Opinion

Rubiales’s era of paternalistic egomania is over, but Spain’s #MeToo moment is not

Spain is undergoing a cultural change, but not everyone is convinced. Some view it as an effort by the far left to criminalise men

A woman holds up a sign in support of Jennifer 'Jenni' Hermoso before the match between Rayo Vallecano and Atletico Madrid in Madrid on Monday. Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images

Guy Hedgecoe
Sat Sep 2 2023 - 07:00

“It’s not a peck, it’s assault.” That was the chant that echoed around central Madrid earlier this week, where demonstrators – mainly, but not exclusively, women – had gathered to demand the resignation of football federation president Luis Rubiales. A “peck” was how Rubiales had described the kiss he gave Spanish player Jennifer Hermoso after her team’s World Cup victory in Sydney. Television footage showed him effusively hugging the striker after she had received her winner’s medal, before grabbing her by the head with both hands and kissing her on the lips.

That kiss has made it a bittersweet two weeks for the women’s football team. Amid the celebrations of a first World Cup victory, they have been waging a battle against their own boss and his claim that the kiss was consensual.

The dispute has threatened to overshadow the team’s achievement on the pitch. But at the same time, it appears to have instigated a genuine change regarding gender equality in Spanish football and it may have accelerated a broader shift in society.

The pressure on Rubiales started to build almost immediately after the infamous kiss, which Hermoso has insisted was not consensual.

READ MORE

With the uproar building and members of the government calling on him to resign, it was soon being reported that Rubiales would indeed step down. Instead, he gave a defiant speech before the federation’s members in which he vowed not to resign, defended his behaviour and insisted the kiss was consensual. Many in his audience applauded and over the following hours the federation issued communiqués that backed him to the hilt and questioned Hermoso’s integrity.

Meanwhile, Spain’s female players rallied round Hermoso, with the World Cup-winning squad and dozens more refusing to represent the national team until Rubiales had been removed. The male players of the top-flight team Sevilla wore shirts with the slogan “#SeAcabó” (“It’s over”) in a show of solidarity with Hermoso. World football’s governing body Fifa suspended Rubiales, pending disciplinary proceedings and prosecutors opened an investigation to decide whether he could face charges of sexual assault. By Monday, the federation itself had turned against Rubiales, as its regional heads called on him to resign. They also promised to implement policies promoting gender equality in the sport. Lingering institutional support for Rubiales had now evaporated. The World Cup win may have been overshadowed by the affair, but Spanish women’s football had scored a second major victory in the space of a few days.

“Any discrimination against or obstacle facing women in sport has finished,” said Miquel Iceta, minister of culture and sport in the Socialist-led government.

There is a broader context to this saga: it reflects the enormous changes Spanish society has seen over the last half-decade in the areas of gender equality and sexual consent

That, no doubt, is an overstatement, given how much work there still is to do. For example, only one of the country’s 17 regional federations complies with a 2022 law stipulating that 40 per cent of their members must be women. But it looks as if the extraordinary amount of international attention this affair has drawn will encourage genuine improvements.

When informing the federation that he was refusing to step down, Rubiales had described the kiss as totally innocent, like those he gives his daughters. It was a telling comment, especially in the context of a picture taken after the final of a laughing Rubiales carrying another female player in a fireman’s lift. He looked like a father celebrating with his daughters – only they are not his daughters. “Is this so serious that I have to resign, having done the best job ever in the history of Spanish football?” he asked the federation.

Rubiales’s paternalistic egomania has been perhaps the most eye-catching ingredient in the storm of the last two weeks. But there is a broader context to this saga: it reflects the enormous changes Spanish society has seen over the last half-decade in the areas of gender equality and sexual consent.

These have been priorities for the coalition government of Pedro Sánchez, more than half of whose cabinet is made up of women. Driven by his own Socialist Party’s long-standing feminist agenda and the more radical demands of coalition partner Podemos to his left, the government has introduced laws promoting equality and increasing access to abortion, while removing the need for 16- and 17-year-old girls to get parental permission for the procedure and providing paid leave for women suffering severe period pains. Another law sought to make the lack of consent the key factor in assault cases in an effort to clamp down on sexual violence (although critics said it had the opposite effect due to a loophole).

The enormous turnouts for International Women’s Day, held on March 8th ever year, are an expression of this latest feminist wave in Spain.

[ Kathy Sheridan: That creepy ‘peck’ may be Luis Rubiales’s greatest contribution to sport ]

[ Unwanted kiss: Why Spanish women say Luis Rubiales has to go ]

One barometer of how far Spain has come is to compare the Rubiales case with that of Nevenka Fernández, a local councillor in the northern city of Ponferrada who in 2001 filed a complaint about the mayor, Ismael Álvarez, for sexual harassment. Although he was eventually found guilty, he received widespread public support while Fernández left the country because of the social stigma the case caused her.

On social media this week there has been talk of outing the many other Rubiales-type men who remain in positions of power, in an echo of the #MeToo movement.

However, the changes of recent years do not enjoy unanimous support. Some view them as an effort by the far left to criminalise men. When Rubiales told the federation that his critics were using “false feminism” against him, he could have been auditioning for the far-right Vox party, which has frequently used gender issues as a political battleground.

“Without a doubt, what has happened here is linked to feminism, which has basically turned into common sense and that is very powerful,” the sociologist Carmen Romero Bachiller told the news site elDiario.es. “It wrong-foots those who haven’t accepted that times are changing.”

Yet an interesting aspect of this affair is the identity of some of those who chose not to swim against the anti-Rubiales tide. Even Vox appeared to view the controversy as a lost cause for its antifeminist agenda, and stayed mostly quiet.

Three months ago, Spanish football went through another major crisis when long-standing racist abuse against Real Madrid’s Brazilian player Vinicius Jr suddenly became headline news around the world. That deeply embarrassing episode prompted drastic, unprecedented action from the authorities.

Now, sexism in Spain has come under similar scrutiny. The country has made enormous strides forward on this issue in recent years, but Rubiales’s own goal may have just pushed it a lot further.

Guy Hedgecoe is an Irish Times contributor based in Madrid

LATEST STORIES