The ordinary women that Colita portrayed

Barcelona"If a woman decides to be one, she must choose the path of responsibility or that of submission. It wasn't like that before; before, everything was done for a woman. Not anymore. Now she must choose her attitude toward life." This statement by the writer and politician Maria Aurèlia Capmany is surprising. What does it mean to decide to be a woman? It's a warning. We must consider the context of that time, not just today. Capmany wrote this in 1977. for the photobook Antifemina —the origin of the exhibition at the Disseny Hub Barcelona (Dhub), open until January 25, which prompted this article—, women were just beginning to believe they had rights, that is, that they were people who could decide for themselves what they wanted to do in life. Adultery was punishable, as was abortion, and feminism was demanding things so basic that they would now make us ashamed.

The book is feminist but not activist; the two authors were already doing that in the magazine Feminist vindicationHowever, the book is revolutionary, and that's why, when there was a change in leadership at Editora Nacional, the new head withdrew it from circulation for being subversive. Francesc Polop, the exhibition's curator, recalls that Capmany said in an interview that it was "a book about ordinary women doing ordinary things." A book about women, written by women, that simply aims to offer an honest and direct look at the reality of women in that specific context.

Little tail. AntifeministHowever, this exhibition goes beyond the book. First, because Colita—whose real name was Isabel Steva (Barcelona, ​​1940–2023)—is one of the great photographers Catalonia produced in the 20th century, and these images, selected from her archive of photographs taken throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, are in many cases works of great artistic beauty. But second, because they are also relevant historical documents of daily life during an era she brilliantly captured. The exhibition follows the book's chapters and also incorporates quotes from Capmany that provide context, but it is, as Polop reminds us, primarily a photography exhibition. And it must be said that in this sense, Colita's photographs take on greater significance and are certainly better understood in the exhibition than in the book. The visual impact of the photographs, new prints that she—Polop indicates—was able to review before her death, is greatly enhanced by the exhibition's presentation, gaining emotional intensity.

But the first section is the one that sets the narrative and the discourse. It is titled Story of a Loneliness And it reflects, above all, the old age of women in some splendid, sometimes chillingly symbolic portraits of Colita. Capmany writes: "But an old man is still a man, even if he is old; an old woman is nothing. She must be a desirable body, a fertile body; she has ceased to be the generic one that has been accepted as the essence of femininity. The feminine has become anti-feminine." They are not "feminine" women, an adjective that always has a derogatory connotation, he reminds us, even though it is what women are required to be so that men consider them worthy of being called women.

In short, with this, things have surely not changed much, and after the counter-revolution that began in the mid-nineties and has been rearmed in recent years, we are almost back where we started. "It's curious because when we did this exhibition at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid in 2024, you could see that young people connected with it a lot, from many different places," Polop remarks. "I think that the exhibition, in addition to its photographic value, which is the main one, is ideal for people to become aware of where we come from, of a past that isn't so distant and that still speaks to us because, essentially, it continues to address the same issues."

Thus, in addition to sections on old age and girls, there are chapters dedicated to brides, working women, nuns, prostitutes, models, Roma women, and also—something that now seems unusual—majorettes. Capmany was 58 and Colita was 36 when they decided to write the book together. They understood each other; they were friends and comrades in the political and feminist struggle. But, as Polop acknowledges, they don't appear in the book; there are no emancipated, fighting women like them. The book features other women, real women, those who are usually invisible, and who in this book emerge to say, "Hey, I exist, I'm here." Like the farm workers, the harvesters, and the factory workers—how wonderful is the image of them running with happy faces leaving work—or the nuns sheltered under veils that they have now removed, but others have donned.

Polop is the heir to the Colita archive and is also responsible for the reissue of the book, which was first published in 2021 and now has a second edition to coincide with this exhibition, with which the Barcelona City Council is paying tribute to the authors. He notes that the only images Colita took specifically for the publication were in the section To dismember a bodyIt shows images of advertising posters for shows on Paral·lel Avenue in which the female body is displayed in fragments—hips, mouth, breasts, torso—objects of desire that don't need a face because they only need to represent sublimated sexuality. This is perhaps the most symbolic and politically charged section, although, as Capmany says, everything is always in plain sight and is part of normality. What these women do is show it and, above all, express surprise that things are this way. That surprise, that re-examination of the gaze from a non-sexist perspective, that celebration of ordinary women who do ordinary things and have ordinary bodies is what remains relevant today. More than ever, perhaps, given what we're facing.