Falsos feminismos

The photograph records a performance conceived as a photographic work, addressing gender-equality policies and their limited effectiveness. The subject is particularly relevant to me because of my interest in identity, gender and the inequalities between women and men within patriarchal society. The work reflects on the limited implementation of equality policies in the corporate world and on the glass ceiling that keeps women from positions of power.

In Spain, over the twelve years following the enactment of Organic Law 3/2007 of 22 March on the effective equality of women and men, reality remained far removed from the legislative ambitions intended to address existing inequality, although the law did help place this glaring situation at the centre of public debate. It sought to address the gap not only in public bodies but across society, with particular emphasis on private companies and, within them, their boards of directors. Its General Principles also required the Government to produce periodic reports on its actions concerning the effective implementation of equality between women and men, together with strategic equal-opportunity plans. The aim, therefore, was not simply to create rules that encouraged equal opportunity; given the social difficulties surrounding their implementation, the reporting mechanism was especially important as a way of identifying shortcomings.

At international level, UN Women published the 2018 report Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which highlighted the importance of gender-responsive policies, programmes and investment as a basis for the development and progress of societies. We can therefore see that, while equality legislation exists de iure, its de facto implementation is very different. Business leaders and politicians all too often adopt the appearance of feminism because regulations require it, while their corporate and governmental practices remain unchanged. Contemporary feminist movements, meanwhile, continue to call internationally for genuine gender parity and for women’s rights to be recognised as inalienable human rights.

It is against this sociopolitical background that I created the work, exploring how male-dominated political and corporate power constructs a glass ceiling for women while that same patriarchal power, which prevents them from progressing, adopts a feminist guise and continues to impose self-appointed privileges at the expense of society as a whole.

The people who took part in making the photograph belong, in their professional lives, to the groups around which I framed this reflection. The man works for an official body of the Basque Autonomous Community, where he leads a working group; the woman is now self-employed in her medical practice, having previously worked for many years at Peru’s Ministry of Health. Both chose to participate in the project in order to deepen the reflection on equality policies, their real-world implementation and the evolution we would wish to see.