{"id":3124,"date":"2025-04-07T23:00:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T21:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tallertraficantes.net\/laboratoria\/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=3124"},"modified":"2025-04-08T10:36:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T08:36:21","slug":"1-how-to-escape-the-trap-feminist-narratives-against-the-media-siege-and-punitivism","status":"publish","type":"avada_portfolio","link":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/publicacion\/1-how-to-escape-the-trap-feminist-narratives-against-the-media-siege-and-punitivism\/","title":{"rendered":"First chapter of “That Violence That Is More Than One.Feminist Movements, the Punitive State, and Other Horizons of Justice”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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1. How to Escape the Trap? Feminist Narratives against the Media Siege and Punitivism<\/h2>\n

By Valentina Huelga (Madrid)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How then can one expect the state to solve the problem of violence against women, when it constantly recapitulates its own history of colonialism, racism, and war? How can we ask the state to intervene when, in fact, its armed forces have always practiced rape and battery against enemy women? In fact, sexual and intimate violence against women has been a central military tactic of war and domination<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Angela Davis<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where We Are<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

F<\/span>eminists in the <\/span>Spanish <\/span>S<\/span>tate<\/span> have been immersed in a sort of hurricane that <\/span>never seems to<\/span> <\/span>hit land <\/span>for several years<\/span>; or, to be more precise, since the so-called \u201cLa Manada\u201d case, a gang rape, in which the ensuing legal and media process catapulted <\/span>feminist movements<\/span> <\/span>o<\/span>nto the streets.<\/span><\/span> <\/span>There is a long genealogy of feminist struggle in the <\/span>Spanish State<\/span>, going back to the dictatorship and the period of the so-called transition <\/span>to democracy<\/span>, with moments of greater or lesser intensity. However, <\/span>here <\/span>we want to base our analysis on the more recent period\u2014the one we have lived through\u2014in order to raise questions <\/span>in search of<\/span>, as the title of this chapter indicates, a way out of the trap of punitivism.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Like the meteorological phenomenon, we are in the center, in the eye of the hurricane, an apparently calm space, but surrounded by dense clouds <\/span>where<\/span> <\/span>the strongest winds<\/span> are found. Those dense clouds are the incessant media noise from which it seems that we cannot escape, a sort of <\/span>siege<\/span> that, on the one hand, fuels the <\/span>media-based right wing<\/span> and, on the other hand, is pushed by a feminism that flirts with punitive positions and <\/span>that<\/span>, curiously, is also transexclusive. <\/span><\/p>\n

Faced with<\/span> this dead end of which, at times, there seemed to be no way out, we wanted to retrace our steps, look back, and ask ourselves what <\/span>was going on in the feminist movement when<\/span> the La Manada gang rape occurred (Pamplona, July 2016). Furthermore, what was the context of the global feminist movement at the time? What autonomous feminist narratives emerged <\/span>from the context of La Manada case<\/span>? What <\/span>was<\/span> the combative narrative that catalyzed feminist mobilizations between 2016 and 2020? What were the effects of the repression and criminalization of the movement <\/span>starting<\/span> in the spring of 2020? In short, how did we get here? <\/span>A<\/span>bove all, how can we fight against impunity when it comes to sexist violence, while, at the same time, positioning ourselves against punitivism? We believe that the only way out of this difficult situation is through collective thought and dialogue among compa\u00f1eras, especially from a global perspective. <\/span>Toward <\/span>that end, this text enters into dialogue with the texts by compa\u00f1eras from La Laboratoria\u2019s other nodes <\/span>that are brought together in this publication.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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We will <\/span>trace<\/span> a timeline <\/span>that allows<\/span> us to follow the trail of the story and the feminist narratives that emerged in response to the patriarchal justice system, as shown during the investigation phase of the La Manada trial. We will also ask how, <\/span>after<\/span> almost six years, the balance of powers has shifted once again to currently (at first glance) <\/span>favor<\/span> a punitivist framework that is in line with the right wing media siege. We ask these questions in an attempt to find narratives that can help <\/span>rekindle <\/span>the capacity of autonomous feminist movements to make proposals and take the initiative.<\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

W<\/span>e will attempt to respond to these questions from the center of the <\/span>storm<\/span>, that is, from our lived experience as feminist activists close to the 8M Commission of Madrid\u2019s feminist movement. We believe, as Gloria Anzald\u00faa said, we are from where we think and, conversely, we think from where we are. Therefore, <\/span>in assembling<\/span> this text, we have turned to dialogue among compa\u00f1eras, to sharing memories and reflections, and to the multiple materials <\/span>directly <\/span>published by the 8M Commission, which are like a heart rate monitor, reading the pulse of the movement<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

