How women's football is becoming an arena for culture wars over feminism

Days ago, the English squad succeeded in beating the home side 3-1 and they now go on to play Spain. Their players would be well-advised to beware of the Spanish team and, in particular, their star striker, only 19 years of age, Salma Paralluelo. She already has a career in athletics behind her and looks set to leave everyone trailing behind her, just as Chloe Kelly did.

Spain's complicated relationship with feminism

The impact of Kelly's gesture, should it recur anytime soon, would undoubtedly resonate in Spain, but against a very specific background and with a more consciously-political edge. The country may well have derived this from the Femen movement, which began in Ukraine and had a big influence on Spanish feminists.

For some time now, the culture war that seems to be raging all across Western civilisation has taken on its own form in Spanish society, not least through the advent of the Vox party and its calls for more conservative social values. A good instance of this was the controversy that raged recently over a mural. Vox objected that the mural's depiction of women like Frieda Kahlo and Nina Simone amounted to political propaganda.

Jorge Nuño, a member of the Unlogic collective that created the mural, said the piece was simply a recognition of the achievements of the 15 women it featured.

He struggled to understand the controversy, telling the online newspaper El Diario that he could not fathom how "in the middle of a pandemic… councillors are debating a mural that's been on the wall of a sports centre for three years." He concluded: "Art doesn't create problems – petty thinking does."

It isn't just portraits of famous — and sometimes radical — women that have led to such squabbles. Despite laws protecting the right to strip in public, there are also arguments over public nudity.

This time it is the naturists complaining about the invasion of their beaches by people in swimsuits, making them feel uncomfortable and, in some cases, the objects of voyeurism. Their fear is that they will be forced to frequent ever more secluded locations.

Pop venues, perhaps.

Not the obvious place for those seeking seclusion, but a new phenomenon has appeared of female pop stars going topless during their performances. In the latest such incident, the singer Eva Amaral was about to lead her band into a rendition of her song Revolución when she took off her red sequin top and threw it on the floor.

"This is for Rocío, for Rigoberta, for Zahara, for Miren, for Bebe, for all of us," she said, listing the names of fellow artists before uncovering. "Because no one can take away the dignity of our nakedness. The dignity of our fragility, of our strength. Because there are too many of us."

The concert marked her band's 25th year in the business, but going topless was intended to highlight something far more significant: the dignity and freedom of women. It was "a very important moment", Amaral told El País. There's that word again: 'moment'.

Feminist politicians quickly applauded Amaral's gesture, including deputy prime minister Yolanda Díaz, who thanked her for "representing all the women in the country" and for "defending rights that today are threatened". Equality minister Irene Montero retweeted a picture of Amaral with the words "for the dignity of our fragility, of our strength."

The woman on Amaral's list who has probably done the most to explore the issue is Rigoberta Bandini. In the stunning video for her song, Ay Mamá – which roughly translates as Oh, Mum - there is an extraordinary range of images, all the way from the soft, nurturing aspects of the female body, to a parodic weaponising of the breasts reminiscent of Madonna's conical outfits, or the scattergun discharges of Katy Perry.       

Delacroix's depiction of Liberty

Ironically, Bandini is happy to admit that the intellectual ownership in this instance can be traced all the way back to a male painter: Eugene Delacroix. His depiction of Liberty on the barricades, patriotic enough to appear on the old French banknotes, was not always free of controversy.

It was painted around the time of 1830, in a less famous uprising than the one in 1789, and had to be hidden from public view a couple of times afterwards to placate monarchists and others on the right of the spectrum.

The painting is now, arguably, the most widely recognised image of (partial) nudity used to make a political point. They say that revolutions devour their children, but Delacroix's heroic goddess seems to promise the precise opposite. Her body has the obvious potential for nursing them.

It is hardly surprising, then, that Bandini used this picture as a kind of shorthand, challenging her female listeners to 'stop the city/ By showing one breast in the Delacroix style.'

And yet her desire to persuade the listener outweighs her appetite for confrontation. 'I don't know why people are so afraid of our breasts,' she says at the end. 'Without them, there would be no humanity or beauty.'

The success of women's football has an eloquence that transcends such complicated messages. Regardless of who wins on Sunday, the women's game will have won a famous victory. And the actual victors will surely find their own, original ways of celebrating.

But it may be worth noting that the simple gesture made by Chloe Kelly was incredibly effective. Rather than mixing the associations of femininity with both motherhood (good breast) and sexual attraction (bad breast), it gave the world an unequivocal display of sheer joy.

Neither side of the culture war had the heart to object.