The third attempt hasn't been successful either. The assembly of the Brotherhood of the Most Pure Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ of Sagunto has once again rejected changing its statutes to allow women to participate. This decision has deeply upset all those citizens who have been working for years to shed the traditional machismo surrounding the celebration. The Ministry of Industry and Tourism also disapproved and is considering revoking the festival's designation as a Festival of National Tourist Interest. The Ministry of Equality is also considering appealing the statutes for "violating the right to equality and non-discrimination." Regardless of what the authorities do, the Inclusive Holy Week collective, made up of both women and men, has ruled out creating an alternative brotherhood, arguing that the Brotherhood of the Most Pure Blood "is the one in Sagunto." Furthermore, they have announced they will take legal action. Their spokesperson, Blanca Ribelles, details this in the newspaper ARA.

Women will continue to be barred from participating in Holy Week in Sagunto. This decision was made by the men of the Brotherhood of the Most Pure Blood, which organizes the festivities in the city, in a secret ballot held this Sunday. For years, there have been calls to allow women to participate as members of the brotherhood, and the controversy continues to grow, but the organization has decided to maintain the ban. This decision risks jeopardizing the festival's recognition as a Festival of National Tourist Interest, a distinction that did not sway the members in their decision. A total of 276 members voted against including women, while 114 voted in favor of changing the statutes to make the traditional Catholic festival more inclusive. The vote, held at the Hermitage of the Most Pure Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, involved modifying an article by changing the word "men" to "people." The Inclusive Holy Week group has called for dozens of people to gather outside the church to protest the decision. Their spokesperson, Blanca Ribelles, explained to Efe that "another great opportunity has been lost" and regretted that the City Council had not commented on the matter. Sagunto's Holy Week has over 500 years of history and a tradition that, according to the male participants—the only ones allowed to speak—is untouchable. The group that wants to make this tradition inclusive has been trying since 2022 to get women's entry into the brotherhood approved. Sunday's extraordinary assembly was held behind closed doors, and of the 1,700 members, only 403 voted (with 22 abstentions, invalid votes, and blank votes).

In one of the approximately one hundred thousand WhatsApp groups of friends I belong to (and which have so many women, especially those in their later years), we spent quite a while discussing an Instagram post announcing that youth is no longer an age, but an energy. The headline is brilliant, and at first glance, I bought it wholeheartedly. I myself am fifty-six years old and I feel energetically young. And I think about it every Monday, because I like to start the week with a little madness: going to the gym for the seven o'clock weightlifting class. I've always been told I have a lot of energy, and as you can see, it hasn't diminished with age. My hands hurt more (osteoarthritis), I complain from time to time about my hip (that's the trochanteric bursitis trying to come back), I need a mouthguard to avoid straining my jaw at night, I take five hundred supplements to prevent it... However, I feel full of life. And I told myself that perhaps the post was right, and I do belong to what they now call the new young, he midlife expanding.

We commemorate March 8th again this year, with almost the same demands, or even worse, insisting that we don't want to take steps backward. Feminism seems like Sisyphus trying to push a boulder uphill over and over again. Today, one of the reasons that makes progress in rights and the consolidation of those already achieved more difficult is the digital world. Because it's not just that it has a sexist bias, but that by its very nature it amplifies and multiplies it. As we explain in today's dossier, the examples are numerous and the reasons obvious. One is that the digital universe is dominated by white heterosexual men, both the owners of the main companies in the sector and those who program and work in these companies. These men train the algorithms with the inherent gender bias, based on their interests and concerns, and they don't even find it strange that this bias exists, nor do they know how to detect it.

With the highest data of young people who despise feminism And amid the offensive of far-right rhetoric against equality policies, the 8M demonstration kicked off this Sunday in Barcelona – promptly at 11:30 a.m. – for International Women's Day. This year, the feminist movement sought to confront the reactionary wave and warn of the rise of the far right and conservatism, which sends messages contrary to human rights that until now were thought to be inviolable. "I'm out for the same reasons as always, but now it's more necessary than ever: the world, what has happened and what may happen, is frightening," explains Teresa, one of the 24,000 demonstrators – according to estimates by the Barcelona City Police – who took to the streets of Barcelona.

