Joana Bonet: “Only from equality can we better interweave our societies and achieve progress”
Over the past few decades, the role of women has undergone significant changes in both social and work environments. An evolution that the writer and journalist Joana Bonet, analyzes in her book Fabulous and Rebellious. How I Became a Woman. A tribute to the female figures who influenced her life and in which the author offers us, through her own personal story, a profound reflection on the condition of women over the years, from the end of Franco's regime to the present.
Throughout her career spanning over 30 years as a journalist and writer, Joana Bonet has collaborated with leading press, radio, and television media, has directed successful magazines such as WOMAN, Marie Claire, Fashion and Arts; she has published seven books and has received numerous accolades for her work in the fight for gender equality.
After organizing the presentation of the 1st edition of the Fashion&Arts awards for fashion and arts at Seventy Barcelona, one of the most prominent social events in Barcelona before the lockdown, we wanted to chat with her again and learn more about her life, her vision of the city and, of course, her latest book. Despite her busy schedule, filled with commitments that keep her constantly on the move between cities, she made time for us to sit down with her from a distance and share an enriching and hopeful conversation about the evolution of women's roles in our society. And about her own.
Joana Bonet's story begins between Vinaixa and Albi, two small villages located in Les Garrigues, Lleida, where her parents were born and where she spent her childhood. Lands bathed by dry landscapes, yet with a very valuable vegetation that, despite the arid climatic conditions, manages to make its way to grow on the mountain slopes. Strong, resilient, and aromatic plants, with an essence that remains and makes an impression. The same ones that saw the writer grow up and seem to have imprinted her with that same spirit of persistence that has accompanied her throughout her life in achieving each of her goals.
She defines herself as a very observant and curious woman, who has managed to keep her capacity for wonder intact. And if there's one thing she's certain about, it's the exact order of the roles in her life: "First I am a mother, then I am a writer and journalist. Journalism has always been for me like a vigorous husband and writing my first platonic love and my lifelong lover. A faithful lover, but also unfaithful, because with writing you have to measure yourself every day to see if it withstands you"
In her book, Joana Bonet selects the stories of 40 “fabulous and rebellious” women to illustrate the narrative. Women who, in one way or another, have played an important role in her life: “The selection was a kind of free association of ideas. They are names of women that initially attract me, some with mystery or even with a certain distance, like Patricia Highsmith, for example. Others have been remote, but at the same time, their freedom struck me, like Lola Flores. In a Spain that was still very complex and provincial, her sexual freedom was undoubtedly a breath of fresh air for me, being very young. There are also many female writers who have been nourishing my literary vocation; and then there are the pioneers, like Janis Joplin who was the first female rock and roll star, and who was full of complexities.”
As the writer Manuel Vilas stated during the presentation of his book Fabulous and Rebellious in Madrid, for Joana Bonet “if someone has not failed in life, they are not interesting”. Therefore, the lives of the women that the writer collects in her book are imperfect lives, with their moments of failure: “Some even have tragic endings. In any case, I was not looking for exemplarity, I was looking for an emotional impact, even admiration. I tried to write with a certain distance, approaching an aspect of the lives of these women, because truly in these profiles, due to the format, due to the brevity, it is impossible to summarize their lives, nor was it my intention. It was more about conveying how they had made me fall in love, from where they had interested me, had nourished me, and had made me move ideas. Because above all, they have made me transfer, move, and ignite small sparks of ideas”.
When asked how she assesses the current situation of women, she states optimistically that we are living in an era where equality has never been in better shape: "Global awareness towards true equality is increasingly strong and therefore, we can say that feminism has conquered the public opinion debate and has created a bond, especially with the new generations, educated in gender studies and by mothers who have worked and experienced in their daily lives, in their relationships with their companies, with banking institutions, with their money, with their coworkers... the inequality. And they have fought to overcome it."
