The Feminist Agenda

Abstract

The concern for gender equality and its consideration as a fundamental element for social development is very present in our societies. Numerous movements have emerged to denounce the oppression of women from various perspectives. These diverse proposals include, in different ways, a cross-cutting vision of gender relations, reflecting a conceptual challenge and a desire to modify society in order to build a more just and equal social system.

The existing gender inequalities in contemporary societies are the result of a historical construction that has generally granted power and public representation to men, while assigning women a subsidiary and complementary role. The progressive understanding of this situation as a structural issue that goes beyond individual realities has allowed for progress in building more balanced power relations between sexes.

Feminism is an enlightenment-rooted universalism that has always asserted its political agenda with the help of universal declarations. Said agenda, related to its practical implementation, has removed women from ethicality, turning what was accepted as custom into political oppression.

The progressive diffusion, implantation and uncritical acceptance by large sectors of the population of the postulates of postmodernity, along with the more or less overlapping slippage of the postulates of posthumanism, have caused internal tensions within contemporary feminism, while at the same time forced the movement to rearm itself theoretically. For this reason, we have convened this new monograph on the Feminist Agenda, aware of both its relevance in the here and now and also that it should take into account the turbulence to which we are subjected and which we have been carefully observing in recent years.

We hope it will be useful to focus a debate that, in our opinion, is necessary, urgent and cannot be postponed to continue fulfilling the objective of achieving real equality between men and women.

The issue opens with 6 invited articles on current feminism: “They call it feminism and it is not” (Alicia Miyares), “Some legal consequences that can be derived from the entry into force of the Trans Law” (Altamira Gonzalo Valgañón), “Feminist Objections to the Law for the real and effective equality of trans people and for the guarantee of the rights of LGTBI people” (Amparo Mañés Barbé), "Review of some arguments in favor of `sexual assistance´” (Ana Cuervo Pollán), “`He says that he loves me´. Gender violence in adolescence” (Teresa San Segundo) and “The usurpation of the reproductive capacity of women: From `empty vessels´ to `surrogate mothers´” (Ana de Miguel Álvarez).

The twenty-five contributions that make up the Monograph provide new data on the above topics and their relationship with the Feminist Agenda.

To this content are added twenty articles from the Open Tribune, grouped into themes that concern the situation of gender studies, social control and maternity, violence against women and their education.

Six book reviews close the issue.