GENDER AND EDUCATION, 2016

VOL. 28, NO. 3, 372–385

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2016.1169253

Gender machineries vs. feminist movements? Collective

political subjectivity in the time of passive revolution
Dolores Morondo Taramundi
Human Rights Institute, University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The aim of this article is to pose some questions concerning kairos Received 22 June 2015
and feminist activism. In recent years state feminism in Spain has Revised 18 March 2016
been presented as a ‘success story’ of legislative victories and Accepted 18 March 2016
policy programmes regarding women’ equality and equal
KEYWORDS
opportunities. Only two years ago, feminist movements in Spain Feminist activism;
showed unexpected vitality in forcing the government to withdraw institutional feminism;
the intended reform of the abortion law. However, relations women’ movement; Spain;
between state feminism and feminist movements in Spain are passive revolution;
weak and ambivalent, and feminism in Spain, as in other parts of permanent revolution
Europe, is said to be in crisis. I refer to ideas elaborated by Antonio
Gramsci in order to identify possible barriers to the formation of
relationships between state feminism and feminist movements
that could impact favourably upon possibilities of collective
political subjectivity and social transformation. Education plays a
two-fold role in this argument. In its formal manifestations, it is a
component of the institutional feminism that this article critiques,
and as a series of informal pedagogical networks, education is
understood here as entangled in the different expressions of
feminist activism and can thus contribute significantly to the
development of feminist aims.

Introduction
On 23 September 2014, Alberto Gallardón – Spanish Minister of Justice in the government
of the conservative Partido Popular (PP) – announced his resignation from office and retire-
ment from public life only hours after the Prime Minister made it known that the govern-
ment was withdrawing the Draft Law on the Protection of the Life of the Unborn and on
the Rights of the Pregnant Woman (Anteproyecto de Leyde protección de la vida del conce-
bido y de los derechos de la mujer embarazada), generally known as the counter-reform of
the abortion law. According to the newspapers, the ruling party was attempting to move
closer to the electorate at the centre of the political spectrum in the light of the European
elections in 2014 and the general and local elections in 2015. Further, the reform of the
abortion law was controversial; feminist groups had set in motion enormous social mobil-
isation, resulting in international media attention.1
In a country where politicians do not resign under any circumstances, feminist protests
had managed to defeat the proposed legislation and the Justice Minister, which was gen-
erally regarded as a ‘concrete and thorough victory’ of the feminist movement

CONTACT Dolores Morondo Taramundi dolores.morondo@deusto.es

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 373

(Maldonado 2014). This victory has been seen as one of those moments in which feminist
struggles coalesce, in contrast to other achievements which are less distinct and tangible
and thus more difficult to classify as successes. Maldonado notes the ‘molecular trans-
formation’ of Spanish society that feminism has brought about and argues that, in the
case of the campaign against the abortion law reform proposal, this transformation is par-
ticularly notable in that the proposed reforms were withdrawn in the face of the impend-
ing general election. Whereas 40 years ago, women’ reproductive rights were an awkward
political issue and the right to abortion did not enjoy widespread social support, feminist
activism has managed:
what critical social movements sometimes achieve: first to question and afterwards to modify
the socially-established consensus. (Maldonado 2014)

The modified social consensus that made the government believe that it would lose the
elections if it moved ahead with the reform is the indicator of those less tangible and more
important feminist victories.
This essay assesses some questions concerning the kairos of feminist activism
prompted by the successful experience of mobilisation in the case of the reform of the
Spanish abortion law. Here kairos is understood not as in the Christian biblical tradition
as ‘the time that has come’, that is, as determined by God and for which we must find
ourselves prepared, but rather in the Sophist tradition as the moment at which our
action brings together what must be attended (prepon, such as the audience and the cir-
cumstances) and what is possible (dynaton) (Poulakos 1983). This meaning of kairos is
similar to the notion of occasion that has arisen in European political thought from
Machiavelli to Gramsci (Morfino 2002; Prinzi 2013). Kairos can thus be understood as
the moment produced for and by political action. I shall argue that the kairos of
Spanish feminist activism is challenged by the stagnancy of the relationship between
two commonplace representations of feminist action timelines: firstly, the presentation
as linear and progressive of women’s advancement in Western societies through the
type of feminist activism generally known as state or institutional feminism; and secondly,
the activism of grassroots feminist movements, which seem to be condemned to the
labours of Sisyphus in a cyclical repetition of their struggles. The following section con-
cerns the current forms and conditions of feminist political agency in Spain. Next, I
refer to the work of the Italian politician and philosopher Antonio Gramsci, which is con-
cerned precisely with the conditions of political agency in subaltern groups searching for
social transformation. I am particularly interested in the categories of ‘passive revolution’,
‘permanent revolution’ and ‘subalternity’. This discussion will explore the complexity of
the relations between the two apparently distinct and oppositional manifestations of fem-
inist activism: state feminism and grassroots feminist movements and also the hazards of
subalternity threatening the political action of both strands of feminism. I suggest that
reflecting upon the perils of subalternity will increase awareness of the need for collabora-
tive feminist strategies aimed at social transformation. Even more importantly, it would
increase awareness of the particular threat that subalternity poses to the formation and
transmission of feminist consciousness and knowledge, the key elements of a (broadly
conceptualised) feminist education, which are both required to bridge the growing gen-
erational gap in feminist activism in Spain.
374 D. MORONDO TARAMUNDI

