are dependent on Mother Nature for our very well being and survival. If we don’t see that, then our priorities will continue to be driven by man-made constructs like national borders, economies, corporations, markets. Those are all human created things. They shouldn’t dominate the way we live. It should be the biosphere…”
The ecofeminist discourse is expansive and highlights the emptiness of western economics to categorise the human experience and distracts populations from finding a peaceful existence.
In “construyendo biocivilización, once claves de repudio y de retorno a lo sagrado” Pedro Burruezo stipulates readings of bible texts in the middle ages helped to initiate the unscalable wall between humans and cosmic order. These religious texts imposed a moral code contrary to natural laws and ruptured the spiritual affinity between humans and nature. Today we’re walking contradictions; we preach kindness and etiquette yet permit wars to continue under the guise we cannot change our way of life.
Religious institutions come under fire when revelations of sexual abuse surface but churches remain resilient, shifting the blame onto the individual and ignoring how a system cultivates such attitudes and behaviour. The popular occidental belief systems demand strict regiment, preordain the body as a sin and denigrate women as material objects (evident in other religious texts as well). In the essay Burruezo lists how we went astray and theological tradition compliments economic determinism and monetary measure of social bonds and production.
The evening march contained drums, spontaneous chanting, cheering and waves of unification. The colourful presentation of women was emotionally uplifting. Walking around sighting manifestations of all sizes it felt decentralised, perhaps this was the real revolution. Yet there were gaps in my global experiences, how will equal pay change our values and ethics and ensure ecological systems are at the forefront of collective focus?
Vibrant and confronting ideas painted the town, reminding walkers the historical exploitation of women and earth and I wondered about the well known phrase La Revolución será feminista o no será. Below is one of the first photographic opportunities of the day. This beautiful striker was with her mother and they agreed for their photo to be taken. Beautiful representations of generations to come moving forward the feminine change.