We will attempt to review the narratives that circulated between the autumn of 2017, when the first feminist mobilizations occurred shouting \u201cI believe you\u201d and \u201cYou are not alone\u201d while the trial was taking place in the Provincial Court of Navarra, to the <\/span>passing of the <\/span>Law on the Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom<\/span> 10\/2022, known as the \u201cOnly Yes is Yes\u201d Law. We will find two constant voices that intersect, most of the time in opposition to one another: that of the autonomous feminist movement and that of the media. There are <\/span>ebbs and flows<\/span> in the dispute over the narrative; at times, the feminist movement has an unstoppable rhetorical force and, at others, as we will see, the media manages to corner the movement. <\/span><\/p>\n

For us, <\/span>there is a clear logic<\/span>, although it can be complicated to follow. Between 2014 and 2017, there <\/span>is<\/span> a strong, organized, and global feminist movement, <\/span>that had an enormous capacity to mobilize people in the streets and online<\/span>. <\/span>The presence of feminism on the streets has been growing in our territory<\/span>, with huge protests for the right to abortion, against cuts to public services, and in solidarity with the situation of women in Nicaragua and El Salvador, which ended with the resignation of the then minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallard\u00f3n (September, 2014). There have also been mobilizations against sexist violence and the 8M Commission <\/span>is<\/span> already working intensely on what will be the international feminist strike and next large demonstration on March 8, 2018. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is the context when<\/span> <\/span>the<\/span> La Manada case hits the media. <\/span>O<\/span>n July 7, 2016, a gang rape is committed during the patron saint festivities (San Ferm<\/span>\u00edn <\/span>festival) of the Navarrese city of Iru\u00f1ea (Pamplona). Five <\/span>men<\/span>, some of whom belong to the state security forces, and who share a group chat called \u201cLa Manada\u201d (\u201cwolf pack\u201d) (hence the name with which the case is baptized), rape an eighteen year old girl in a doorway. They record it and then steal <\/span>the victim\u2019s<\/span> cellphone so that she cannot report it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The media attempts to construct a narrative based on the logic of sexual terror, but they <\/span>are unsuccessful in making it seep into public opinion<\/span>: the feminist movement puts a stop to it, placing bodies <\/span>on<\/span> the streets, speaking of rape and the patriarchal justice system, and <\/span>confronting the patriarchal <\/span>backlash as it begins<\/span>. With the <\/span>case<\/span> still open, the institutional context changes: in 2018, a motion of censure against the then president Mariano Rajoy puts an end to the Partido Popular\u2019s <\/span>[People\u2019s Party]<\/span> Government. After a brief interlude of uncertainty, at the beginning of 2022, the Partido Socialista <\/span>[Socialist Party]<\/span> and Unidas Podemos <\/span>[United We Can] <\/span>form a coalition government. In turn, a patriarchal offensive is launched from the right that <\/span>has also been able to channel itself into different institutional fields. The COVID-19 pandemic is used to criminalize the feminist movement, which is accused of contributing to the spread of the virus by calling <\/span>a<\/span> massive demonstration <\/span>for International Working Women\u2019s Day <\/span>on March 8, 2020. This, combined with the emptying of the streets due to quarantine measures, causes public opinion to start to lean toward the narrative of the <\/span>media right<\/span>. A confrontation and later rupture within the feminist movement plays an important role in this process of criminalization and marginalization. This <\/span>conflict <\/span>initially revolved around the debate over prostitution and the recognition of sex workers\u2019 rights, but intensified when a group of very powerful women close to the <\/span>Partido Socialista<\/span> started to belligerently demand that trans women be excluded from the feminist movement.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This is the thread of events that we will attempt to unravel in what follows in order to summon feminist <\/span>power<\/span> and look for ways out of the current quagmire.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2017-2020: Feminist Power<\/span><\/h3>\n

I<\/span>n the autumn of 2017, <\/span>as<\/span> the first oral hearing in the La Manada trial is set to start, <\/span>feminists<\/span> <\/span>find<\/span> ourselves in streets across Spain protesting to the cry of \u201cSister, here is your pack!\u201d We <\/span>know<\/span> that we <\/span>are<\/span> not alone: feminisms <\/span>have been setting the pace for social movements at the international scale for some time now. We have broken silences. We have identified and named violences. We have made slogans circulate globally. We are coming from the large Argentine and Latin American mobilizations under the slogan \u201cNi Una Menos\u201d [Not One Woman Less], the national strikes in October 2016 repudiating the feminicide of Luc\u00eda P\u00e9rez, struggles for the decriminalization of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy from Poland to Argentina. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the Spanish <\/span>S<\/span>tate, we are immersed in <\/span>preparing<\/span> <\/span>for <\/span>the feminist strike <\/span>in<\/span> March 2018, in which denouncing violences plays an important role. We also have #MeToo in the United States (hashtag <\/span>from<\/span> 2017) and the more local #Cu\u00e9ntalo [\u201cTell your story\u201d], started by the journalist Cristina Fallar\u00e1s (hashtag from 2018). Both of these make up part of an international wave that <\/span>originated in<\/span> the Global South and connects with mobilizations here, bringing to light and naming all the forms of violence that affect <\/span>us women from the moment our bodies are read as such.<\/span><\/span> These campaigns demonstrate a rupturing of individual silences to illuminate structural violence and lay out a collective response.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