Gender machineries and the feminist movement in Spain

As in other Southern European countries, the present moment of Spanish feminism is
fraught with ambivalence and contradictions. Spanish gender equality policies and legis-
lation rank very highly according to European standards, but gender equality indicators
situate Spain at lower positions, and feminist issues were almost entirely absent from
the political debate in local and regional elections in 2015. Feminist and women’s
groups permeate social movements and emergent, new political experiences, and yet
the word ‘feminazi’ has spread on social media and feminist manifestoes were jeered in
the occupied Plaza del Sol. Feminist mobilisation was instrumental in the resignation of
the Justice Minister in 2014, but many of the people attending the demonstration in
Madrid were dismayed at the repetition of a 30 year-old battle.
The four decades that have passed since the end of the dictatorship have witnessed a
rapid transformation of Spanish society. Political analysts and scholars agree that an
important element of this remarkable transformation regards the status of women in
society: to grasp the scope of this transformation, it must be noted that, only 40 years
ago, Spain was a non-democratic, right-wing authoritarian regime, and women’s roles in
society were primarily those of mother and housewife, strongly influenced by the teach-
ings of the Catholic Church and by the ‘male breadwinner’ family model (Bustelo 2016).
The transformation of the social conditions of Spanish women after the dictatorship is
often explained both by the role played by the feminist movement during the political
transition to the Constitution of 1978 and by the perceived need to accommodate Euro-
pean standards of equality to apply successfully for membership in the European Commu-
nity of the time. Whereas the influence of European gender policies was critical in the
beginning, it waned as Spain developed an impressive state feminism and gender machin-
ery (Bustelo 2016; Lombardo 2008; Valiente 2008).
Conversely, the influence of feminist movements and feminist activism is essential to
understand the initiation and subsequent development of legislation and policies
related to women’s condition in society (not only equality and anti-discrimination policies),
as well as the broad and more subtle social and cultural transformation. Although it
acknowledges the importance of other dimensions for the development of gender pol-
icies, such as policy discourse and policy instruments or the structure of women’s machin-
ery (Bustelo 2016), the present work is mostly interested in the political agency expressed
by these two forms of feminist action – state feminism and feminist movements – the
relations between them, and the transmission of feminist knowledge and awareness as
a key component of feminist education.
Gender equality policies and state women’s machinery developed and established
themselves quite rapidly. The Spanish Women’ Institute was created in 1983 due to the
lobbying of feminist women and groups within the Socialist Party (PSOE) – which had
been elected to the government the year before – and their prominence during the tran-
sition to democracy. This moment is generally considered to be the beginning of a pro-
gressive political movement that has accumulated impressive legislative victories and
resulted in important policy programmes regarding women’s equality and equal opportu-
nities, bringing Spain ‘to the vanguard of gender equality policymaking in the European
Union’ (Valiente 2013, 179). A few examples are: divorce law reform in 1981; partial decri-
minalisation of abortion in 1985; wide-ranging laws to address gender-based violence in
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 375

