Communicative Disconnection Between Citizenry and Institutions in Gender Policy in Spain

Abstract

Presenter: Iris Simon Astudillo, Universidad de Valladolid Discussant: Silvia Díaz Fernandez, Universidad Complutense Madrid Chair: Johanna Burger Spain has a long history of gender-related measures, but we seem to have given little attention to where they emerge from. Although much has been said about the influence that social movements can have on institutions, we do not know how citizens have communicated with their politicians about gender. We have designed our thesis as a collection of articles with different methodologies to explore the mechanisms used during the first government of Pedro Sánchez. Techniques such as social media analysis, parliamentary petitions or interviews with politicians have shown that years of favourable government have not helped citizens to mobilise to achieve feminist awareness. Results suggest that perhaps this very early institutionalisation of gender measures has led to a disconnection with citizen demands and a lack of knowledge on how they are communicated.