Today, Explained - #SeAcabo: Spain’s World Cup reckoning

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

Saying “it’s over,” Spain’s World Cup-winning women are using an unwelcome kiss to try to end sexism in sports. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah with help from Jon Ehrens, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact checked by Laura Bullard and Hady Mawajdeh, mixed by David Herman, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Friday, Misa Rodriguez, a player on Spain's national footy team, posted a cartoon on Twitter. It's got a little girl with her foot on a ball looking up at her grandmother. And she asks, Grandma, tell me how we won the World Cup. No ganamos solo un mundial, pequeña. Ganamos mucho más. We didn't just win the World Cup, little one. We won a lot more. She captioned the cartoon with,

Se acabó. It's over. Spain's women's team defied all the odds and won. And they're pretty sure they're about to win again. That's coming up on Today Explained. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points.

Visit Superstore.ca to get started. Halima Shaw passes to Hadi Mawaddi. Hadi passes to Noel King. She cuts. Oh my! It's today! Explain! King, she cuts. Oh my, it's today. Explain. Sean Ramos-Virum here with Gwendolyn Oxenham.

I'm a writer and producer, and I made the audio docu-series called Hustle Rule, The Untold Stories of Women's Soccer. And she used to play a little footy herself. I did, yeah. I played professionally for a hot minute in Brazil for Santos, and I played for Duke in college, and I write for Sports Illustrated and ESPN freelancing. We reached out to her to talk about Spain's women's team because they pulled off something incredible and seemed to be on the cusp of another big win. It's worth keeping in mind that the men's side is just this fabled side where everyone has worshipped the Spanish style of play. But the women's side was always ignored. I mean, there was very much the cultural mentality of, oh, you know, football is not for women. And it took decades to sort of undo that. And that entire

time, the national team was fighting for a change. Like, hey, can we have some women's jerseys? And hey, what about a pro league? So it wasn't until 2021 that they got a full domestic pro league. Once they had that, the players suddenly realized what it meant to be treated like a professional. You know, the U.S. team has a nutritionist and a psychologist, and they play friendlies against good teams, while Spain's team, they didn't get to play friendlies against quality teams and they didn't have the level of resources. And there's just a long reputation of the Spanish Federation, like not listening to what the players are asking for. Last September, 15 players protested the national team environment, the management style of the head coach. And so they all signed an email and saying that until conditions within the national team improved,

they did not wish to be called up. So other teams have done this, France, for example, and the French Federation responded and they got a new coach. Well, Spain's reaction was fine. You don't want to play for the national team? Like, we don't want you. We'll go get a new coach. Well, Spain's reaction was, fine, you don't want to play for the national team? Like, we don't want you. We'll go get a new team. And so they basically brought in a B team who then proceeded to win almost all of their games, including beating the U.S. And, you know, the federation was basically like, we don't want anyone back unless you apologize. So only three of those original 15 players were a part of this new World Cup team. And so it's just crazy that many of the stars of Barcelona are not playing for the World Cup team. So you've got this new team that's lined up most people, very different names combined with the old players.

Even though they were so talented and everyone could recognize they had this beautiful playing style, you can't win a World Cup when there's so much controversy and drama and fighting between the federation and players who have to get to know each other. So, I mean, most people didn't give Spain a chance of winning. But then they got on the field and people sort of quickly reevaluated. Tell me about the journey to the trophy stage. How did this team do once they hit the pitch? They were just a sight to behold. You know, they played Zambia and Costa Rica first, and neither of which are known to be powerhouses,

but Zambia had just beaten Germany, who is known as a powerhouse, and they beat them 5-0 in just spectacular, beautiful goals. Making it look easy. Making it look easy. Conteas, tu hermos easy. And then they played Japan, who was sort of the other team that all tournament people were talking about how beautifully they were playing. And Japan sort of, you know, took them to school. It's Mina Tanaka running for Japan all by herself right now. Might not need the help. Up in the top corner.

