Beatriz Gimeno deconstructs the myths about prostitution and about violence against women during her visit to UJI

The feminist and LGBTI activist Beatriz Gimeno participated on 11 November 2016 in one of the IUDESP Permanent Seminars associated with the objectives of the FEM2016-65834-C2-2-P project. The guest maintained that the neoliberal capitalist system is based upon the breakdown of relationships and social linkages of support and care, a factor which in her opinion increases the levels of women’s vulnerability (physical, psychological and political) to the most extreme situations, as is the case of feminicides (following the nomenclature of Rita Segato).

According to Gimeno, in this context a global climate of “generalized violence against women” is also generated, where the predominant masculinity is configured on the basis of a conjunction between machismo and capitalism that is articulated in diverse forms of control (physical, structural and cultural) of the woman subject and in the promotion of extreme expressions of the traditional gender dichotomy. In this sense, she gave examples referring to the gratuity and precariousness of the care sector and to the lack of public commitment to promoting more egalitarian systems and to legitimising parity in the social imaginary. Lastly, she reclaimed the presence of a Social State that protects fair and sustainable economies. In addition, she pointed out that the presence and reactivation of feminist activism since 15M is allowing for an increasingly more frequent debate to take place about gender biases in politics, as well as in the media and within the generations of young people.