A Womb With a (Political) View: Reclaiming Reproductive Rights in Spanish Feminist Cartoons

Abstract

Drawing attention to the ways in which art activism can be mobilized “with the objective of achieving social and or political change” (Serafini, 2018, p. 3), in this article, I attend especially to the image of the womb as a powerful visual metaphor for political intervention. Analyzing the transformative potential of an embodied medium such as political cartoons, the present article focuses on Wombastic, a Tumblr-based initiative organized by the Spanish collective Autoras de Cómic in response to the restrictive abortion bill that the Spanish right-wing Partido Popular approved in the Council of Ministers on December 20, 2013. While right-wing legislators have turned women’s bodies into battlefields in their attempt to reinstate heteropatriarchal gender norms, feminist graphic interventions reclaim the body as a site of resistance to disrupt neoconservative propaganda. Studying the sociopolitical context in which it was launched, this article underlines the connection between the “repoliticization of Spanish social life” (Herrero, 2019, p. 127), and the resurgence of powerful feminist activism, centering on reproductive rights. Steeped in the post 11M social climate, this study reveals the discursive power of political cartoons at a time of renewed politicization of the body, increased social mobilizations, and powerful feminist activism. Socially engaged comics and cartoons such as the ones uploaded to Wombastic display feminist agency, reclaiming women’s creativity and ownership of their own sexuality and reproductive choices.