He says that in the areas of CAPV activism sexist violence is reproduced and legitimized. Being areas where feminist discourse is deeply rooted, how is it possible?

Research is based on this assertion or recognition that sexist violence occurs in the fields of activism, not something I have deduced. It is not new that the reproduction of gender relations and violence should also take place in parties, collectives or leftist movements. It's something that's always been there. However, these issues are assigned a second level. There are plenty of excuses for not putting the issue on the table and not addressing this type of subordination. For example: that the collective has to worry about political issues, that is a bourgeois issue, or that jeopardizes the unity of the collective, among other things.

On the contrary, in recent years there has been a certain appropriation of feminist identity in these areas, and that should not be bad in itself. After all, it is a sign that has influenced the work of feminist women, both within and outside the collectives. Today, however, feminism is an element that gives prestige to the struggle or to the collective. Because I believe that right now feminism is at the head of cutting-edge thoughts on the left. But it is also a factor of political opportunism.

Is there a tendency to be politically correct with feminism?

These issues cause inconsistency and discomfort, and in view of that, it is most convenient to have a politically correct discourse. But, as Jokin Azpiazu and others say, we should start embracing our discomforts. It would be enriching to observe what kind of emotions, difficulties and obstacles we encounter in this activity.

It is true that the subjects are very complex and full of contradictions. The question is whether or not we take advantage of these contradictions to learn. Groups, collectives, parties and trade unions can also take advantage of the contradictions to improve their dynamics and actions.

The same logic is given to justify and legitimize violence in any other sphere in the fields of activism. What are they?

One, the distinction between the public and the private. Through this logic, political violence is the main challenge of the collective, but not the violence that occurs in the private matter, but they perceive it as things that are not transferred to the public sphere.

Another logic would be to detect, simply as aggression, the extreme expressions of violence. We are not yet able to observe the less extreme violence that occurs and reproduces among us.

On the other hand, we continue to reproduce the imaginary through myths: we have stereotypes about what can be considered sexist violence, and we think that both aggressor and assaulted follow a particular model, and it is not. In my research, for example, participants are activists, politicized, middle-class, with higher education and women who have made a political term of re-reading of what has happened to them. This has given me a unique opportunity to break with that stereotype of victim.

The existence of a precise and rigid model of aggressor or aggressor can generate an inability to identify these figures in the fields of activism. How does this make it difficult to identify attacks, react to them and do a job?

There are different cases and, according to what I have analyzed, it goes from everything. In the case of the majority, women have identified the aggression, but the collective has not identified it. This can lead to a double victimization of the woman: the assaulted woman must put energy and effort in order for the others to understand what she has experienced, seeking a proper discourse for this purpose, while the members of the group say that the two versions must be heard or their version questioned. The tendency of members not to take a position in the name of a certain neutrality is noteworthy. They don't realize that that neutrality they extol is to take a position around what happened. It is difficult for people to guide and position reflection in the face of aggression, both individually and collectively.

As for the aggressors, they usually adopt the position of victim, maintaining a common characteristic: the fear of dirty or jeopardizing the identity of the referent militant they have built. In view of this, they try to delegitimize the woman's version.

In the cases analysed, the women who have suffered the aggression have had to look on our own for the means of reparation. We have had to invest our health, our time and our energy to achieve well-being. And the answers that the groups have given have been very bad in general. But there's more and more awareness. Let us hope that things will change as they come to the table.

Once the aggression has been denounced, how do women experience the process from there?

We can't generalize, but there are usually repeated emotions, especially anger. The anger that has come to this situation, or the fact that his colleagues do not support him, for example. We can also find shame often, many women are ashamed of themselves for what has happened to them.

It's a very long process. To begin with, the assaulted must identify the attack. Some do it from the very beginning, others need more time. As for the identification of the aggression, the resources generated by other women are very useful for many. They usually begin to read texts, discourses or feminist theories about violence; or there are women who have worked on this topic, and suddenly, when they go through their work, they reflect what they experience on their skin. A woman, who is involved in the investigation, says that when a friend told her how she had suffered the ill-treatment, she understood what was happening to her.

