Many women fans of the Eurovision Song Contest have created a fight for women to be able to speak out and be heard.
We are in the middle of 2022 and there are still quite a few women in Eurovision fandom who feel inferior to many men in the same fandom. We have been able to observe this in different areas of fandom, as it has not only been a behaviour that has been experienced only by women who follow the festival in fandom, but it has also affected the journalistic and social spheres.
Laura Ortiz, creator of Euroté and journalist, has been affected first hand, as she has often felt inferior and, as a woman, has been questioned on various issues. "I have to fight as hard as anyone to be taken into account and to show that Eurovision is for everyone, women included". And furthermore, in her case, she has suffered some situations that go beyond the Eurovision sphere, "I remember that once during rehearsals I was criticised for eating live and Vicente (who I love and adore) was applauded for doing the same". In Laura Ortiz's own words: "On a professional level, I run my own specialised media and I have to put up with people who treat me as if I neither prick nor cut within my own media, which on top of that bears my name. For some people, men come first, what can you do?".
Laura Ortiz: "For some people, men come first, what can you do?"
There are many women who are slowly getting into the world of Eurovision, and many of them have Laura Ortiz, from Euroté or even her colleague Zulema, who also collaborates in the same media, as a reference. In addition, some of the girls have also mentioned that they have Lucía Ferrero and Miry as references, who are two women who talk about Eurovision on TikTok and who are gradually making the festival reach a generation and a much younger audience than before the creation of the social network. Lucía Ferrero commented that she would be Eurovision since 2012, that little by little she found in her environment people, who would be the festival, and that when she started to have Internet in 2012 she started to discover what was in the semi-finals, she started to watch it, and when she fell in love with the festival she started to follow it. Moreover, after several years following it, this year he has managed to go to Turin to live the Eurovision experience with TikTok to create content. In addition, Claudia Fernández, journalist for El Foco, also mentioned. Percebesygrelos, that is, Carolina Iglesias, as she was a reference for her with her videos on Youtube talking about the festival.
There are many personal stories of women who have been demanding Eurovision for years, such as Ruth, who has always been the tradition at home: "I've always followed Eurovision, in my house it has always been a special day, although I consider myself a Eurofan since 2017, which is when I started to get interested in the festival beyond the Eurovision week: I started to watch pre-selections, follow the whole season on social networks...". Moreover, for some of them, such as Ainhoa Ibáñez, they always miss the female representation in the Eurovision Song Contest fandom: "I have always felt a female absence in the Eurofandom, with a majority presence of men".
The EuroGirls phenomenon
Recently a project called EuroGirls has been created, a project that tries to promote the voice of women within the Spanish Eurofandom. The aim of this project is to ensure that women within the fandom or who follow the Eurovision Song Contest have more and more importance and more voice, and that it is not only men who speak in the different spaces. Ainhoa Ibáñez has often been participating in this space and raising her voice, as she says: "This space seems necessary to me due to the scarce presence of women in Eurofandom. Because we women can and should raise our voices, because what we have to say is just as interesting, just as necessary and contributes just as much as what men say". Laura Ortiz adds that she believes that all opinions contribute and that men in eurofandom should take the step of letting them speak so that they are not silenced. But, however, not everything is good for Laura: "I have the feeling that one day you applaud the initiative and the next day you stop being an ally". Also according to @marilu16_: "Regarding the EuroGirls project: I loved this project, really very necessary. I listened to part of the Twitter space they organised and everything was very different from the spaces organised by the boys, where not only they speak but they also interrupt the women when they speak. I hope that there will continue to be more projects like this where we have the space we deserve". She also added that she doesn't usually interact that much on Twitter, but if she did, she would feel more comfortable with women. With boys, she would be more insecure and afraid of being invalidated".
The problems
Rocío is a journalist at Eurovision Spain, and she has had hardly had any problems within the Eurovision fandom: "I admit that I've been lucky because when I started in Eurofandom there were only three of us girls, but practically all the men I dealt with were lovely and many of them are still my friends today". In the case of Tania, @shajacobos, she hasn't had any problems either, despite having had small frictions: "I would add that although I have had some friction at times since I joined twitter, the most I have talked and interacted with is with guys (and I still do) and I haven't had any problems, I've managed to get along well with them".
Rocío's words perfectly illustrate the final conclusion that we should all consider: "We are not superior, but we are not inferior either. Just because men are the majority in fandom doesn't mean they should overshadow everything. We deserve to have the same opportunities and the same visibility that they have. Nothing more.
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