A paranormal phenomenon occurs at the gym: in most of the group classes, the men disappear. Like that old legend from the eighties, the Bermuda Triangle, that space that swallowed airplanes, the classes swallow the male beings. And I'm not talking about Zumba classes, although that happens too. I'm talking about classes where women lift weights and make them go up and down (body pump) or we do boxing and martial arts punches (body combat), or we do arm and chest strength training while hanging from straps (TXR), activities that in the collective imagination wouldn't be considered "women's activities," but have become so. Then there are classes where women are present, but they are a minority, like yoga, Pilates, and classes to activate the body in general. And there is equality only in CrossFit classes. And where are the men at the gym? Massively, in the weight room, doing individual exercises and lifting waaaaaay heavier weights than in the classes.

The Enlightenment is not an outdated and obsolete chapter in the history of ideas, but rather the normative core of liberal democracy. It is, above all, the political commitment to replacing submission to tradition, dogma, and the whims of power with autonomy, and to replacing authoritarianism with critical thinking. Kant summarized it when he said that the Enlightenment is "humankind's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." And with the advance of reactionary darkness, we must remember that light is preferable to darkness and that the defense of democracy continues.

"Praised be the most holy sacrament"," the nun would announce loudly in the middle of the dormitory in the morning. And they, half asleep in bed and with their eyes still stuck shut with sleep, would answer in unison mechanically:May He be forever blessed and praised"The nuns would wake them up like that day after day. Maria Forns remembers it perfectly, even though it was more than half a century ago. She was 16 years old when she was placed in a convent against her will.

I have absolutely no desire to be twenty again. When I was twenty, I looked in the mirror and didn't see myself. I only focused on everything about my body and personality that I wanted to change. And although I already had the determination that has saved my ass so many times, it wasn't as honed or as well-focused. I wasn't as brave as I am now either. And I experienced far more fears and insecurities. Fewer than at fifteen, but a whole lot more than now. I wasn't really sure what I could do with my life, and I still had to fully believe that what I sensed was possible (working as a screenwriter and trying to write a children's book someday) could actually be real.

As a young woman, she explored the world with a mathematical eye and needed to understand the scientific basis of what she observed. The analytical gaze of Sara Figueras Vila (1964), from Solsona, led her to study physics, specialize in meteorology and geophysics, earn a doctorate in physical sciences, and become a pioneer in Spain in modeling seismic wave propagation using supercomputing techniques. This earthquake expert is proof that "not all science happens in laboratories." Since 2017, she has been head of the geophysics department at the Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia (ICGC), where she strives to make knowledge a "useful, applicable, and accessible" resource. Without a hint of arrogance, she takes pride in working for "essential public services focused on the safety of the population."

Many women are used to feeling like they're more evil than a plague. And not for killing kittens, or for embezzling public funds. No, no, no. Simply for getting on the nerves of someone who cuts in line at the bakery (she's getting angry again, what does she think she's doing!), for pointing out that it's absurd to have bikinis for girls with tops (she's stirring up trouble again, what does she think she's doing! Let's forget about it and fix things, and from now on, the person who messed up will say it (unfriendly, cruel, conceited, arrogant, insensitive, what does she think she's doing!). For asking for a vacation, a leave of absence, or sick leave, or for someone to do the grocery shopping, or for them to stop harassing us (selfish, unsupportive, dramatic, what does she think she's doing!). Or for getting a divorce or making any major life change (look, what does she think she's doing!).

Suffocated between two diaper sizes. Invisible amidst digital calendars that remind us of appointments with other people's "first-degree" relatives. Crushed by an army of human resources that treats us as if we were being given "vacation" to demand hard-won rights. Buried in a system that thrives on us, women in our forties and fifties who care, work, and care, care, care, care until others take over and care for us, care, care, care; or not.