On the patriarchal front, on the other hand, the <\/span>backlash<\/span> is already heating up with transphobic, racist, and anti-feminist discourses, such as those of the far right association Hazte O\u00edr, which warns of \u201ca war of the sexes\u201d and claims to stand up to \u201cindoctrination\u201d and against \u201cgender ideology.\u201d<\/span><\/span> Thus, they <\/span>lay out an argument<\/span> that will later be <\/span>picked up<\/span> by <\/span>unexpected<\/span> actors (and actresses). <\/span><\/p>\n

These <\/span>turbulent waters are the setting for<\/span> <\/span>the legal proceedings that go<\/span> from July 2016, <\/span>when the La Manada rape takes place, to June 2019, when <\/span>the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling is published.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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With the context in place, let\u2019s take a closer look <\/span>at how these events unfolded<\/span> and, especially, the narrative battle that revolved around sexual violence and meanings of justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

N<\/span>ews of the gang rape <\/span>reached<\/span> public opinion from day one. The <\/span>m<\/span>ainstream media initially reacts by questioning the seriousness of the accusation: It is a rape? It is a \u201cpornographic fantasy?\u201d Is it \u201ceuphoria and revelry\u201d (as the dissenting opinion of one of the members of the Court will reflect)? <\/span>The media<\/span> do<\/span>es<\/span> not miss <\/span>a<\/span> chance to highlight that the attacked woman does not fit the image of the perfect victim: \u201cShe didn\u2019t resist,\u201d \u201cShe is going on with her life,\u201d etc. Thus, a true media circus begins, which is devastating for the victim and for all women, in which the lawyer for and relatives of members of La Manada parade through television programs, putting the focus on the victim, blaming her, and trying to sow doubt over what happened. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, none of this catches the feminist movement in Iru\u00f1\u00e9 <\/span>off guard<\/span>: it has been mobilizing against <\/span>multiple forms of violence<\/span> for years, warning of the sexual and sexist violence in the San Ferm<\/span>\u00ed<\/span>n <\/span>festival<\/span>, calling for festivities free of sexist aggression, forcing the City Council to establish information points across the city and to create an action program. In the months immediately following the attack, <\/span>the movement<\/span> <\/span>connects<\/span> what happened in that doorway <\/span>to<\/span> other cases, including that of Nagore Laffage, who was attacked and murdered, at twenty years of age, in the 2008 San Ferm<\/span>\u00ed<\/span>n <\/span>festival<\/span>. <\/span>The movement<\/span> puts energy into rendering structural elements visible, calling attention not only to a sexist culture in which a woman in public space is seen to belong to everyone, but also targeting the patriarchal justice system that denies and minimizes violence. <\/span><\/p>\n

The main struggle during this phase is <\/span>to be \u201cbelieved,<\/span>\u201d <\/span>as<\/span> it is obvious that we are being raped and killed, and, even so, the veracity of accusations are being called into question. Thus, <\/span>a slogan arises<\/span> that immediately <\/span>has popular appeal<\/span>, while, at the same time, coming from decades of struggle against sexual violence by autonomous feminism movements in the Spanish <\/span>S<\/span>tate: \u201cI believe you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the days leading up<\/span> to the trial (November 13, 2017), <\/span>after<\/span> months of media silence, the excitement returns. Two facts dominate the media narrative. <\/span>O<\/span>n the one hand, the judiciary accepts the report made by a private detective, hired by La Manada\u2019s defense, to snoop into the victim\u2019s private life. <\/span>O<\/span>n the other hand, <\/span>it<\/span> does not admit into evidence the Whatsapp group messages of the accused in which they acknowledge their taste for gang rapes nor those in which they refer to another sexual assault carried out in the Torrecampo (C\u00f3rdoba) festivities, despite the fact that they reveal a clear pattern of behavior on the part of the accused, as well as their sense of impunity and how accustomed they are to not having to answer for their actions. Meanwhile, the <\/span>media right<\/span> <\/span>is <\/span>starting to lay out<\/span> the discourse of revictimization and <\/span>victim blaming<\/span> (\u201cthis is what happens if you drink and go to <\/span>festivals<\/span> alone\u201d). Rage floods the streets, social media, in-person and virtual conversations, feminist assemblies in neighborhoods, towns, and cities. <\/span><\/p>\n