Incredible from Mina Tanaka. Incredible from Japan. But I think it was a really uniting moment where the Spain team came together and found a way to sort of rise out of that defeat and they felt more connected. You could just see that unity on the field and the joy. Like, I don't want to forget that element where Jenny Hermoso, after the semifinal,

she said to one of the reporters, like, you know, these are the moves I learned playing in my neighborhood, playing in my streets. Like, they gave me joy back then, and they give me joy now, and I hope we can bring others joy. And you could just feel the love. And my grandfather, when we went

for the typical family meals on Sundays, there were always balls. And since I was very little, I always remember him. Before the final, they went into the game and they said to each other, like, let's play like we're kids. It filled me with both awe and fear of like, oh my gosh, like, how will we keep up with them? Spain waiting for the final whistle.

It's there! They go into the final. My 10-year-old son predicted them in his pool, and he might have been the only one. It was because he had watched Spain play the USA with me. They could play beautifully, and the fact that they could rise out of all of that adversity. And I think any female player can tell you, you just want to play the game and you learn how to shut everything else out. And I think the Spain team did that and cared about each other. And you could see that. So tell me how the focus goes from this historic accomplishment by a team of women to being on this guy, Luis Rubiales, who is the president of the culture of the Federation at play and seeing the demonstrations of affection took a lot of people aback.

He grabbed his own crotch and started doing a sort of Michael Jackson-esque celebration in front of the Queen of Spain and the Princess of Spain. The crowning moment was when he grabbed Jenny Hermosa's cheeks, pulled her to him and kissed her on the, and then went on down the line. And the cameras picked up this kiss, and it caused a huge, huge sensation. So after the game, Jenny Hermosa and her teammates are in the locker room. They're celebrating. She's eating a brownie.

Someone shows her the moment. And there's an Instagram live video. And you see her face and you see her kind of reacting to it. And she says, what was I supposed to do? And, you know, I didn't like it. And she's kind of incredulous. And then she's interviewed later on the radio and she downplays it. She says, you know, it was the emotion of the moment. There's nothing more there because she doesn't want this to be what the conversation is about. Like she wants to talk about the World Cup, how they just put on an absolute show. She doesn't want to talk about being kissed. But then, you know, the media storm just grows and grows and grows. They're making a fool of us around the world because

of this. There's a macho and mafia person is representing us. We won't tolerate it. And after mounting pressure, the Spanish Football Association called a general assembly, where the president was expected to resign. Instead, he announced, Is that so serious that I have to leave while having done the best job for Spanish football? Do you really believe that I have to resign? Well, I'm going to tell you something. I will not resign. I will not resign. I will not resign. No, voy a dimitir. I will not resign. And Ruby Alice says, oh, it was consensual and she told me I could kiss her. The World Cup winning squad has issued a statement

in which Jenny Hermoso insisted that the kiss was not consensual. I want to clarify that at no time did I consent to the kiss. I don't tolerate that my word is questioned. And the Federation has his back. They accuse Hermoso of lying and they initially say, yeah, no, he's not going anywhere. You guys are being crazy.

And she talks about, I am, you know, a victim of this impulse-driven, sexist, out-of-place act. And, you know, we do want changes. The players who signed the communique also said they will not represent their country until Mr. Rubiales is removed. Then, you know, the storm grows and grows.

And now they are asking for his resignation. And he's still refusing. His mother locked herself in a church on a hunger strike until, you know, this witch hunt is over. His cousin spoke outside the church. Of course he's suffering because he doesn't want his mom to be put in this position. But his mom knows what he's like. Those who know him know who he is. This type of media reaction is not normal. He's not a harasser.

So there's been quite the series of events. Tonight, outrage growing inside Spain. We cannot express our joy as women without having some man interrupted and spoiled. This was the message from Spain's deputy prime minister on Monday. Whoever applauds the violation of someone's rights, Whoever applauds a presumed sexual aggression, a forced kiss, should not continue in their position. Prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into whether it was sexual assault. FIFA suspended Rubiales for 90 days. It's just frustrating because in what should be being talked about was what an absolute show the Spanish team put on.

And instead we're talking about males' bad behavior. However, maybe we're witnessing like, okay, here's a very clear example of what the players were talking about and what more do we need? And now please, can we make the changes we've been asking for? Gwendolyn Oxenham, she's got a podcast.

It's called Hustle Rule. It features the stories of women defying the odds to kick balls from Brazil to Nigeria to New York City. When we're back, on Today Explained, how this unwanted kiss might actually lead to another big win for feminism in Spain. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos.