2004; access to marriage for homosexual couples in 2005; improved rights for dependent
persons and their carers in 2006; gender equality in 2007; reform of gender identity legis-
lation in 2007; and granting of the legal right to abortion on demand during the first tri-
mester in 2010.
The rapidity of all of these changes may suggest an impression of a linear progression of
indisputable advancements in Spanish women’ rights and social conditions. Indeed, some
scholars have insisted on the stability and embeddedness of gender equality in the political
agenda in Spain, regardless of the ideology of the party in office (Valiente 2013; Bustelo
2016). Both the Socialist Party and the Conservative Party have included gender equality
in their (electoral) discourses, and Valiente (2013, 191) notes a convergence of the Conser-
vative Party’s discourse with the discourse of the Socialists in some policy areas, such as
employment, childcare or gender-based violence. Although there is serious divergence
on some issues, such as abortion, Bustelo (2016) argued that most of these advances
have already explicitly been framed in such a way that it would be difficult for them to
be repealed entirely by any party. In the event that these issues lost prominence in the domi-
nant political discourses and policy frameworks, they would continue to find expression not
only through the voices of the feminist movement but through the voices of professionals in
charge of gender policies (such as civil servants in the relevant agencies or those in charge
of implementing gender policy in institutions such as universities).
However, in Spain, as in many other countries, feminism seems to be in crisis (Miyares
2014; Reverter Bañón 2011; Rodríguez Magda 2011; Subirats 2014). Whereas it is some-
times argued that women have achieved equality, and thus, feminism has nothing else
to achieve, other voices insist on the persistent health of patriarchy. The introduction to
a special issue of the journal Interface dedicated to ‘Feminism, Women’ movements and
Women in movement’ (Motta et al. 2011) offers a brief overview of the gendered conse-
quences of neoliberal policies and crises, and notes that aspects of the feminist movement
are now professionalised and institutionalised an example being academic feminism.
Against this backdrop, important questions are raised about how well institutional femin-
ism can defend women from neoliberalism and about its efficacy in the struggle for a post-
neoliberal, post-patriarchal world.
This describes the current climate in Spain. Social grassroots movements have exhibited
ambivalent attitudes towards feminism (e.g. as seen in the controversy generated by fem-
inist manifestoes in the occupied Plaza del Sol in Madrid), and women’s movements have
denounced state/institutionalised feminism (including academic feminism and the more
institutionalised forms of gender studies) as complacent and lacking in transformative
power (or even as collusive with patriarchal power) (Falcón 2011, 2012; Rodríguez
Magda 2011; Ruiz García 2009).
Weak relations with feminist and women’s movements and a relative lack of partici-
pation of the latter in gender policymaking have been features of Spanish state feminism,
both according to scholars analysing gender equality policies and state feminism (Bustelo
2016; Valiente 2008) and according to scholars analysing feminist movements (Cruells
López and Ruiz García 2014; Rodríguez Magda 2011; Ruiz García 2009).
To understand feminist movements’ activism and their relations with institutional fem-
inism, we must also consider the historical development of Spanish feminism. Without a
significant tradition of liberal feminism, the most important division between feminist
groups in the 1960s and early 1070s (the so-called neo-feminism) opened up, similarly
376 D. MORONDO TARAMUNDI

to other European countries such as Italy, around the definition of the relationship
between capitalism and patriarchy (Amorós 2000, 417). This division is both theoretical
and political: on the one hand, those who thought that feminism should be defined as
anti-capitalist but offer a specific contribution to anti-patriarchal struggle will collaborate
with the Socialist Party (in office during the periods 1982–1996 and 2004–2011) and be the
origin and motor behind the creation of institutional feminism in Spain; on the other hand,
radical feminism will maintain that patriarchy is the fundamental contradiction in the
relations between the sexes, and in differentiated ways according to varying groups
and currents, it will generally consider that intervention in institutions and mainstream
political parties compromises the revolutionary or radically transformative potential of
feminism (Amorós 2000; Rodríguez Magda 2011).
This initial divide evolved over time. Institutional or state feminism gradually lost its
clear identification with socialist feminist militancy and began to incorporate more ideo-
logically neutral analyses of gender issues. Scholarship has tended to emphasise the
high level of consolidation of feminist organisation and equality policies, which is held
to explain the relative stability and continuity in gender equality policies assessed by
Valiente and by Bustelo. This continuity is illustrated by the appointments made for the
direction of the Women’s Institute and the Ministry for Equality. PP governments have
never placed feminists in the Women’s Institute, and PSOE governments have not
always chosen to do so. In parallel to this ‘professionalised’, institutional feminism, feminist
and women’s organisations have also changed their morphology and dynamics. Rosa
Rodríguez Magda has focused on these ‘other feminisms’ as alternatives to institutiona-
lised feminism, marked by their situation at the margins and by the diversity of their
members (also Ruiz García 2009):
One thing to note is the presence of young women, attracted by alternative and transgressive
elements, in contrast to the lack of innovation in the feminism you find in institutional meet-
ings, which are predominantly attended by women 40 years old or older with a consolidated
professional and leadership status (Rodríguez Magda 2011, 6).

