- The government delegate in Cantabria has presided this Saturday the delivery of the Meninas 2025 recognitions in the Casyc UP Room
- Pepa Bueno warns of the “reactionary movement” in the face of equality and feminism
- The director of CAVAS calls for “sufficient and stable funding” to “not threaten comprehensive care for victims.
The government delegate in Cantabria, Pedro Casares, has called for “not to lower our arms” in the face of gender violence and inequality that “challenges us all” as a society, from institutions and security forces and bodies, to associations and individual citizens, and has called for progress in implementing more educational and training resources, as well as awareness-raising and prevention measures.
Casares pointed this out this Saturday in the delivery of the Delegation’s Meninas 2025 recognitions to the journalist and presenter Pepa Bueno and the CAVAS Cantabria Association in an event held in the Casyc UP Room of the Caja Cantabria Foundation.
The representative of the State has urged to work on this “collective task” that is the eradication of gender violence and to do so with a “shared commitment” against what “many women” suffer.
“Violence against women ends in every male murder, but it begins much earlier. In those first insults, those first humiliations, that control of men over women and their social networks, in that psychological violence to make you feel bad partner or bad mother just because you want to develop your life project,” he said.
For this reason, it has claimed that the new State Pact against Gender Violence delves into measures and resources in the face of vicarious violence, economic violence and digital violence, but it has also urged all administrations to move forward in “educational and training resources and measures of awareness and prevention” and everything “in coordination” because, it has stressed, gender violence “has no borders, no culture, no social class” but “reaches all” women.
“Much remains to be done. There is still a long way to go”, said Casares and, for this reason, he has urged “not to lower our arms and not to surrender because this country will never be a full democracy as long as women live in fear, suffer, are humiliated, insulted, raped or murdered”.
Thus, the government delegate has emphasized that we must work to end this scourge “for those who are no longer there, but above all for all those who come behind, for the girls of today who deserve to grow up without fear, without looking back, without anyone stealing their lives, their dreams and their hopes” and grow up in a Cantabria and Spain “feminist, free, fair and egalitarian”.
About this year’s recognitions, Casares has highlighted his “allied voice” for women and that in his career has helped many women “feel free”. “Thank you for being a mirror for so many women, for being an inspiration for so many women from so many different generations, for doing journalism with heart, with soul, with passion, with commitment and with a feminist outlook to always defend the fight against male violence and the fight for equality,” she said.
And, from CAVAS, the government delegate has praised his almost 40 years of commitment to equality, four decades in which many professionals have helped “women attacked, raped or abused” and who have become “referents” in Santander and Cantabria. “You’re a commitment story,” he said.
In the event, which featured the performance of several songs by the singer-songwriter Lucía Gago, the head of the Unit of Gender Violence of the Delegation, Diana Mirones, also spoke, highlighting the Meninas recognition to “pay tribute to those who, from their professional and human commitment, contribute every day to build a society free of violence against women.”
A violence that, he recalled, has claimed the lives of 36 women so far this year and 1,331 women since 2003 that there are records, and he has thanked the work of the journalist Pepa Bueno for her “courageous gaze and commitment to the truth” throughout her professional career and of the CAVAS Association for having spent almost four decades developing a work that “transforms lives”.
PEPA BUENO WARNS OF THE “REACTIONARY MOVEMENT” AGAINST EQUALITY
After collecting the Menina 2025 recognition of the Government Delegation, Pepa Bueno stressed that there is open “a small window of historical opportunity” to achieve real equality and not only legal but has warned of the “reactionary movement” against that equality and feminism.
Thus, she expressed her concern about the “thought of many young people that feminism goes against men”, something that is “very dangerous” and about what she has demanded “to put all of us to dismantle that lego” and especially with the help of “the many men allied to feminism” that also exists in society.
“I am concerned to see that there are many young men who experience feminism as a threat. We have to rethink how to reach young people, but rethink it seriously,” said Bueno, who nevertheless assured that the feminist movement “is unstoppable” because “our daughters are not going to take a step back” because “we have educated them by telling them that they are free and equal to their peers” and “not with the dose of fear in the bottle” of previous generations.
For her part, the director of CAVAS thanked Menina for the recognition and assured that the work of the association “is not done for comfort but out of firm conviction” that “sexual violence is a social problem that requires continuing to dismantle myths and taboos through sensitization and that it can only be prevented with a quality affective sexual education from an early age”.
Martínez has also urged the institutions to support their work “with sufficient and stable funding” so that “the lack of resources does not threaten comprehensive care for victims, as well as prevention and awareness, which is only possible with constant financial support.”