The trial in the Provincial Court of Navarra starts in this atmosphere of indignation, with a strong autonomous feminist movement <\/span>already <\/span>organized at the state level around the <\/span>call <\/span>for a<\/span> feminist strike a few months later. <\/span>The movement has muscle<\/span> and demonstrations of strength take place both in the streets, with massive <\/span>protests<\/span>, and in the narrative. Not only does the movement call out the patriarchal bias of judicial decisions, but also the social alarm generated by the media (<\/span>sexual terror<\/span>), the way the victim is put on tr<\/span>ial<\/span>, and the sensationalist language used in <\/span>most<\/span> radio and television talk shows.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Social media <\/span>is used<\/span> to dispute the media\u2019s coverage. There is a high level of critique of <\/span>the mainstream media<\/span> narrative, pointing out and disapproving of the headlines <\/span>in<\/span> major newspapers. Public opinion, expressed in Twitter and Instagram, situates sexual violence and patriarchal justice among its main concerns and the media as part of the problem. However, it is in the street, a place more prone to anger, where the strongest chants in support women and the harshest against the judiciary, the accused, and, more generally, against sexist violence and those responsible for it, can be heard: <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Shitty justice system<\/span>, you\u2019re judging her,\u201d \u201cSexist idiot, your mouth is on the curb,\u201d \u201cFear is going to change sides,\u201d \u201cAlone and drunk, I still want to <\/span>make it<\/span> home,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t worry sister, your pack is here,\u201d \u201cI believe you.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

In the midst of this turmoil, we learn the outcome of a feminicide that is <\/span>often linked to <\/span>the<\/span> La Manada case. <\/span>T<\/span>he lifeless body of Diana Quer <\/span>appeared on December 31, 2017<\/span>. More than a year earlier, Jos\u00e9 Enrique Abu\u00edn had kidnapped her and tried to sexual assault her, <\/span>before finally killing her. <\/span>That year<\/span> also marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the most significant and disciplinary cases of sexual violence in the Spanish state: the kidnapping, rape, and murder of three teenagers, aged fourteen and fifteen, known as the Alc\u00e0sser crime. The media indulges in sensationalism, fueling the discourse of sexual terror, at the same time as it echoes the punitivist discourse of Diana Quer\u2019s father, a strident defender of life sentences. Faced with all of this, the feminist movement <\/span>continues to focus on<\/span> critiquing the judicial and media systems, at the same time as it creates its own languages and mechanisms to combat sexist violence and aggression: reinforcing and creating new purple points<\/span><\/span> in neighborhood and town festivals, encouraging women on social media to recount the aggression that we have all survived, promoting feminist self-defense, insisting on sex-affective education, launching the hashtag #AlertaFeminista <\/span>[#FeministAlert]<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