This generational gap explains that the Spanish feminist movement is characterised today
by ‘atomisation and ubiquity’ (Ruiz García 2009, 103), with younger women’s groups
characterised by eclectic forms of political interventions, many times at odds with and
mostly unconnected to traditional feminist politics. Although the expression ‘new femin-
isms’ itself could be thought of as an interrogation of the effects of the generational gap
on the transmission of feminist knowledge and awareness, this is seldom framed in ways
which trouble that premise. Social media and the Internet are widely considered to hold
the greatest potential for the reconstitution of feminist networks and to have altered the
methods of feminist activism and the dissemination of feminist thought. The importance
of new media and inter-generational change is not questioned here, but this article is pri-
marily concerned with the conditions which support the network of practices that allow
the transmission of feminist knowledge and awareness, a sort of feminist education
which matches feminist goals of molecular social transformations.

Passive revolution, permanent revolution and subalternity

Antonio Gramsci’s work on subaltern groups seeking social transformations illumi-
nates the complexity of the apparent dichotomy between institutional or state
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 377

feminism and grassroots feminist movements and their engagements as collective

political subjects in the struggle to overcome women’ subalternity within patriarchal
societies.
First, however, we must consider two preliminary caveats. The first refers to the rel-
evance of Gramsci’s ‘subalterns’ for our discussion. It has been argued in Subaltern
Studies scholarship that Gramsci uses the word ‘subaltern’ as a euphemism or camouflage
for ‘proletariat’ to avoid prison censorship. Yet if that were the case, Gramsci would have to
be considered a strict orthodox Marxist, his ideas of subalternity would be limited to class
relations, and his categories would have to be transcended to be applicable to other mar-
ginalised groups. Green (2011) has attributed this ‘widespread misconception’ to the
limited access to Gramsci’s original work by Subaltern Studies scholars and has argued
that there is nothing in the Prison Notebooks which establishes that the word ‘subaltern’
was Gramsci’s cipher for ‘proletariat’:
Gramsci never reduces subordination to a single relation but rather conceives subalternity as
an intersectionality of the variations of race, class, gender, culture, religion, nationalism, and
colonialism functioning with an ensemble of socio-political and economic relations (Green
2011, 400).

In fact, one of the groups referred to in reference to subalternity is women. Green (2011,
396) analysed how Gramsci addressed the topic of women’s subordination as different
from class subordination. Yet, it must be noted – and this is our second caveat – that
Gramsci explicitly refused to consider women’s subordination within the realm of ‘political
and social history’ and confined it to ‘custom’. In this sense, Gramsci is not a feminist
author, and it is not our aim here to argue that his notions of the subaltern or of
passive revolution were intended, by him, to guide the feminists of his time (or of any
other time). This point notwithstanding, this article argues that his work on the conditions
and dynamics of subaltern political subjectivity might be useful in opening up existing
impasse in feminist discourses and activism.
Among Gramscian categories, ‘passive revolution’ is particularly well-suited for under-
standing the hazards of subalternity that challenge contemporary feminist activism in
Spain. For a long time, passive revolution and permanent revolution have been under-
stood as opposing strategies: ‘Passive revolution [was presented] as the “objective foun-
dations” of a “hegemonic” strategy opposed to permanent revolution’ (Dal Maso and
Rosso 2014, 35). However, the most recent scholarship (Frosini 2010, 210–226; Kanoussi
2000, 66–81; Thomas 2006, 2009, 133–157) has begun to show that Gramsci developed
a more complex and illuminating account of both of these two ideas and of their relation-
ships with key notions, such as hegemony and subaltern groups.
For Gramsci, passive revolutions emerge in the context of the ‘organic crises’ of bour-
geois society. In these moments, the dominant class loses its hegemonic role, that is, its
capacity to successfully present itself and its interests as agglutinating other classes. If,
at that point, subaltern groups are sufficiently organised they might effectively challenge
the hegemonic power of the bourgeoisie, and possibilities for social transformation then
become possible. But, to avoid revolution, the dominant class may respond by incorpor-
ating some of the claims and/or leading figures of the subaltern group(s) and thus trans-
forming itself to the extent necessary to neutralise the transformative political potential of
the subaltern groups, thereby regaining hegemonic control.
378 D. MORONDO TARAMUNDI