Feminist discourse and fraternity among women often push many women to become aware of what has happened to them, to re-express it in political terms. In this way, they transfer this experience that was located in the private sphere to the public sphere and begin to take the first steps in the recovery process. But of course, it's a very long process. And being a feminist doesn't save you from suffering all of this.

Do anti-aggression protocols fulfil their role at home?

The hardest thing is to perceive myself or the friend I have next to me as an individual capable of reproducing violence. Furthermore, it is not the same to develop the protocol for cases where aggression occurs outside or inside.

On the other hand, I believe that the protocols to be implemented in the activist camps cannot be like those that can be done in a company or institution. In fact, other human relationships emerge in these groups and there are other logics. In addition, the protocol cannot be an objective and must be placed in the care process, as many of the participants stress.

In my opinion, in the activist camps we have the opportunity to do things differently. We have a privileged space to improve what is on the part of the institutions. In fact, we have learned to criticize the institution, but not so much to make self-criticism and to build other structures. However, progress is being made in that direction.

There's a tendency to imagine the aggressor as someone from outside, and not very close.

Yes, I think it is one of the biggest difficulties. We have mentioned that among the particular logics given in social movements we find the difference between “we” and “them”. This logic leads us to perceive macho violence as phenomena that occur outside the group. We are full of words saying that violence is structural, but on the contrary, it is not easy for us to identify violence in our bodies and collectives; we are not able to understand what this structurality really means. Are we islands? Don't all the logics and power relations that exist in society go through us?

In all of this, what place do the ‘new masculinities’ occupy or affect?

Let me give an example to address this question: the aggressor of a woman participating in the study is a man for equality. It is quite significant, since the incorporation or dominance of the feminist claim at the discursive level does not guarantee that a job has been done. And it's both individual and collective. The fact of being on the left does not make you a feminist, even though many people think it is. Beyond feminist discourse, personal and collective processes of self-criticism, mislearning and deconstruction must be given.

A woman who has participated in the study said that when she first came to a collective where there were men speaking as women, she had given her something to think about. Needless to say, they have to feel bullied by these men in a festive atmosphere. And he explains that, even speaking as a female, these men were the ones who spoke the most in the assemblies.

We have to catch up when it comes to identifying the characteristics of hegemonic masculinities, and I'm not saying this alone, and that's what Jokin Azpiazu warns us as well. In fact, hegemonic masculinities are reproducing with very different characteristics, even on the left. Perhaps so far hegemonic models of virility are out of date, and other times we have to pay attention if we want to observe the violence they reproduce. We have to see what is happening beyond speeches.

Can the materialization of new masculinities be a strategy?

Yes. After all, to put it somewhat, it is “necessary” that today there is a feminist discourse to remain in power: it is a prestigious element. There are many men who cite Judit Butler better than you and me. But then, in their day-to-day lives, they can continue to reproduce many power relationships. So, it can be a strategy to keep power going. In some cases, of course, not in all cases, it has to be said. But it can be, yes.

Can that give rise to more perverse attacks?

Of course. Some aggressors use mechanisms of aggression that are outside the imaginary of mistreatment and do not correspond to the characteristics of the aggressive model that we have in our imagination. And then they use that difference to delegitimize the woman's version, arguing that they don't follow the aggressor model. They also defend the aggressor model, arguing that if the woman does not meet the characteristics of the model, she cannot be a victim of male violence.

Are the sexist aggressions in the areas on the left taboos?

I believe that today in Euskal Herria we have different realities: in some groups it will be a taboo, in others something uncomfortable, in others something that does not happen – with an irony tone – and in others a challenge. Nothing can therefore be generalised.

The need to question the model of militancy is therefore evident.

For some, yes, but the challenge is that we all see that need. Steps are being taken and we must continue along that path. We must know or predict that it is a race in the background and that we will probably never end. But we have to keep raising the issue, questioning things, being awkward. My work is a small contribution on that road to address that challenge.