Kiss row highlights Spain revolt over ‘old-world’ machismo

MADRID – The huge outcry in Spain over

its football federation chief Luis Rubiales’ forcible kiss on the lips of World Cup player Jenni Hermoso

has highlighted the waning power of male chauvinism in the country, according to experts.

Prosecutors are investigating Rubiales over the kiss during the medal ceremony after Spain won the Women’s World Cup final in Australia on Aug 20, but the 46-year-old has refused to resign over what he has defended as a “little peck”.

Hermoso has said she did not consent to the kiss, adding it made her “feel vulnerable and the victim of an assault”.

Ines Alberdi, a Spanish sociologist who specialises in women’s rights, said Rubiales’ speech last Friday in which he refused to quit despite being under pressure was “incredible”, and showed how he does not get the seriousness of his actions.

“What he was effectively saying in his speech was, ‘Look, I didn’t rape her’,” said Alberdi, describing the now-suspended football chief as an “old school male chauvinist”.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Madrid on Monday to demand Rubiales’ resignation over a scandal that has made global headlines, with The New York Times saying the outcry “has come to embody the generational fault line between a culture of machismo and more recent progressivism”.

Marina Subirats, a former director of Spain’s Women’s Institute which fights for gender equality, called Rubiales a “typical male chauvinist” with the “vocabulary and gestures that go with that”.

Rubiales, she recalled, had also come under fire for grabbing his crotch with both hands as he celebrated Spain’s 1-0 win against England in the final while standing next to Spain’s Queen Letizia.

Aina Lopez, a sociologist at Madrid’s Complutense University, said the backlash in Spain over Rubiales’ behaviour shows that the scandal will define “a before and an after”, with the kiss representing “the old world”.

She added that the incident will “force society to question itself on more minor topics that violate women’s dignity and to ask themselves should a woman accept that a man kisses her like this? Yes or no?”

In 2004, Spain passed Europe’s first law to crack down on gender-based violence which established special courts, offered free legal aid for victims, and set up a hotline that would not appear on users’ phone bills.

And in 2022, the government reformed the criminal code to define all non-consensual sex as rape in a move responding to the nationwide outcry and mass street protests provoked by a horrific gang rape in 2016.

While Spain has become a reference in Europe in the fight against gender violence, the cross-party consensus over the issue has been broken in recent years by the rise of far-right political group Vox, which is overtly anti-feminist.

“It is easier to change a law than a culture,” the government’s top gender violence official Victoria Rosell said.

But she added that there had been a “paradigm shift” in recent years in the country, with women increasingly raising their voices against “those who think they have the right to women’s bodies”.

Subirats added: “Public opinion is changing in a country that has historically been very male chauvinist and which is saying for the first time, ‘No, this is unacceptable’.”

“It is a warning,” she added.

Sport Minister Miquel Iceta said the government is determined to do away with “any obstacle” facing women in sports.

“Unfortunately, this has come about because of an incident that never should have happened,” he said.

Spanish tennis star Carlos Alcaraz on Tuesday became the latest athlete to weigh in on the issue, saying that he hopes for a quick resolution to the matter.

“My opinion is that it is not behaviour that should be shown by someone in a high position,” he said after winning his first-round match against Germany’s Dominik Koepfer at the US Open.

“We hope it is resolved soon because the women’s team have achieved something historic and that they have not been given as much credit for what they’ve done is a shame.” AFP