Speaker
Gwendolyn Oxenham
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Fifteen Spanish women's players signed an email refusing to be called up until team conditions and the coach's management style improved, but were largely shut out instead of heard.
Only 3 of the 15 players who boycotted were on the World Cup squad; the federation rebuilt with a largely new, unproven team that most people didn't expect to win.
Spain opened the World Cup with a 5-0 victory over Zambia — a team that had just previously beaten Germany — in a display of spectacular, beautiful football.
Spain did not have a full domestic professional women's football league until 2021, decades after the men's league was established and long after comparable nations.
FIFA suspended Spanish Football Federation president Luis Rubiales for 90 days following the non-consensual kiss incident at the World Cup trophy ceremony.
Luis Rubiales' mother locked herself in a church and went on a hunger strike, demanding the 'witch hunt' against her son be stopped.
Fifteen of Spain's best players boycotted the national team to protest the coach and federation conditions. The federation's response? Build a new team without them. That B-team went on to win the World Cup.
The backlash against Rubiales was striking not just for its size, but its political breadth. In a country with its own culture wars, the near-unanimity of the criticism — across parties, media, and public — signals how far Spain has moved on gender.
Before the World Cup final, Spain's squad made a pact: play like kids. After absorbing a group-stage loss to Japan, they found unity in joy, and that spirit turned a controversial, untested squad into world champions.
After Spain lifted the World Cup trophy, federation president Luis Rubiales grabbed player Jenni Hermoso's face and kissed her on the lips. What followed was a viral moment, a denial of consent, and the start of Spain's #SeAcabo reckoning.
Rather than resign, Rubiales gave a defiant speech denying the kiss was non-consensual and accused Jenni Hermoso of lying. His mother locked herself in a church on a hunger strike. Prosecutors opened a criminal sexual assault investigation. FIFA suspended him for 90 days.
Under Franco, Spanish women needed permission to travel, open bank accounts, or live independently. When he died in 1975, decades of suppression burst out in what Lane Greene calls 'a cork coming out of a bottle' — a rapid feminist revolution that made Spain more like Scandinavia than its own recent past.
Spain's current government has 13 female ministers out of 24 — and they're not holding the traditional 'soft' portfolios like culture. They hold Defense, Finance, Economy, and Labor. Plus, Spain's first three deputy prime ministers were all women.
Barcelona's women's team drew 91,000 fans to Camp Nou for a Champions League semi-final against Wolfsburg — the largest crowd ever recorded for a women's sporting event anywhere in the world. Spanish women's sport isn't ignored; it's a mainstream phenomenon.
#SeAcabo — 'it's over' — became Spain's answer to MeToo. Lane Greene argues it will be remembered alongside Harvey Weinstein and George Floyd as a moment that marked a permanent shift in how Spanish society tolerates sexism, not just on the pitch but in every workplace.
Winning the World Cup was one victory. Standing up to Rubiales and triggering a national reckoning was another. Lane Greene calls it a 'double win' — and says the second victory has implications that stretch far beyond football, into every workplace in Spain.
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