Although there is not a single definition of passive revolution in Gramsci’s work, there
are two features that are of particular importance for our discussion of feminist activism.
First, in Gramsci’s work, passive revolution is characterised by two features, its moderating
role and its progressive character:
[ … ] that ‘progress’ occurs as the reaction of the dominant classes to the sporadic and inco-
herent rebelliousness of the popular masses – a reaction consisting of ‘restorations’ that agree
to some part of the popular demands and are therefore ‘progressive restorations’, or ‘revolu-
tions-restorations’, or even ‘passive revolutions’. (Gramsci 2007, 252)

Passive revolution is moderating because it serves the function of neutralising the revolu-
tionary potential of the subaltern classes, allowing for a restoration of bourgeois hege-
mony. It serves to restore the hegemonic control by the dominant class, but not the
preceding social conditions. Passive revolution is therefore one possible reaction of the
bourgeoisie to revolutionary threats, different from other forms such as counter-revolu-
tions, dictatorships or restoration regimes (Coutinho 2007). The co-option of aspects of
the subaltern groups’ demands produces a new equilibrium in which those interests are
recognised and given some form of representation in the institutional framework of the
prevailing state apparatus. This is the sense of the progressive character of passive
revolutions.
However, the progressive possibilities that exist within the passive resolution must
not make subaltern groups oblivious to the renewed hegemony of the bourgeoisie
which results and which neutralises the possibility of truly radical social transform-
ations. The success of passive revolutions is therefore predicated upon subaltern
groups being persuaded that the retention of power by the dominant class (the
new equilibrium point) is in their own best interests. Therefore, although passive revo-
lutions might bring benefits in the short term, these benefits come at the price of
blocking transformative initiatives for various reasons, such as changes in the con-
ditions of the struggle and/or the co-option of subaltern intellectuals and leadership
figures into the ranks of the establishment.
The second feature of Gramscian passive revolution which is pertinent to feminist acti-
vism in Spain is the idea of passive revolution as both an analytical category and a strategy
for political action.
As an analytical category, passive revolution might be very useful for subaltern groups’
understanding of historical moments and the conditions for social transformation. In the
Notebook 25, Gramsci wrote:
The history of subaltern social groups is necessarily fragmented and episodic. There undoubt-
edly does exist a tendency towards (at least provisional stages of) unification in the historical
activity of these groups, but this tendency is continually interrupted by the activity of the
ruling groups [ … ]. Subaltern groups are always subject to the activity of ruling groups,
even when they rebel and rise: only ‘permanent’ victory breaks their subordination, and
then not immediately. (Gramsci 1971, 54–55)

For Gramsci, the theory of passive revolution must be developed to demonstrate the
risks of a certain way of understanding history. If history is understood as
a process of molecular accumulation [ … ], historical innovation ‘springs’ from an internal
dynamic of the already dominant elements. This happens because, if [ … ] theory and practice,
history and politics [ … ] are not understood in their dialectical unity, history tends to appear as
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 379

an objective flux, in which the only political action is that of those who, wanting to ‘revolutio-
nize’ the existing conditions, will act on the basis of these, or else be confined to an unrealistic
subjectivism. (Frosini 2015)

If, in contrast, subaltern groups manage to realise and maintain that dialectical unity, and if
they manage to unify their claims and struggles in one hegemony, there would be a per-
manent revolution: permanent revolution is thus, for Gramsci, another form of hegemony
(Frosini 2015, 2010, 204–210).
Gramsci’s investigations of the subaltern are directed at understanding the conditions
and possibilities for the political struggle of subaltern groups to overcome their subordi-
nation. As noted by Green and Frosini, Gramsci’s analysis shows that dominant groups
maintain their power both by including and by excluding subaltern groups from political
institutions and culture. This analysis ‘provides a basis to envision the ways in which sub-
altern groups can resist their conditions and attempt to develop their own organisations
that represent their political vision and will’ (Green 2011, 400) and to understand ‘that the
subalterns can escape from their condition, only when they will have learned to realize,
from their point of view, the “translation” of theory and practice’ (Frosini 2015). As indicated
by Green, for Gramsci, subaltern groups are subordinated to the power, direction and
influence of the dominant class, but this subordination does not mean that they lack pol-
itical power: their level of subordination is also relative to their capacity to organise them-
selves, to be autonomous and to influence the dominant groups and institutions. In this
sense, as noted by Frosini (2015), passive revolution and permanent revolution are very
much alike.