On April 26, 2018, the Provincial Court of Navarra <\/span>releases<\/span> its verdict: it has not found \u201csigns of violence or intimidation\u201d in the rape perpetrated by five adult men against an eighteen year old woman cornered in a doorway, therefore, applying the law, <\/span>the men<\/span> are not convicted of sexual assault, but only of abuse. Thousands of feminists flood the streets and social media with indignation and rage. The movement is brimming with <\/span>vitality<\/span>: it has just made history, with a general feminist\u2014care, labor, consumer, student\u2014strike, the first of its kind in the Spanish State, supported by nearly six million women workers and crowned by the largest feminist demonstrations in memory. There are multiple, undeniable synergies and continuities between the overwhelming force of this strike and the massive mobilizations in the month April protesting the La Manada ruling. In both mobilizations, issues regarding care, social reproduction, and labor conditions are intertwined with those of sexual violence against women. One of the most chanted slogans in April is \u201cNo is no, everything else is rape,\u201d seed of the later \u201cOnly yes is yes.\u201d It is thanks to organized feminism, then, that consent is placed in the center.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are, of course, paradoxes and chiaroscuros: there is not an equally strong response to <\/span>sexual assault in every case. A few days after the sentence for La Manada in the Navarra Provincial Court is released, two German journalists publish a report that refers to rapes and sexual assaults in the strawberry fields of Huelva, which generates a scandal in Germany.<\/span><\/span> In the midst of an atmosphere of tension between Spanish agricultural exporters and large German food distributors, a new case comes out in the media: several female day laborers, Morrocan migrants, <\/span>contracted in their country of origin,<\/span> denounce, before the Civil Guard, the person responsible for a strawberry production in Almonte for sexual assault and labor abuses.<\/span><\/span> From Huelva, different associations call for a reaction <\/span>against this <\/span>intertwining of patriarchal violence, labor exploitation, and racism in the bodies of women who experience a situation of extreme precarity and dispossession, reinforced by the <\/span>Law on Foreign Persons<\/span>. On June 17, 2018, a large demonstration <\/span>called<\/span> by union, social, and feminist organizations traverses the streets of Huelva, with a banner that reads: \u201cNeither labor slavery nor sexual slavery. Work, yes, but with rights.\u201d<\/span><\/span> However, in other cities, the call receives only a lukewarm response from a feminist movement that is very mobilized for the La Manada case. Antiracist feminism organizations will issue an intense questioning of the movement as a whole, asking about the limits of sisterhood. It is in this context that the <\/span>Asociaci\u00f3n Jornaleras de Huelva en Lucha <\/span>[the Association of Women Day Labors of Huelva in Struggle] <\/span>is founded.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite the shortcomings, which <\/span>will<\/span> generate painful debates, <\/span>as well as<\/span> awareness of the vital and urgent need to strengthen antiracism within the heart of the feminist movement, this intense politicization of sexual violence <\/span>imprints a shift<\/span> on the attitude and discourse of the mainstream media. The <\/span>vitality<\/span> of the mobilizations is compounded by the active role and position of <\/span>female<\/span> journalists and the <\/span>tireless work of hundreds of grassroots activists who have pushed the major outlets to include explicitly feminist voices. Madrid\u2019s 8M Commission and its different working groups (press group, outreach group, neighborhood and town groups) have been carrying out extraordinary work to ensure that the feminist argument reaches every newsroom and every household.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Specifically, in regards to the La Manada case, <\/span>there are three <\/span>elements to the feminist movement\u2019s argument<\/span>: 1) <\/span>challenging <\/span>a patriarchal justice system that neither believes nor protects women and that legitimizes sexist violence; 2) <\/span>focusing<\/span> on the structural character of the acts: understanding that what lies at the heart of sexual violence and <\/span>how<\/span> it is socially and legally addressed is an attack on women\u2019s freedom; and 3) prioritizing preventative action (transversal sexual education) and protection. It is important to <\/span>emphasize<\/span> that, in no moment, has the autonomous feminist movement spoken of sentences or prison; to the contrary, <\/span>as<\/span> Diana Quer\u2019s father is <\/span>calling for a life prison sentence with review, the feminism <\/span>building<\/span> the feminist strikes wagers on a radical change both of society and of the established system. On the strictly legal plane, this feminist movement argues that the judicial system must be transformed in order to ensure that the needs of women <\/span>reporting assaults<\/span> are met, that <\/span>they<\/span> have access to all the necessary resources, that procedures are fair and do not revictimize women, and that protection measures are effective in all cases. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the <\/span>case<\/span> continues. On December 5, 2018, through an appeal, the High Court of Navarra confirms the sentence of nine years for sexual abuse. The feminist movement returns to the streets once again to accuse the justice system of being sexist. <\/span>Feminists<\/span> are not protesting the nine years of the sentence, but rather how the crime is classified: the judges suppose that, for an act be considered rape, the victim <\/span>must<\/span> demonstrate that she <\/span>put up resistance. <\/span>Protesters, then,<\/span> are not asking for more years in prison for the perpetrators, but rather, they are challenging <\/span>how<\/span> the<\/span> justice system blames the victim<\/span>. Their focus is on eliminating the need to show \u201cproof of violence or intimidation\u201d for a sexual act carried out without the other person\u2019s explicit consent to be judge<\/span>d<\/span> as sexual assault. This argument contains the seed of what will be the Organic Law of the Comprehensive Guarantee to Sexual Freedom, <\/span>which<\/span> will go into effect in October 2022. On the way, organized feminism will experience intense criminalization orchestrated by the <\/span>media right<\/span>. But let\u2019s not get ahead of ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On June 21, 2019, the Supreme Court finally <\/span>corrects<\/span> the decision of the <\/span>H<\/span>igh <\/span>C<\/span>ourt of Navarra, declaring that yes, it was sexual assault, there was not consent, and convicts the accused of a <\/span>continued<\/span> crime of rape with degrading treatment. This is a victory for the woman, who <\/span>finally sees<\/span> an end to the painful journey she \u201cnever thought [she] would have to go through,\u201d <\/span>making it possible <\/span>for her <\/span>to start moving on<\/span> with her life. However, once the sentence is made public, the media goes back to its sensationalist tone to cover a series of sexual assaults with chemical submission that take place over the summer. The COVID-19 pandemic, the creation of the Ministry of Equality, and Irene Montero\u2019s mandate are upon us. The die is cast.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

