Women’s houses in the Basque country: political, cultural and bodily laboratories of feminism

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the key characteristics of the Women’s Houses in the Basque Country and how they are run. These municipal centres are promoted by the feminist movement in close collaboration with local institutions and are part of the long international feminist tradition of creating spaces specifically for women. The Houses run a diverse range of programmes and offer legal, employment and sexual health counselling services and other targeted support for precarious groups. The central point of this article is that these spaces are laboratories in which activity related to politics, training and support services influences the recomposition of the political subjectivities of the people who participate in them. Another key and distinctive aspect is the particular interrelationships found in the Houses between the institutionalist rationale coming out of the politics of equality and the rupturist rationale of movements like the feminist movement. Furthermore, different groups of feminist women (members of associations or institutions, professionals and researchers) co-exist in the Houses, which contributes to the horizontality of the relationships. Nevertheless, these aspects are not free of tensions, a point that will also be analysed here.

KEYWORDS:

• Women’s houses
• Basque country
• space
• feminism
• institutionalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. According to EUSTAT, the Basque Statistics Institute, this index ‘is a synthetic indicator that summarizes the inequalities that still exist between men and women in a series of dimensions related to well being and personal development. It follows the method used by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), and includes information provided by that body on the 28 countries that currently make up the European Union’. See:

https://www.eustat.eus/elementos/El_Indice_de_igualdad_de_genero_de_la_CA_de_Euskadi_mejora_un_ano_mas_hasta_situarse_en_los_711_puntos_sobre_100/not0017325_c.html

2. See: https://www.eustat.eus/estadisticas/tema_515/opt_0/ti_Indice_de_igualdad_de_genero/temas.html

3. See: https://www.navarra.es/NR/rdonlyres/50E08D3A-C2AE-48B7-973B-ECC8291787BC/442003/2019PGN_Ejecutivo1.pdf

4. See http://www.eldiario.es/interferencias/bifo-sublevacion-afectos_6_319578060.html

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España [CSO2017-82903-R]; Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa [Etorkizuna eraikiz program (2018)].

Notes on contributors

Mari-Luz Esteban

Mari-Luz Esteban: born on 1959/11/01. Degree in Medicine (UPV/EHU, 1983) and PhD in Social Anthropology (University of Barcelona, 1993). Family Planning Doctor (1983-1996). Professor of Social Anthropology: University of León (1994-1996), Public University of Navarra (1996-1998) and UPV/EHU (since 1998).

Currently, at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU): head of the Doctorate Program in Feminist and Gender Studies, and Principal Investigator of the AFIT/Feminist Anthropology Research Group (group A Basque University System). She was head of the Master in Feminist and Gender Studies (2008-2014).

He has directed/co-directed 20 doctoral theses. She has participated in 14 research projects, in 9 of them as principal investigator. Author/co-author of numerous publications: 10 books, 3 monographs, 53 book chapters, 29 articles, editor of 12 books. Among his books, two stand out: Antropología del cuerpo. Género, itinerarios corporales, identidad y cambio (2004) and Crítica del pensamiento amoroso (2011), both in Edicions Bellaterra (Barcelona). 54 invited papers at national and international congresses. 4 six-year research (CNEAI-National Evaluating Commission of research activity).

Research fields: health, body and gender; romantic love. Theoretical-methodological perspectives: feminist anthropology and anthropology of the body and emotions.