Gaining a foothold, mobilising and ‘molecular transformations’ as

hegemony
The introduction of ‘passive revolution’ as an analytical category questions commonplace
representations of feminist political subjectivity as consisting of either institutional femin-
ism or feminist movements and challenges widespread accounts of the dynamics of these
two collective actors. I argue here in favour of more complex readings of feminist activism
as timelines and agendas, which must consider the dangers of passive revolutions and of
misunderstanding the nature of permanent revolutions.
Commonplace accounts of feminist timelines fit well with the traditional view of passive
and permanent revolution as opposing strategies. Passive revolution would correspond to
the strategy and the dynamics of institutional or state feminism, whereas permanent revo-
lution would belong to feminist movements.
According to that divide, there is, on the one hand, the representation of a linear pro-
gression in the advancement of women’s conditions produced by state or institutional
feminism from its inception (for examples, see the list of legal and policy reforms I men-
tioned earlier in this article). This movement might be expected to continue almost
mechanically due to the consolidation of the institutional, discursive frames and struc-
tures. In the success and advancement of state feminism, politics seem to lose importance
compared to institutional factors.
For example, in analysing the reasons for the success of Basque gender equality policies
within the Spanish context, Bustelo (2016) mentioned institutional factors as the stronger
380 D. MORONDO TARAMUNDI

commitment to ‘social policies’ in the regional government, the availability of public

resources and the leadership role of the Basque Women’s Institute. No weight is attributed
to the work and social influence of the Basque feminist movements.
Indeed, at least a certain degree of ‘depolitisation’ of state feminism seems to be linked
directly to its success and consolidation. Both Valiente and Bustelo emphasise that Spanish
gender equality policies have functioned over the last 30 years regardless of the ideologi-
cal colour of the party in office as an argument supporting the consolidation of state fem-
inism (Valiente 2013, 181). However, the general continuity of the policy field and
institutional feminism functioning across ideological colours are considered by many fem-
inists in the movements as evidence that institutional feminism has lost (if it had ever had,
according to the more radical elements) its transformative potential to fight patriarchal
dominance (Falcón 2012). In fact, this representation of institutional feminism shows dis-
tinct marks of passive revolution as analysed by Gramsci. On the one hand, it cannot be
denied that, over the last 30 years, there has been advancement in women’s rights and
social conditions, which is the progressive character of passive revolutions. The organised
feminist movements contested patriarchal hegemony and advanced claims for social
transformation during the final decade of the dictatorship and in the early 1980s. The
co-optation of socialist feminists into institutional power could be seen as a classical
move of hegemonic (patriarchal) power to incorporate some claims and leading figures
of the feminist movement, effectively producing its fragmentation and loss/transfer of
its intellectual capacities. The moderating effect that Gramsci describes in passive revolu-
tions is also clear in the continued political neutralisation that has been described by
Bustelo or Valiente and the attempt at ‘depoliticising’ gender issues and blocking the
transformative political power of feminist movements (e.g. through the project-based
public funding of feminist groups’ activity, which limits their autonomy and fuels compe-
tition among groups and ‘clientele’ dynamics) (Ruiz García 2009, 114).
Boasting the general continuity of the policy field or even the idea that ‘Spain has a con-
solidated State feminism which is not in danger of disappearing’ (Bustelo 2016) misses the
point of the dangers of passive revolutions. The annulment of institutional feminism or
gender equality policies would correspond with a counter-revolutionary or restorationist
move (which, by the way, cannot be excluded either as possible alternatives for the hege-
monic power). The hazardous and self-defeating character that distinguishes passive revo-
lutions lies instead in that, under the direction of patriarchal power, institutional feminism
and gender equality policies gradually lose their progressive character as they lose their
relations to women’s movements and claims and thus their capacity to contribute to
social transformation.
On the other hand, Gramsci’s passive revolution as an analytical category can also
identify hazards in the political action of subaltern groups that are relevant to the rep-
resentation of feminist movements as the opposing permanent revolutions.
On many occasions, feminist movements’ accounts of their own action do not include
relations with institutions. The revolution is fought in the street:
How? Fighting collectively. Feminist struggle includes being on the streets, marching and
demonstrating, squatting and locking us up, making performances, graffiti, banners and
flash mobs; but also structuring our proposals, writing them down, discussing them among
ourselves, get them argued, detailed and disseminated. This is the way feminist thinking is
built; it is the result of an enormous collective work. (Maldonado 2014)
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 381