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Visit connectsontario.ca. The rain in Spain stays mainly in... Today Explained. My name's Lane Green, and I am the Madrid Bureau Chief for The Economist magazine. I think a sad truth of this situation with the Women's World Cup win is that more people have now probably heard about this kiss than who actually watched the match. What does this kiss and the uproar around it tell us about Spain right now? Well, the uproar around it actually, I think, is good news in a weird way because it really shows you how far Spain has come. I think 20, 30, 40 years ago, the average societal sexism, you know, unwanted

grabs and kisses and compliments and street harassment were as common or more common in Spain than they are in any other Western country. I think that the uproar, the opposition to what happened has been almost across the board politically, in the media, and it really shows that a society has come a long, long way. Forty-fifth years ago, Spain was a very conservative country. Today, it's a country where feminism is both pretty broad and pretty deep, and there's not really a lot of prominent voices reacting against the reaction. In other words, most people are on the side of Jenny Hermoso,

who was kissed against her will, and not on the side of Luis Rubiales, the head of the Football Federation, who kissed her. Tell me about the progression of feminism in Spain and how it compares to other Western European nations. Yeah, it's a very uneven progress. In 1975, Francisco Franco died. Inside the Pardo Palace, eight miles from Madrid, Francisco Franco, head of state, head of the army, the man who's dominated Spain for 36 years, still fights for his life.

And he led what he called a national Catholic dictatorship in which women needed permissions to do basic things, to travel, to open bank accounts and to be, you know, fully independent citizens. It was very, very, very old-fashioned Catholic and conservative. As a result of that, while the rest of Western Europe was progressing in terms of women's liberation and autonomy... Free our sisters! Free ourselves! What do we want? Equality! When do we want it? Now! It was like a cork coming out of a bottle.

In the 1980s, there was this kind of explosion of sexual liberation and personal freedoms. It really moved the needle a very, very long way in a very, very short time. So Spain went from being one of the most conservative countries in this regard to very quickly being, I think, one of the most feminist in Europe. I think a lot of outsiders might think of Spain in sort of Southern European terms still today and compare it with Italy or maybe countries in North Africa almost. Whereas if you live in Spain, you see a deeply feminist country that is more like Scandinavia in many respects than it is like that Franco dictatorship that I was talking about. If you look at the government today,

it's more than half female. Spain's new socialist prime minister has described his picks for cabinet. His choices are all pro-European Union, and the women outnumber the men. There are 13 ministers, I believe, of 24 who are women. But not only that, but they're all the powerful ministries, the Ministry of Economy, of Finance, of Defense, of Industry, of Labor. What you might think of as traditionally kind of macho jobs in the past, I think, when people wanted to have more women in government, they traditionally gave them jobs like culture and education.

And now we're really seeing all of the top jobs, except the very top job, the prime ministers, being held by women. Spain has never had a woman prime minister, but its first three deputy prime ministers are all women. You see it socially, the 8th of March is International Women's Day, and you get these massive celebrations and protests in the street, big, big marches. We are protesting for equality, for the rights of women,

to show we are not inferior. We want to work, live in peace, to have the same rights as any man, because we are people. And they're still quite militant, you know. They're not just celebrations of sisterhood and solidarity, but very much demanding the onward march of progress in terms of equal pay, in terms of prosecutions of rapes and so forth. And so it's a very, very outwardly feminist society. And, you know, one of the few areas where it's not is this business of the high levels of sport and the way a lot of companies are run as well, because sport is, of course, also a business. It's funny, yeah, because you did allude earlier to the fact that

this is sort of counterintuitive, that this moment of overt sexism that we saw on this global stage could actually be a good thing for feminism in Spain. But how does this progressive country with higher marks on feminism than some of its peers also ignore the claims of its players in the lead up to this World Cup? Well, in the lead up to the World Cup, there were a couple of issues, one of which is equal pay. And that's one that sadly has really been seen in lots of countries. The U.S. women's national team, of course, is very out and public about their demands for equal pay. A gender pay gap has been at the crux of a long running legal dispute between U.S. soccer and its players. Those demands now met with an historic agreement.

