The Procession of the Holy Cunt: Feminist Activism during Holy Week in Spain 2 Favorite 

Even though Spain is constitutionally defined as a non-confessional nation, the Catholic Church still holds great power. For example, the Catholic Church is exempt from paying certain taxes, and can reclaim certain buildings as their property. This often creates frictions and conflicts with the activist groups and organizations that would prefer a more secular political environment.

One of the fields that more often produces tensions is sexuality and reproductive rights. The Catholic Church and its organizations have opposed all the abortion laws ever made during the Spanish democracy, as well as the legalization of gay marriage, and also some of the regulations around sex education.

In the past few years, feminist groups and organizations have come up with a creative way to protest against this intromission of religion in state matters, targeting the most important religious holiday in Spain: The Holy Week. Disguising a march as a procession, the protesters carry a gigantic plastic vagina while singing feminist chants.

One of the first Holy Week feminist processions that called the media attention took place in Seville in 2014, and it was called “Procesión del Santo Coño Insumiso y del Santo Entierro de los Derechos Sociolaborales” (“Procession of the Holy Cunt and the Holy Burial of Social and Labor Rights”). The anarchist union CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo – National Confederation of Labor) organized this parodic procession to protest against both minister Gallardón’s very restrictive abortion law and austerity policies.

That same year, in Madrid, the “Procesión del Santo Coño de Todos los Orgasmos” (“Procession of the Holy Cunt of All Orgasms”) marched around one of the most nonconformist neighborhoods in the city, Lavapiés. Similar processions took place in other cities like Málaga, Murcia and Santiago de Compostela.

The Catholic Church, religious organization and the conservative media consider these protests an insult and a mockery of their beliefs, but the fact is that they succeeded in attracting media attention to the often ignored feminist issues.

However, this was not the first time a protest takes the form of a Holy Week procession in Spain. For example, the year before environmentalist groups organized the “Procesión de la Santa Radiactividad del Perpetuo Recuerdo” (“Procession of the Holy Radioactivity of the Eternal Memory”).