Y añade: “Las nuevas generaciones de millenials esgrimen una convicción y un feminismo mucho más activo que el de generaciones anteriores. Desde el punto de vista de empresa, evidentemente, hay aún un dato demasiado débil en cuanto a las mujeres que ocupan los consejos de administración y la brecha salarial aún dista mucho de poderse corregir. La violencia de género sigue siendo uno de los problemas troncales de nuestra sociedad, también por lo que afecta a nuestro tejido social, sobre todo a los niños, la cadena de hechos dramáticos que comporta la falta de respeto y agresión solo por el hecho de ser mujer. Ir hacia atrás, verdaderamente, sería un retroceso muy peligroso. No se puede romper el consenso que hemos alcanzado”.
The path that the women of the country have taken to reach the point where we are today has been long, and, of course, it has been fraught with difficulties and obstacles. As the journalist reflects: "In Spain, women covered in less than 10 years, since Franco's death, what the rest of European and Western women took 30-40 years to achieve. We started from a position of clear regression and disadvantage because we had that delay which had prevented women from being independent and autonomous. The hermeneutics of the times in '60s-'70s Spain still fixed the position of women as subordinate to men, women as an extension of men, not as complete beings. The journey that Spanish women have made from the '40s to today is a galactic journey, but one that women have traveled with normalcy, with courage, with defiance, without the need to proclaim themselves heroines of anything, even though they started from a very disadvantaged position."
And right now in 2021, twenty-one years after the turn of the millennium, is when the writer asserts with full conviction that "feminism has won the battle of public opinion and is now a central issue, not a marginal one. The understanding of a woman's declaration as a feminist today is much more organic; before, the word feminism had been so poisoned that many women didn't know what it meant. It was believed that feminists were not friends of men, that it was a gender war, and nothing could be further from the truth. I believe in a feminism that puts life at the center and, therefore, promotes a humanist culture based on equality, gender equality. Only from equality and not from difference can we better interweave our societies and achieve progress. The most progressive and prosperous societies are those that have a more equal distribution of power between men and women, in universities, in management, in the transmission of values...".
However, right now, with the coronavirus crisis, Joana states that "we have seen how domestic tasks have largely fallen back on women and we have seen many men going out with a bag to the streets to shop because they needed to breathe. This notion that women are fulfilled at home is false, it's a cliché. Now, their ability to provide care, custody, encouragement, security, which would be some of the adjectives that define what a home is, well, I believe that yes, women are more than capable of these skills and have proven it, especially in this crisis. The idea that a woman can only find fulfillment as the angel of the home, which is precisely a concept that appears in a phrase by Virginia Woolf that I use to head my book: 'The first duty of a woman writer is to kill the angel of the home', this idea is indeed what we have wanted to fight against, because writing involves solitude, introspection, and not following the exact pattern of what the angel of the home wants and needs".
And once that oppressive angel is defeated, for Joana home is “the place where my soul rests, my body, all my selves, where my confusion dwells and also where I celebrate life with the people I love the most, my daughters. It is a nest, the refuge of the being, an inner space and at the same time a space that needs to be aired out and ventilated a lot and that changes and is enriched by the presence and passage of others to whom you open the door of your home”.
When asked about Barcelona, Bonet explains that she cherishes many memories lived in the city, as it is there, as she explains, “the first years of building my integration into working life and labor took place. Barcelona was my professional baptism and at the same time my first steps. The quenched thirst for freedom and, above all, the Mediterranean. The port of Barcelona is the one I knew as a child because I have an uncle who was a merchant marine captain. I remember we would go to wait for the arrival of his ship and that image of the port of Barceloneta, the urban sea of Barcelona still fascinates me”.
And always recommends to “get lost in Barcelona, and not just in the old town, in the Gothic quarter... Beyond what is included in the tourist guides, you can enter the artisan workshops in Poble Nou, watch the sunset from the Carretera de les Aigües, explore its secret parks and discover sculptures like the Dama del Paraigües, which transport you to another time. And of course, savor the jewels of modernism, especially in painting, which to me seem both adorable and cheeky: Rusiñol, Cases, there is a complicity of a bohemia that is also very cosmopolitan. The Barcelona that is open to the sea and not closed upon itself is the one I cherish”.
Hers is a story of success, but also of effort, sacrifice, and courage. A lot of courage. Because Joana Bonet's story is that of a woman who, knowing her worth, is capable of facing her own fears and those of society to achieve her dreams. Without a doubt, Joana is one of those women who have made moves so that the role of all women can advance in the race for equality.
