In the midst of the reactionary wave sweeping the world, the organisers of this year’s 8-M demonstrations wanted to highlight the fact that the care of children, dependent family members and vulnerable people falls on women and determines their personal and professional lives. The denunciation of neo-fascism and racism was a common denominator of the protests. .
8-M 2025 was celebrated in a political and social context marked by reactionary earthquakes, the epicentre of which was the White House in the United States. The recently inaugurated mandate of Donald Trump is driving the extreme right around the world, which has as one of its main objectives the fight against feminist conquests. This dark framework was very present in the demonstration of thousands and thousands of people all over the country, in many cities braving the rain. Proclamations against the danger of neo-fascism and against racism were a common denominator in all the protests.
In Barcelona, the majority demonstration was led by a banner proclaiming ‘les cures sostenen la vida’ (care sustains life). The demonstrators’ manifesto emphasised that care falls to women and sustains their lives. For this reason, ‘we demand co-responsibility from men, administrations and society as a whole, because care is a collective right and a social responsibility, not the individual work demanded of women’. All the data show that women are more likely than men to be unemployed, to work part-time or to take unpaid leave to care for vulnerable family members, children and especially the elderly or sick.
The manifesto argues that ‘the set of oppressions that the system generates in the field of care is a strategy of social control that wants to keep us subordinated to an organisation that benefits the market and capital for life, for all life’. This is why it calls for ‘a public care system protected by law and with sufficient resources to guarantee the right to care for all’. And it concludes: ‘Care is not an individual or private matter, but a structural problem that underpins society as a whole’.
In the context of the unfair distribution of care work, the manifesto recalls ‘the ferocious exploitation of migrant women engaged in domestic and care work, especially those who are denied papers by the administration, the “interns”, in conditions of slavery. Hotel chambermaids, SAD (‘’Home Care Service‘’) workers, nursing home workers, personal assistants, clinical assistants, midwives, nurses and all other care workers’. For all these reasons, ‘we denounce the invisibility of those who care on the margins – mothers, friends, neighbours, partners – stigmatised by society’.
The split in feminism was once again evident in two marches. The majority, called by the 8-M assembly, left Plaça Universitat towards Gran Via, down Passeig de Gràcia to Ronda Sant Pere and ended at Arc de Triomf. The main 8M demonstration in Barcelona started in the central Plaça Universitat on Saturday afternoon, a few minutes after 6pm. Among those present were PSC Deputy First Secretary and President of the Barcelona Provincial Council, Lluïsa Moret; ERC leaders Elisenda Alamany, Arés Tubau and Diana Riba; the leader of the Comuns in Parliament, Jéssica Albiach; and CUP spokesperson Su Moreno. Leaders of the main trade unions also attended.
The Coordinadora 8M-Movimiento Feminista, made up of organisations such as Feministas de Cataluña and the CNT, which oppose the trans law and call for the abolition of prostitution, distanced themselves from the official call, with their own demonstration at the same time, under the slogan ‘We are women and we say enough’. At the head of the banner was a banner with the following message: ‘Enough of subjecting the rights of women and girls to the desires of men. We put an end to patriarchy’. This march started in Plaça de Catalunya. At the head of the march a banner with the following message could be read: ‘Stop subjecting the rights of women and girls to the desires of men. Let’s put an end to patriarchy’.
