Instead it laid bare the toxic masculinity that still pervades the euro\u2019s fourth-biggest economy more than 40 years after the end of Franco\u2019s dictatorship \u2014 a period when the country went through radical social change that saw it become one of the world\u2019s most progressive nations.
Within hours of that sporting triumph the mood soured, from nationalist Madrid to secessionist Barcelona, as images circulated of the president of the Spanish soccer federation kissing a player at the awards ceremony.
Nationwide the conversation turned from joy to dismay at how pervasive machismo remains in a country that has aggressively modernized, from legalizing same-sex marriage to the controversial \u201cOnly Yes Means Yes\u201d law on rape and other sex crimes.
\u201cThere is still a very sexist culture, very much part of the old-style Spanish school, very traditional, very rooted in certain parts of society,\u201d said Cristina Monge, political science professor at the University of Zaragoza, in the heartland of Spain. \u201cOne example of this is the football federation.\u201d
Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales<\/a> was photographed grabbing star forward Jennifer Hermoso, who had missed a penalty during the final match, and cupping her face with both hands in what he called a consensual consolation peck in the \u201ceuphoria of the moment.\u201d
Hermoso\u2019s take on the kiss, via a live Instagram feed in the locker room, was quite different: \u201cI didn\u2019t like it.\u201d Later, she issued a statement denying she had consented to it.
Rubiales\u2019s reaction spiralled quickly from initial regret to angry defiance, tapping into the broader culture wars raging across the developed world. In Spain, it highlighted an uncomfortable debate that\u2019s been bubbling under the surface: For some defending the rights of women have gone too far, while others say it hasn\u2019t gone far enough.<\/p>\n
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In Spain, you see those actions unfold.
Its main paper, Socialist-leaning El Pais, reported that Rubiales would step aside on Aug. 25. But in front of an audience of mostly gray-haired men at an emergency assembly of his association, he took a different tack.
They clapped as he decried \u201cfake feminism\u201d and said five times he would not resign. FIFA, soccer\u2019s governing body, still suspended him. His record was already tinged by scandal, but his behavior during the match was his undoing.
On Monday the association will meet for an emergency meeting at 4 p.m. in Madrid to discuss the roadmap following his Rubiales. It\u2019ll also be a chance for his loyalists to show how tuned in or tone-deaf they are to the social events that have unfolded since their last meeting.
Social media in Spain was ablaze with memes of Leonardo Di Caprio\u2019s famous \u201cI\u2019m not leaving\u201d scene in the \u201cWolf of Wall Street\u201d but with the voice-over of Rubiales.
Water cooler talk had also turned to another aspect of Rubiales\u2019s behavior at the match: how he had grabbed his crotch when the Spain scored its first goal.
That he did it within close proximity of Queen Letizia was precisely the kind of optics that royal-loving conservatives trying to form a government didn\u2019t want.
In fact, it was an unusual week for King Felipe VI. He\u2019s an institutional figure, who much like Charles III in the UK is expected to stand above the fray but also set an example.
This week he had to stick around in Madrid to try and break the political impasse.
An inconclusive July election left the conservative People\u2019s Party with the most votes \u2014 but not enough to rule \u2014 and a Catalan secessionist in exile has emerged as a kingmaker able to keep Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, currently a caretaker, in power.
The controversial kiss \u2014 consensual or not \u2014 quickly took a political dimension. For traditionalists, Sanchez has caved too much to liberals and to secessionists seeking to tear Spain apart.
The PP and its ally, the far-right group Vox, have called on Rubiales to resign but have also tried to draw a connecting thread to a controversial law on sexual consent and its unintended consequences, which has seen convicts released early.
Spanish Prime Minister Receives Women’s World Cup WinnersPedro Sanchez speaks to Rubiales during a reception for the Spanish women\u2019s national football team after the win. Photographer: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez\/Getty Images
The association threatened to bring legal action against Hermoso and to defend Rubiales\u2019 honor. Rubiales tried to \u201cportray himself as a victim of feminism,\u201d said Javier Redondo, a professor of politics at Vitoria University in Madrid. \u201cBut not even the far-right has taken the bait.\u201d
Sanchez has done his bit to seize on the ever-shifting political winds. A few hours before he met with King Felipe on Aug. 22, he condemned Rubiales\u2019s action as \u201cunacceptable\u201d and said his apology wasn\u2019t enough. His government later pledged to do its best to oust him.
Yet only a few days before the July 23 election, when polls showed he was losing, Sanchez told a radio interviewer about how his own male friends in their 40s and 50s felt his women\u2019s rights policies had gone too far.
The reality is that there always have been two Spains.
One is deeply Catholic and traditionalist, and at times chauvinist. The other, the one international audiences see in Pedro Almodovar films, is radically progressive.
This combination of both tradition and subversion are in evidence when driving across hundreds of miles of arid countryside in Spain, when travelers can spot a 46-foot-tall black silhouette of a bull. This commercial billboard dates from the 1960s and taps into the collective imagination of a country that both reveres and loathes bull-fighting \u2014 and is forever associated with it.
But a few things are clear to many ordinary Spaniards who watched their team win only to see it all overshadowed.
For Desiree Acuna, an administrative worker, \u201cthis has all just turned into a big circus.\u201d
And for Jose Diaz, an air-conditioning engineer, it\u2019s all a quite sad. \u201cInstead of talking about the fantastic women\u2019s football team, we\u2019re talking about him\u201d \u2014 Rubiales.<\/p>\n![\"AI](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/imgsize-23456,msid-103138435,width-600,resizemode-4\/103138435.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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