(Madrid) The outcry in the case of the forced kiss of Luis Rubiales, nicknamed the “
“You want to release me for a little kiss?” “. Outraged, the president of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), could not believe it on Friday. To have kissed on the mouth by surprise the N.10, Jenni Hermoso, during the medal ceremony on August 20 at the World Cup in Sydney, won by the female Roja, could not be so serious.
Sure of his rights and refusing to resign despite unanimous condemnations in the country, he attacked “false feminism” in front of the members of his federation, giving “a life lesson” to his three daughters present in the audience. Applause from the audience-composed overwhelmingly of men.
A speech, broadcast live around the world, which is considered “incredible” by Inès Alberdi, sociologist specializing in women’s rights.
“He absolutely does not realize and is surprised” by implying “” but finally, I did not rape her “”, accuses this former executive director of the United Nations Fund for Women, for whom the boss of Spanish football is ‘old school macho’.
Now an affair of state, the scandal, which is making international headlines, highlights “the generational and cultural fault line between the deep traditions of machismo and the more recent progressivism that has put Spain at the forefront. -European watch on issues of feminism and equality,” the New York Times noted on Monday.
Rubiales is the “typical macho,” adds Marina Subirats, former director of the Women’s Institute, an organization working for gender equality, “with the vocabulary and gestures that go with it, like when he touches his testicles” next to Spain’s Queen Letizia in the World Cup final.
And for the professor of sociology at the Complutense University of Madrid, Aina Lopez, the virulent reaction of Spanish society shows that there will be “a before and an after” this affair of the forced kiss.
Luis Rubiales represents the “past, the old world” who attacks a “certain feminism” because he is aware that he can no longer “speak badly of feminism in general”, she thinks.
After cases such as that of the gang rape of “la Meute” in 2016, which had led to an immense feminist mobilization, this scandal “forces society to question itself on more minimal subjects but which violate the dignity of women, and to ask yourself: should a woman accept that a man kisses her like this? Yes or no ? “, continues the university.
On Monday evening, hundreds of women demonstrated in central Madrid shouting “it’s not a kiss, it’s an assault”. The prosecution has also opened a preliminary investigation for “sexual assault”.
“It’s over, there will be no more discrimination against women” after this “strong social mobilization”, Sports Minister Miquel Iceta said on Tuesday.
Spain has been a reference in Europe in the field of the fight against sexual violence since a pioneering law in 2004 which notably introduced gender difference as an aggravating circumstance.
But, despite this, a certain misogyny persists in the country where the consensus that had reigned for 20 years on the issue of the fight against gender-based violence has also been broken in recent years by the eruption of the far-right Vox party.
“It is easier to change a law than a culture”, acknowledged Monday Victoria Rosell, Spanish government delegate against gender violence, who however welcomes a recent “paradigm shift” in the country where women are increasingly rising. plus the tone against “people who believe they have access to (their) bodies”.
“Public opinion is changing in this historically very macho country and is saying for the first time ‘no, that’s unacceptable.’ This is a warning, ”says Marina Subirats.
