Nuria Varela (Mieres, Asturias, 1967) wrote a book where almost no one spoke of the matter. Feminism for beginners, has sold more than 50,000 copies. After 15 years and an awakening feminist unprecedented, post Feminism 4.0. The fourth wave (Ediciones B). “If we do not have ourselves our history, we lose and we have to fix it, reflect and move forward,” he claimed in an interview with THE COUNTRY this Wednesday at the sala Matadero of Madrid. The journalist and writer was the first director of the office of the first Ministry of Equality, headed by Bibiana Aído in 2008. For a month and a half, is the director General of Equality of the Principality of Asturias. And continues to write, a task that encourages all of her friends: “We have a lot of history that isn’t told. Continues to very hidden so that we women in general and feminism in particular.”
Question. says It at the start and at the end of the book: “The silence has been broken”. What would be the main feature of this fourth wave?
Response. we have Always put the focus where no one had set it , but it had never been broken in the voices of millions of women in the world. In the MeToo and in initiatives such as Tell. We are denouncing such issues as sexual violence, which is not talked about or among us.
Q. But breaking this silence is costing very high for women.
A. For women is still very expensive to be a feminist and denounce. In spite of that, they are denounced by millions in the courts, media and networks. The submission never has saved us. What should be at this point, and more in democratic countries, is that women were believed. Still do not believe. It questions even the very concept of gender-based violence, there are holocaust deniers. The impunity continues.
Q. To what extent are relevant to the young people in this fourth wave?
A. Another feature of the fourth wave is to raise awareness so early. In Spain we have feminist groups in the institutes. It is very good to have that tool soon. But I am very concerned about one aspect for which we are missing more data. This awareness is the result because they are suffering a lot of sexual violence and in the first couple relationships. They are giving the voice of alarm.
“There is violence against women because we have not entered into the classroom”
Q. why does this happen?
A. violence against women is occurring because we have not managed to get in the classroom. From early childhood education to the University, we are in the margins, with projects of co-education but not within. The first chapter of the comprehensive law against gender-based violence is dedicated to education. What that has to do with equality seems to be a thing of second. All the world is against violence , but not related to equality. We cannot end gender-based violence if we don’t work, educate and live in equality.
Q. there is generational shift in the demonstrations, says you, because no one has gone. Grandmothers and granddaughters with the banner.
A. Is the richest that we have, the more we’re contributing. Of feminism it is difficult to leave. Once you take gender aware, and you wear the goggles purple is quite complicated quitártelas.
Q. Considers the march 8, 2018 as a turning point. What was relevant the role of the mobilization of Spanish?
A. feminism, Spanish was not relevant at the time suffragette , but in the XXI century is very special. It’s much more political than the rest. It took us 17 days to make the first congress feminist since Franco died. Feminism was already organized, in the parties, in the opposition. We face a regime that denied rights to all women. We had to make the speech and research but also changing the customs and the society. The feminism of spain has a history of its own that makes it avant-garde. But another feature of the fourth wave is that it is global: for the first time there is no corner in the world where there is no feminism in one way or another.
The writer, journalist and feminist, in a time of the interview. LAURA P. MERINO
Q. The 8-M put the focus on the care, of those who still are in charge over all the women.
A. In the policies of equality nothing is fast, we know that. The changes are very profound while in Spain, let’s go as fast.
Q. how Fast?
A. Franco came out of the grave just a week ago. Look at the country that left with regard to equality and to the women and look at the that we have. We go very fast considering we were coming but very slow in relation to where we want to go. The crisis of care is the most important thing that we have on the table because it makes the system unsustainable. You must change the analysis. The great economists, the politicians continue to not see that the great black hole are the care. It is intended that women enter the labour market on the same conditions in which it is incorporated men and that no one will care. That is not sustainable.
Q. Would it be relevant that there were more women in positions of power to change that?
A. The most important thing to care is that there are more men in the houses, not so much more women in positions of power. We’ve gone out but they have not entered. The GDP in Europe, for example, posts prostitution and not care. Who has decided that?
“For care, it is best to more men in the house that more women in power,”
Q. Came Trump, and there was then a march of women, the most massive since Vietnam. Same with Bolsonaro. But both remain in their posts.
A. we Believe that the entire society is in favour of equality and it is not so. There are people who consider that we have different obligations, rights, and roles. The speech deep of human rights is not internalized a majority shareholder. That’s why we vote for leaders who loaded against the discourse of the emancipation of women. They care. We earn money. That speech, as casposo, traditional and harmful to women is very standard between a good part of the population.
Q. Vox, now in the institutions, attempts to drill the feminist discourse. Up to what point is danger to the conquests of women?
A. Vox is not dangerous para feminism, is dangerous for democracy. There is No democracy without equality.
Q. Dedicated his book “to the girls, to teenagers, to young women, you will certainly see the fall of the patriarchy”. Do you believe in truth?
A. What I wish with all my strength. One of the features of the revolutions is that they are always unexpected. I trust much in women as in feminism, that has made things unimaginable, although sometimes we let it fall by the discouragement, because there are setbacks. But you have to remember that we come from does not have the soul, intelligence, or consciousness. What it cost us to enter in the University, in politics, in decision making… I am Confident that young women get, I don’t think that the world is now sustainable.
“we Know the way to end prostitution”
Q. “One of the clear objectives of the fourth wave would be to stop with the prostitution system,” you say in the book. But it is a theme conflict within feminism.
A. feminism has always been a lot of talk. It is an international movement, some hierarchical and organized in a network. It is so solid because he has never shied away from the debate. We carry several decades with this prostitution. The change is that perhaps the debate has increased because we can no longer speak of prostitution, but of a global system of prostitution. It has grown exponentially the last few years and we see how it is leading millions of women, mostly poor, in a good part of the world. And is still one of the economies criminals more powerful in all the world. The debate has changed. There is a minor debate, nor where the positions are more smoothed. We are faced with a phenomenon that moves a lot of money and that has a lot of tools to plant themselves in the society, especially among younger people that has banalized completely that. From the point of view of the women it destroys, and from the symbolic point of view, it is one of the biggest problems that we have, but it is not a problem of feminism that generates a division but a social problem of great depth, this is why feminism is working more. And, for the first time, we have a law, the Swedish [abolitionist who pursues and penalizes the customer] that has been approved, it has been evaluated and we know that it is giving results. In the debate we have introduced powerful items because the phenomenon is different, and we know the path to end with him.
Q. there is Also a division on the bellies of rental.
A. Within feminism, I think there is no discussion in the bellies. There is more discussion in some groups LGTBIQ and, if I hurry up, within some groups gay. This topic is rather the disappointment or the sadness of seeing how an affinity group with which we have always worked facing the patriarchate, has suddenly a party that is positioned to please the bellies. There positions within feminism are many more unanimous.
