The Unwanted FIFA Kiss — History of Spanish Women’s Long Struggle for Equal Rights

From La Perfect Casada (1583) to feminism, to marriage rights, to voting rights, and much more.

Caricature of Gracia y Justicia, the conservative magazine of political humor published in Spain during the Second Republic. It shows a group of feminist women breaking into an office to claim the right to divorce, even though they are single. The vignette is part of the campaign organized by Catholic right media and parties in order to avoid the legalization of divorce. The following dialogue is read in the text that accompanies the cartoon: — The divorce! … the divorce! We want the [right to] divorce! — But how bad do your husbands treat you? — No, we are single. (Public Domain). In this episode, my guest, Dr. Marta del Moral, talks about family crises and women’s anguish caused by restrictive and repressive divorce laws.

From a Spanish woman who attended university dressed as a man, to the reversal of a woman’s right to divorce an abusive husband to female members of the Spanish parliament who didn’t have the right to vote! This is the persistent story of the Spanish women’s fight for equal rights and the repressive and conservative forces that limited and continue to limit women’s liberties in Spain now.

The News:

Do you remember the Unwanted FIFA kiss back in August, when Mr. Luis Rubiales, the former president of the Spanish Football Federation, forced a kiss on Ms. Jenni Hermoso? Well, this week FIFA banned him from all football-related activities for three years. See, e.g., Reuters, Oct. 30, 2023.

Mr. Rubiales has labeled Ms. Hermoso’s allegations of a non-consensual kiss as a “social assassination” that is predicated on “false feminism.” See, e.g., WSJ, Oct. 30, 2023.

The History Behind News:

But Spain’s Me Too movement started back in 2016, after the horrifying La Manada gang rape case that shocked the nation…