2020-2023<\/span>: <\/span>The Law and Punishments<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

The massiveness of <\/span>the feminist movement everywhere, combined with the pressure of public opinion, made it impossible to avoid the issue of sexual violence. The protests since the autumn of 2017 had been so thunderous that no political party could look the other way. <\/span><\/p>\n

Back in the spring of 2018, the then minister and spokesperson of the Partido Popular Government, \u00cd\u00f1igo M\u00e9ndez de Vigo, had been forced to make a statement after the Navarrese Provincial Court released its controversial sentence. In the press conference, he announced that the highest advisory board of the Ministry of Justice would study the possibility of reviewing the classification of sexual crimes in the <\/span>Penal<\/span> Code.<\/span><\/p>\n

In June 2018, during Pedro S\u00e1nchez\u2019s first term, three <\/span>motions<\/span> about sexual violence had been registered: two non-law motions by the parliamentary group Ciudadanos and one law motion by the confederal parliamentary group Unidas Podemos-En Com\u00fa Podem-En Marea. The latter would eventually become Organic Law 10\/2022, on September 6, of <\/span>the<\/span> Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom. <\/span>The law<\/span> brought together some of the main demands of the feminist movement, identifying sexual violence as a manifestation of sexist violence and mentioning the importance of \u201cfree, revocable consent for specific practices.\u201d<\/span><\/span> Thus, we can see the extent to which sexual violence was being prioritized at the moment when the coalition between the Partido Socialist and Podemos comes to power and, in 2020, reappoints Pedro S\u00e1nchez as president and <\/span>names<\/span> Irene Montero Minister of Equality. <\/span><\/p>\n

On March 3, 2020, five days before International Working Women\u2019s Day, when there are calls for feminist demonstrations across the country, the Council of Ministers approve<\/span>s<\/span> the preliminary draft of the Organic Law of the Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, based on the proposal by Unidas Podemos, En <\/span>Com\u00fa Podem, and En Marea in <\/span>2018, incorporating reform of the Penal Code.<\/span><\/span> It is quite possible that the fate of this bill would have been very different if not for a global event that turned the world upside down, irremediably altering the correlation of forces between the feminist movement and reactionary powers.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Let\u2019s go <\/span>step by step<\/span>. Since early 2020, <\/span>media<\/span> outlets around the world <\/span>have been reporting on a previous unknown illness caused by a coronavirus, COVID-19. <\/span>The news trickles in gradually at first until it ends up flooding everything <\/span>and the full extent of the issue begins to be seen. On March 8, 2020, thousands of women and sexual dissidents happily attend the feminist rallies held everywhere. At that time, the sickness is considered a minor issue, the message is to stay calm, and, in Spain, there are no restrictions or recommendations. The feminist demonstrations are not the only public gathering in those days: like any year around that date, a multitude of public events and celebrations of all kinds are authorized.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

However, with the accelerated spread of COVID-19 in <\/span>the Spanish State<\/span> during the second week of March, the media, encouraged by the far right and other reactionary forces, <\/span>identifies<\/span> the feminist movement as the perfect target on which to lay the blame for all of society\u2019s ills.<\/span> <\/span>If, at other times, they minimized attendance <\/span>at<\/span> March 8 demonstrations, in this case, <\/span>the media<\/span> emphasizes their massiveness to blame feminism in general and the <\/span>organizers<\/span> in particular for the deaths from COVID-19.<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

The attack does not only come from the outside. That same March 8, 2020, the <\/span>rift<\/span> that had been opening up in <\/span>a seemingly cohesive feminist movement ends up breaking it apart. The block advocating for the abolition of prostitution aggressively storms the front of the demonstration in Madrid, provoking a violent clash that leads to an irreversible break. There is hardly any opportunity to collectively elaborate the commotion produced by that confrontation: the COVID-19 confinement empties the streets and assemblies for months. Also citing the \u201crisk of COVID-19 infection,\u201d the <\/span>Government of Madrid<\/span> prohibits the 102 gatherings scheduled in the Community of Madrid for March 8, 2021. This does not stop feminists from taking to the streets in <\/span>a decentralized way, neighborhood by neighborhood, but it does cause tension<\/span>.<\/span><\/span> The mainstream media takes advantage of this rarefied atmosphere to interfere. It presents a caricature of the debates taking place within the movement: on the one side, an \u201cenlightened,\u201d \u201csensible\u201d feminism that places Woman (<\/span>a capitalized, universal category<\/span>) in the center; on the other, a feminism \u201cmanipulated by the queer lobby\u201d and so-called <\/span>gender ideology<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