And that has been seen elsewhere. There were also some complaints from the women's team in Spain about their coach. But by and large, Spanish women's sport is very eagerly followed. They broke the attendance record for the biggest crowd at a women's sporting event anywhere, for any event, for a semifinal for the European Champions League in a game where the Barcelona women's team played Wolfsburg from Germany in the semifinal and backed in 91,000 people into Barcelona stadium. But of course, this man at the center of this story, unfortunately, Luis

Rubiales, he has been fighting this tooth and nail. Is anyone in Spanish society defending him? I mean, naturally, there are going to be some. There's not Is anyone in Spanish society defending him? I mean, naturally, there are going to be some. There's not 100% of Spanish society on anything. Spain has its sort of culture wars that are in some way sadly reminiscent of America's over gender, over various other things, some specific to Spain and some, you know, quite international. Protesters gathered outside Spain's justice ministry in Madrid on Wednesday, enraged by the controversial ruling that cleared five men of gang raping an 18-year-old woman. I'd say that the unanimity of the criticism is really the striking thing

and the rarity of the voices that are speaking out in Ruby Alice's favor are what really strikes me. I mean, I did see a clip of a TV presenter saying, you know, oh, so what are men supposed to do today? If I see a woman struggling to get her suitcase up on the rack in a train, am I allowed to help her now? Well, that's from many commentators on Twitter. So yes, of course, you say, do you need help? And if she says yes, then you help her. And if she says no, then you don't. It's that simple.

And also, you don't kiss your employees against their will. So there are still some dinosaurs who are acting as though this is some incredibly new, complicated, difficult situation. But there are just as many, and quite a few of them even men, coming right out and saying, look, guys, this is not that complicated. Do be a good person. Help women. Do not kiss them against their will. If you're not sure, ask them. And of course, Rubiales himself has said that the kiss was consensual and that he sort of said, would you like a kiss? Un pico? Would you like a peck? And she said, vale. Okay. So he's saying that she agreed to it beforehand. I don't know that that story will hold up, but there will be, as with the case of after a call, refereeing decisions. We'll see a lot of video of this and hear more about it.

He also grabbed his crotch in front of the queen and the princess of Spain, though. Yes, he did. And he did sort of apologize for that. What's really condemned him is two things. First, that he did it was one thing. It's bad enough. But he second come out and lied about it. I think a lot of people feel like he said that her story was false and his is true. And he's calling one of their champions, now a national Spanish champion, a liar. And that looks really bad. And then he's also grabbed the attention by going out and giving this defiant speech a few days ago. He really grabbed the spotlight for himself. And so we're all talking about him and not this great triumph by the Spanish women.

And let's talk about the second triumph of the Spanish women to get so much of the country behind them in this moment, to get so much of the world behind them in this moment. What does that mean for this team and for this country? I think it means a kind of no going back. This moment can really be compared to the Me Too moment in the U.S. five, six years ago with Harvey Weinstein. And, of course, Me Too had really international effects, too. It was discussed and it had its effects in France and Spain and European countries, too. But I think the reckoning was probably not as deep and as thoroughgoing. And now you're seeing a Spanish hashtag,

which means it's over, going around. And Spanish commentators are calling it Spain's Me Too. We'll remember this moment 20 years from now in Spain. As we remember Me Too and Harvey Weinstein, as we remember the murder of George Floyd, I think it's going to be one of those things that kind of marks a turning point. I think that this really puts Spanish sporting women on the kind of equal playing field that they've had, I think, in some areas, like politics that I mentioned before, but have not had in other areas. You know, the progress of Spanish feminism has been really spectacular, but also uneven.

And I think that winning the championship and being the best in the world and then also facing this, you know, it's kind of a double. It is a double win. It is. It is a way of saying we beat we beat England. We beat everybody that came before them. But it finally put her foot down and said no. And I think that moment is a victory. And I think it will be remembered by people who are not top class athletes because it goes to everyday workplaces. It goes to how your bosses treat you, not just on the football pitch, but also just at any workplace. Lane Green, Madrid Bureau Chief for The Economist, Economist.com. The program today was produced by Halima Shah

with help from John Ahrens We were edited by Miranda Kennedy fact-checked by Laura Bullard and mixed by David Herman Thanks to Alana Casanova-Burgess and Daniela Larcon This is Today Explained is today explained.