These dynamics of ‘discussing among ourselves’ and demonstrating are often associated
with (or blamed for) the recurrent, sporadic and politically ineffective character of feminist
movements’ struggles. Most of the women interviewed in the documentary film Freedom
Train on the demonstrations against the reform of the abortion law alluded to their
having already fought that same battle 30 years earlier. Gramsci’s passive revolution as
an analytical category warns about this development: the history of subaltern groups is
necessarily episodic and fragmented because it is continually interrupted by the activity
of the ruling groups. This is so also, and especially when, subaltern groups rebel. Thus, the
dangers of subalternity in this form of feminist activism do not relate, as in the case of
institutional feminism, to its progressive depoliticisation but rather to unrealistic subjec-
tivism, which is a subaltern form of action within the parameters of passive revolution
because it does not result in the interaction of the agendas of feminist groups with exist-
ing forces.
Alicia Miyares has warned against what she calls ‘the temptation of square one’ (Miyares
2014), the overambitious and unrealistic idea that everything can be restarted from an
original position. Confronted with the process of passive revolution represented by insti-
tutional feminism, Miyares considers that this temptation, in social and feminist move-
ments, concurs with political conservatism’s in attempts to dismantle equality policies
(counter-revolution):
In some sectors of the left and of the new emergent left, mistrust has settled down. To them
we owe the expression ‘institutional feminism’ with evident pejorative connotations to desig-
nate what Socialist feminists, feminists in other political parties and women’ organisations
have achieved [ … ] It seems that in some sectors on the political Left there lies the temptation
to go back to ‘square one’ in the belief that, from that original position, things could be done
otherwise and better. (Miyares 2014)

In these cases, feminist activism, under the appearance of a revolutionary position, rejects
existing hegemonic processes and undermines dialectics between the past, with all its
objective elements, and politics, thus failing to address the core of the kairos of subaltern
groups, which, as I said earlier, lies in creating the occasion, the opportunity to act, by com-
bining what is given with the transformative possibilities existing within the subaltern
groups themselves. In refuting these dialectics, feminist activism abandons the leadership
of passive revolution by leaving the ruling (patriarchal) powers untouched. It does not
present itself as a hegemonic alternative.
Thus, Gramsci’s passive revolution as an analytical category illuminates both the
dangers for institutional feminism and for feminist movements when they move away
from kairos understood as occasion towards different, but equally subaltern, timelines:
the mechanical progress of women’s advancement in the case of institutional feminism,
in which kairos is, as in the Biblical tradition, a moment that starts the ‘new time’ of
women’s advancement and, on the other hand, the sporadic, recurrent and fragmented
timeline of feminist movements, in which kairos is awaited for in history as a process
led by dominant groups.
Passive revolution as an analytical category must be therefore an element of feminist
self-understanding and education because it allows us to see how to reconsider perma-
nent revolution as the alternative hegemonic strategy of subaltern groups. Permanent
revolution is not merely permanent mobilisation but rather permanent transformation,
382 D. MORONDO TARAMUNDI

in the two senses of a continuing transformation and a transformation that achieves mol-
ecular changes in the hegemonic leadership of patriarchy, ‘irrationalising’, as Celia Amorós
would phrase it (Amorós 2000), its ruling power.
Consider, for example, the different ways in which institutional feminism might be
deployed as a passive revolution. In its attempt to restore its hegemony, the patriarchal
state might be forced to absorb a (self-aware) part of the feminist movement, or
gender machinery might be led by other types of subjects (e.g. women coming from
the trade unions or civil society organisations), it might fall under the guidance of
gender experts and ‘femocrats’ (as eventually occurred with the Spanish Women’s Insti-
tute), or equality policies might be ‘downloaded’ from the European Union.
All these cases might fall under the description of passive revolutions but only in the
first case, in the involvement of feminist leaders and intellectuals in policymaking and gov-
ernment, can we observe distinct moments of Gramsci’s understanding of permanent
revolution, of ‘dialectics’ between history and politics or objective and subjective elements
of political action. Only in this case has the feminist movement managed to transform
social dynamics, and as we have seen, its transformative power has waned as the link
between the feminist movement and institutional feminism has faded.
Certainly, it is not sufficient to have feminists appointed to government positions. Key
figures in Spanish feminism who were part of the initial wave of feminists to enter Spanish
institutions, such as Amelia Valcárcel and Alicia Miyares, have always insisted on the need
to remain mobilised and have always called for interaction with non-governmental fem-
inist and women’s groups.
Marina Subirats, participating in a workshop organised by the Basque Women’s Institute
(Emakunde) titled ‘Women’ citizenship: rights, participation and public policies’, indicated
the dangers of losing hard-won rights if the links between the feminist movement on the
ground and institutional feminism were lost. Women must understand that the institutions
in general and women’s equality machinery in particular are there to defend their rights, and
they must require them to do so: they must organise to compel them to do so:
There must be an agenda for the long term: gradually changing the culture, the ways in which
men and women are considered in society. Laws are not sufficient; that’ certain. Pressure must
be constant because we are confronting century-long discrimination. (Subirats 2014)