The so-called \u201c<\/span>Only <\/span>Yes is Yes\u201d law, drafted by Montero\u2019s team, goes into effect on October 7, 2022, a few months before the World Health Organization declares the end of the health emergency and the COVID-19 pandemic. This law, which equates sexual abuse and assault, is a victory for the organized feminist movement that, pointing to the <\/span>sexism<\/span> of the sentences issued by the Provincial Court of Navarra and the Navarra Higher Court of Justice, placed consent in the center as the only limit to sexual freedom: even if there is not violence or intimidation, any time there is not consent, it is assault. Violence or intimidation would be an aggravating, but not the fundamental, factor. \u201cOnly <\/span>y<\/span>es is <\/span>y<\/span>es\u201d thus represents a paradigm shift: consent is in the center. <\/span><\/p>\n

The law introduces other important modifications. The text proposes a perspective of prevention and comprehensive care for women and provides for the creation of resources <\/span>such as 24 hour crisis centers. <\/span>A<\/span>rticle 35, defines these centers as \u201cservices that provide psychological, legal, and social care. Following criteria of constant attention and urgent action, they will provide support and assistance in crisis situations for victims, <\/span>their family members, and those around them.\u201d<\/span><\/span> It also declares that access to the rights guaranteed by the law do not require filing a police report.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The autonomous feminist movement, while recognizing that the law is a victory for the mobilizations that have pushed for it, still raises strong critiques. There are two important objections: on the one hand, the law does not guarantee migrant women in irregular administrative situations the right to <\/span>report<\/span> a crime and to justice. If they file a report and are not able to demonstrate assault in the <\/span>legal<\/span> process, not only does the assault go unpunished, but they also risk expulsion. <\/span>For this not to be the case, the Law <\/span>on<\/span> Foreign Persons would need to be modified,<\/span> as the autonomous antiracist feminist movement has been demanding for years. On the other hand, the bill recovers the locative third party, that is, the persecution of those provide spaces for the \u201cexercise of prostitution.\u201d Under the discourse of the abolition of prostitution, what this clause does is makes it difficult for sex workers to even be able to rent a pla<\/span>c<\/span>e to live and criminalizes their whole surroundings. The mobilization of sex workers and allied feminists, as well as lobbying work and the positioning of parties outside the Government, was able to eliminate the third party locative from the bill, although not the penalization of advertising. However, equal access to justice for all is still excluded from the final text: <\/span>undocumented<\/span> migrant women will have to initiate the whole process with the threat of deportation hanging over their heads. <\/span><\/p>\n

Since the law has gone into effect, the right wing media has unleashed an all out war against the Ministry of Equality, calling the text \u201c<\/span>botched job<\/span>.\u201d Given that the law addresses all forms of sexual crimes as modalities of the same crime of assault and the range of punishments varied, certain magistrates <\/span>have taken<\/span> advantage of the occasion to review the sentences of a handful of people convicted for sexual crimes and free some of them. This has added fuel to the fire of the media machine, which indulges in headlines such as \u201cThe \u2018only yes is yes\u2019 law has already benefited 978 sexual aggressors and freed 104 of them,\u201d in the newspaper <\/span>El Mundo<\/span> in April 2023. Fuel and more fuel to feed the fear, insecurity, and sexual terror that are so useful for restricting women\u2019s autonomy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Happy to be able to present itself as the serious party in opposition to the \u201cradical Podemos supporters,\u201d the PSOE rushes in to reform the law. Pilar Llop, Minister of Justice at the time, affirms on a radio program in February 2023 that \u201cit is very easy for the victim to prove that there was violence, just one wound is enough.\u201d<\/span><\/span> The proposed reform maintains a single crime of sexual assault, but it introduces <\/span>subtypes<\/span> to differentiate between aggression with violence and intimidation and that without. Thus, the main demand of the feminist mobilizations is ignored: preventing <\/span>women who are<\/span> victims of sexual assault from having to prove in court how much they resisted. Once again everything revolves around sentences and prison, the causes of violence and women\u2019s concrete situation disappear from the public debate. The punitivist element, <\/span>encouraged<\/span> by the media <\/span>siege<\/span> <\/span>against<\/span> autonomous feminism, strengthens its position. The reform proposed by the PSOE is ultimately approved in the Senate on April 26, 2023. A few months later, following elections, Irene Montero leaves the Equality Ministry, which returns to the hands of the PSOE. The first <\/span>initiative<\/span> by the new minister, Ana Redondo <\/span>Garc\u00eda, is a bill to criminalize prostitution, which, fortunately, is not approved.<\/span><\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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2024: Ways out of an Impasse<\/span><\/h3>\n

