On this March 8th, from A Pobra do Brollón, we raise our voices to make an appeal to the collective conscience: Look beyond!
If you judge by appearances or if your ideas about rural women are clichés, you are seeing a distorted reality.
In rural areas, inequality is particularly acute.
Look beyond the landscape and you will see women who continue to be treated as invisible and structurally precarious labor.
Women who have sustained life in our villages, but who upon reaching retirement face the lowest average pension in the entire State.
This precariousness is the direct result of a lack of political will to guarantee real equality from state and regional institutions.
Look beyond the doors of our homes. If the women of A Pobra do Brollón assume the burden of care alone, it is due to the inaction of those who have the competence to protect us. We denounce:
- The abandonment of dependency and the elderly: The Xunta de Galicia is committed to privatizing care through vouchers, placing on families—and on women—the responsibility that the public system should bear.
- Precariousness in essential services: The collapse in services such as the SAF (Home Assistance Service) or nursing homes is the direct responsibility of the regional government.
- The lack of work-life balance and transportation: In our rural areas, the shortage of places in residences, kindergartens and the lack of adequate public transportation are barriers that prevent us from deciding about our own lives.
Faced with the story of “equality achieved”, the women of A Pobra do Brollón do not accept that general impoverishment hides a wage gap that in Galicia is the largest in absolute terms, reaching 4,706 euros.
We need a Galician agenda of our own that forces the regional administration to move from words to deeds, with budgets and real services for rural women, for us.
Today, we want to give you a small mirror. It's not just an object; it's a symbol of our collective commitment.
When you look at yourself in it, look beyond the image that stereotypes want to project of you:
- See the reflection of women demanding rights and dignified public services.
- See the engine of change that demands justice for our land.
- See the strength of a Poor Woman from Brollón who, by moving forward, makes the whole of society take a step forward.
- See how you yourself are a reflection of equality.
- Look how you look over there!
And on a day like today, we cannot forget all those people who are living in any of the more than 130 armed conflicts, wars such as Iran, Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, Sudan and many more in which, as always, women, girls and boys are the first and main victims. Let our applause also go to them today as a symbol of our support.