Feminism emerged in 2018 from social movements at the forefront of the media and social agenda —that year saw the first global feminist strike in history— thanks to the Me Too movement denouncing sexual harassment, which originated in Hollywood and spread like wildfire. In Spain, the trigger was the street protests against the La Manada case. Feminism advances in waves, and we are now in the fourth wave, which has the denunciation of sexual violence as a key element. Me Too connected us as women and shattered the illusion of equality: "It was an awakening. Despite many decades of equality policies and equality in formal terms, attitudes of sexual violence continue to be reproduced underneath," argues Maria Freixenet, a researcher at the Institute of Political and Social Sciences ( The neo-machista backlash after the fourth wave of feminism, signed by several academics.

Since the last legislature, feminist demands have had their own department in the Government, and since its creation, the proposals of the department headed by Tània Verge have occupied headlines, appearances and even controversies - such as the use of totis–. Now, with the new department headed by Eva Menor, the media spotlight on the regional ministry has been reduced. Although the executive maintains many of the measures initiated by the previous team, communication – and also some new measures – tends to take a backseat. This is a change that has also occurred in the Spanish government: from the rise of Irene Montero of Podemos to Ana Redondo of the PSOE, who in just the last few weeks, almost two years after taking office, has been in the eye of the storm due to the anti-abuse bracelets.

"Something must change!" With this cry halfway between help and tiredness, the protagonist ofPrima facie, magnificently performed by Victoria Luengo, culminates a heartbreaking final monologue that addresses not only sexual assault, but also the lack of protection for victims.

Fatima Ouassak was born in Morocco, but moved to France when she was just one year old. A political scientist and activist, she presents the essay The power of mothers, written out of anger at racism and Islamophobia, and fear of the consequences this can have for their children. It defends the power mothers have if they are able to organize politically.

Born in the fourth wave of feminism, Me Too and egalitarian policies, teenage boys and girls who are now in high school are more separated than their parents were at the same age. Feminism has been a hardship for them, because they maintain that it is points to everyone as aggressors And in the end, they end up discriminated against because everything is done to favor women. Girls, on the other hand, assume that feminism means equality, but to maintain coexistence with their peers, they reject positions they consider radical.

Polarization among young Spaniards is increasing. Although the generation between 15 and 29 years old shares many concerns, such as housing and mental health, their ideological positions are increasingly opposed. The distance is accentuated when comparing the thoughts of men and women, given that the ideological gap is widening. Specifically, men are divided between ideologies: 25% are on the right and 33% in the center, while 31% adhere to the left. As for women, 41% define themselves as left-wing, compared to 21% who define themselves as right-wing. 7% of men and 6% of women are on the far right. "We need to understand what is happening to young people in that country," said the Minister of Youth and Children, Sira Rego.

My middle son, Jadiel, told me a few days ago that I was very intense. And yes, I am. And with this intensity, I try to guide my three sons toward a more egalitarian world. I've always placed a lot of emphasis on respect for women. In how my sons relate to girls, in how they listen, in how they look. I want them to be part of the change, to understand that the world can no longer function as it used to and that as men, they have a responsibility to bring about transformation.

LGBTI-phobia is on the rise at a time when hate speech and anti-rights discourse are rampant on social media, in the streets, and even in institutions. 113 centers of the SAI (Comprehensive Care Service) network and 72 more in the department's Office of Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination Feminism. In total, 479 complaints were filed, at least one each day, against LGBTI-phobia, in an institutional event also attended by President Salvador Illa and representatives of the movement's associative network. efforts" to counter messages and attacks against sexual diversity and gender expression. In this regard, Menor has warned of the risk of "normalizing" these attacks, especially among the younger population, the group where hate messages are most prevalent. According to the latest survey by the Generalitat (Catalan government) on discrimination, 25% believe the attacks should be more moderate and less visible. They curtail rights within the European Union. For the minister, the 8% increase in complaints in just one year is an "alarming" fact that cannot leave anyone indifferent.