Here<\/span> we can return to a question that feminist <\/span>lawyer<\/span> Laia Serra <\/span>had already asked<\/span> in 2018 in the context of the debate over life imprisonment rekindled by Diana Quer\u2019s father: \u201cHow can we, as feminists, position ourselves between solidarity with the victims and survivors and the State\u2019s punitive drift? To situate ourselves, it is useful to delve into the phenomenon of \u2018punitive populism\u2019: a political and penal formula that can be contextualized in the expansion of neoliberalism, the breakdown of the welfare state, and the rise of neoconservativism. \u2018Punitive populism\u2019 is defined as the manipulative and reactionary ideology of the state <\/span>that exploits<\/span> the collective\u2019s insecurities to neutralize certain social debates and selectively criminalize certain behaviors and social sectors in order to limit fundamental freedoms.\u201d<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

This framework helps us understand how it is possible that punitivism, rather than consent, has acquired a central role in the public debate over the <\/span>only yes is yes<\/span> law. Its success is ensured by the <\/span>ability of the media-based right wing<\/span> to appeal to emotions over objective data and facts and to offer apparently quick and easy solutions in the face of complex phenomena. Its result is not only the limitation of fundamental rights and freedoms, but also the reinforcement of state authoritarianism. <\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, as the lawyer Violeta Assiego reminds us, \u201cthere is something in the criminal justice system itself that, even <\/span>with<\/span> the strongest sentences, <\/span>those<\/span> most proportionate to the seriousness of the acts, continues protecting the impunity with which thousands and thousands of men exercise violence against women, sexual violence, physical, and psychological violence.\u201d<\/span><\/span> For autonomous feminists, that is, for those of us who have <\/span>organized<\/span> the feminist strikes, neighborhood assemblies, <\/span>and <\/span>everyday work on the streets, the issue was never about punishment. But the media <\/span>siege<\/span> that was <\/span>constructed<\/span> over months through the <\/span>trickle<\/span> of information about the review of sentences, some reductions of sentences and the release of some aggressors, <\/span>along with fewer<\/span> mobilizations in the streets, produced an effect of terror in the collective imaginary that justified the increase in sentences, but not the guarantee of rights and protections for women. Thus, the <\/span>media right<\/span> and patriarchal <\/span>backlash<\/span> took aim and we were left in an impasse in which the feminist and anti-punitivist justice that we defended was silenced. <\/span><\/p>\n

We know that we are witnessing the <\/span>instrumentalization<\/span> of women\u2019s rights and the struggle against sexist violences to legitimize repressive policies. This is not new: <\/span>securo-feminism<\/span>, as Rafia Zakaria calls it, has been legitimizing neoliberal policies and the violence of war on bodies of people in the Global South in the name of women\u2019s rights for decades.<\/span><\/span> <\/span>However<\/span>, patriarchal impunity forces us to imagine feminist horizons of justice. The issue goes beyond debates <\/span>over<\/span> the law. We must not forget that it was our <\/span>drive<\/span>, the mobilizations that we were able to build <\/span>on<\/span> the streets and the narratives that we launched, that put patriarchal justice on the ropes and forced the political parties that made up the coalition government between 2020 and 2023 to take note and do something about it. Today this <\/span>push is facing a patriarchal backlash fueled by the <\/span>media right<\/span>, that also feeds discourses on the left about \u201cthe excesses of feminism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While it is true that the rhetoric of sexual terror has had a major impact on public opinion <\/span>and in the dispute over the political narrative, it is also true that we have been able to create anti-punitivist narratives against a securitarian politics that seeks to control women. In this response, the autonomous feminist movement has always made it clear that prison is not the solution, <\/span>putting<\/span> forth a multifaceted proposal that is not focused on punishments, but rather on the meaning of the word \u201cjustice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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We know that the feminist justice we aspire to must be intersectional, it must center assaulted women and their needs, and it must do so with measures that guarantee truth, justice, and reparations, which should be accompanied by responsiblization and the guarantee of non-repetition. We know that we <\/span>need<\/span> measures of prevention, comprehensive care, access to legal processes that are not revictimizing, as well as policies that target the social structures that generate violences. We also need <\/span>transformative community-based<\/span> dynamics capable of avoiding revictimization and breaking the cycle of reproduction of violence, as well as forms of self-defense, understood not as an individual, but rather a collective, practice, <\/span>and<\/span> the concrete transformation of <\/span>ways<\/span> of occupying public space and weaving networks that protect life and make it safer. We believe that this <\/span>multilayered strategy is the way to overcome fear, step firmly, break free from the quagmire, and emerge from this impasse. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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