That gradual change in culture is what Maldonado called ‘molecular transformations’, and
it is presented, in the case of the intended reform of the abortion law, as the most certain
form of guarantee or insurance against legal and institutional restoration or counter-revo-
lutionary processes. In fact, it is ‘molecular transformations’ in the social understanding of
abortion that have caused the ample dissent (also within conservative forces) that drove
the conservative party to withdraw the draft law, although it had the parliamentary
majority needed to approve it on its own.
The types of hegemony, that is, of permanent revolution, to which feminism should
aspire, in my opinion, are those ‘molecular changes’ caused by feminists working within
and outside the institutions but working collectively towards effective transformation.
These molecular changes recall another Gramscian expression:
One may apply to the concept of passive revolution (documenting it from the Italian Risorgi-
mento) the interpretative criterion of molecular changes, which in fact progressively modify
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 383

the pre-existing composition of forces and hence become the matrix of new changes.
(Gramsci 1971, 109)

Here, Gramsci is referring to the Italian Risorgimento, namely a classical process of

passive revolution, to emphasise how there have been progress and possibilities for trans-
formation under the conservative shell. Passive revolutions are, thus, ‘dynamic’ processes;
they are not pre-determined although they might be heavily conditioned by the different
relations of forces. Permanent revolution (as a strategy for feminism and other subaltern
groups) must understand the functioning and development of today’ passive revolution
and incorporate that knowledge to their action with (and also within) that process to
bend it towards a different hegemonic result.
Without that ‘molecular transformation’ achieved through collaboration and partici-
pation, legal and institutional changes have no lasting guarantees, as we have seen
with the gender equality reforms adopted by the last socialist government (Miyares
2014). Important as successful gender equality policies might be, they cannot be under-
stood as an end in themselves or as the result of some productive ‘alchemy’ of their insti-
tutional and policy factors. We must be aware that ‘molecular transformations’ are the
ultimate guarantee of equality policies, and they cannot be simply imposed from above
but are the result of complex social processes. That is feminist thinking and feminist
action producing hegemony.

Conclusions
This article has attempted to assess the current challenges to feminist activism in Spain,
particularly the dangers of subalternity in different understandings of feminist kairos
and its impact on the formation and transmission of feminist consciousness and collective
political subjectivity. It has been argued that these challenges derive from the perception
of the division of feminist political agency into two opposing strategies and timelines:
institutional feminism and feminist movements.
The paper’s analysis of the Gramsci’s notion of ‘passive revolution’ has argued that
Gramsci’s characterisation of passive revolutions as both progressive and politically neu-
tralising shows an affinity with the development of gender machinery in Spain. I have
argued, following Gramsci, that passive revolution is a self-defeating strategy for subaltern
groups. However, passive revolution might be a powerful analytical tool for subaltern
groups to help them to grasp the complexity of collective political action aimed at reclaim-
ing the direction of social transformation from hegemonic groups. Neglecting the inter-
action between history and politics is, for subaltern groups, as dangerous as political
neutralisation.
The understanding of these concepts and of the perils of subalternity that they expose
might be considered propaedeutic for the formation and transmission of feminist knowl-
edge and awareness as key elements of feminist political agency since they would shape
that agency. In conclusion, the understanding of these concepts contributes to a feminist
education, broadly understood, that puts the emphasis on the conditions of collective pol-
itical action to engage in the dialectics between history and politics, in which Gramsci
identifies ‘permanent revolution’ and that I have argued must be the real kairos of feminist
activism.
384 D. MORONDO TARAMUNDI

Note
1. Les Comadres Feministas in Gijón, one of the organisations that started the mobilisation, pro-
duced a documentary film on the initiative Tren de la Libertad (Freedom Train), which brought
thousands of people to Madrid on 1 February 2014 to protest against the reform, as well as
other actions. The documentary was produced before the draft law was withdrawn, so it
does not include reflections on what was achieved; interestingly, it is rather conceived of as
the memory of a ‘work in progress’. It is available at: https://vimeo.com/99974636

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID
Dolores Morondo Taramundi http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8572-219X

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