Storytelling: Oana Maroti
Barcelona has had a written Strategy for Inclusion since 2017, (better late than never) with plenty of goals concentrated on women, and many institutions apparently support women. The Strategy is to be applicable until 2027. Here is the link:
It´s a town that means business in international education and women's protection, in theory, but is the plan functional? As an immigrant woman, there were too many negative experiences I had to face while working, searching for a flat, having a health problem, or approaching dedicated institutions to not discuss it.
9 years ago I landed in Barcelona with a blue eye and a broken heart. All my life had changed in a matter of weeks. Upon my arrival, after 2 days of travel by bus and traumatic experiences left behind, still dreaming of another type of reality for women than the one I had experienced. Barcelona was a bigger and more European town, in theory, and it had lots of publicity about how important women's rights were here.
I was dreaming of continuing my studies, I had different inclusive education projects I wanted to develop in an international place and an underground magazine I was aiming for people to show, in a more inclusive context. Well, I had so many experiences in these 9 years that it´s hard to start talking about, yet no real opportunity regarding the studies' continuation, work linked to preparation, or the possibility of publishing. I have spent all this time working diverse underpaid jobs, as paying rent is reliant on receiving a monthly consistent payment.
When my defense system lowered and got sick I received more disrespect than care. I have spent all this time among xenophobic and misogynistic remarks. I have spent all this time fighting and trying to put up whether with an absconse and illogic bureaucracy or with social adversity. I was told about a job opportunity and came to work immediately, but there was no job, just a daily fee for using an improvised bed.
My survival instinct increased, I made a fast CV with my 4 years of international cooking experience in Castellano, added my Culinary Arts diploma, left it in all central restaurants I could access, and in 3 days I was offered a job in the city's center. With the papers, it took a little longer and it was more complicated as I had no lawyer money to make it go through faster.
Having a place to sleep, and finding a room on my budget was quite a challenge. In one year and a half, I had been living in 5 different places, being asked for extra rent, and kicking a man´s butt who tried to rape me while visiting a flat. Moreover, I worked but wasn´t paid, had to recuperate my money twice, survived an aggressive spontaneous group attack, was robbed twice, and learned that locals might have nightmares about my family visiting and robbing their credit cards. The last one was a disastrous type of imagery as my parents are incredibly fair people and did not show me how to pass through life taking advantage of others.
Anyways, probably the most consuming thing was working among men only. In 2 different kitchens, I was the only woman, a new and strange situation. On one hand, I could not believe that women were not valued as cooks and as a consequence, they were not preferred to work in the kitchen. On the other hand, I was finding myself working among men, some horny and proud, really annoying. One even had the nerve to manifest opinions about my pants. At first, I had the cultural impression, as it was my first contact with different cultures that are more touchy than mine, and in mine, I´m less touchy than people in general, so the sexual pressure at work, and the constant misogynistic remarks were difficult to handle. The fact I was from Romania and unmarried didn´t help at all.
Furthermore, I decided to change the domain since I had graduated and after a lady fired me from her mini-restaurant saying she needed another man in the kitchen (she had a few) I started applying and found a job quite fast. A few months before I managed to put some money aside, working 2 jobs, and found a flat relatively near my job. I had the stability of not moving my stuff a few times per year and resting, eating more as anxiety made me lose too many kg and my muscles were all tense and hurting. I was in self-defense mode for such a long time, surviving the cement, physical disproportion, and stigma.
I still didn´t have time for my projects. The flat sharing and administration meant a lot of work. Bureaucracy was slow, any essential facility, like internet connection, any contract intermediation kept you holding for long periods, money was blocked, errors were made, error after error, and neighborhood impediments all together with the spicy mix of flatmates not paying their share. Eventually, I moved out, back in Barcelona to share the space with my pair whose presence I can at least enjoy. We have been sharing the flat since and now we have a cat.
I´m in my 40s now. Finding a job is a more and more difficult task and the contracts are shorter and shorter. I have a very important diploma at the international level, yet here I can swipe my ass with it, as the local´s language high level is demanded to register for job exams. It means that I have more chances to be accepted by the French system as I´m fluent in French, than in the Catalan system…
As unemployed I´m obliged to register from 3 in 3 months in the central system that will facilitate personal development and in theory will help with employment. Nobody cares what is your preparation so far, so the classes proposed are not exactly practical. I´m supposed to pay in reduction for some class I already have in my Curriculum in a much more extended level. Even if I love to pass exams and participate in classes, when I hardly see the day of tomorrow and need a job, spending some time studying on an empty stomach and fearing not having a roof over my head is not exactly functional or helpful, just bureaucratic impediments messing with people´s lives. For jobs like elderly care or even cleaning, there is a centralized system, difficult to penetrate.
Last year, after using the last resort; asking for help to access a job in my development area, yet not receiving any guidance from the consulate and from the social departments in charge; I approached a construction team. They declined my request saying that they don´t work with women. It sounded similar to the apple-picking impossibility: we don´t work with women. If I could at least donate blood, but I´m underweight and I can´t. A day ago I´ve made some courage to approach a team of public spaces gardeners to ask if they don´t need workers. They do, but only workers with a disability certificate. So gardening dreams are also not available. At least I have discussed openly instead of enrolling in classes hoping that I might access a job while paying money I do not have.
In my last job, I worked with immigrant women in particular. Cultural mediation is an important aspect of social inclusion. The field is not always prepared for new arrivals, and that's why intercultural mediation is imperative for an efficient social inclusion process and also associated school inclusion for their kids.
During 2 years of many cases, I had the pleasure to know women from different continents, and implicitly interact with cultural diversity, as women are complex, they have lots of knowledge about culinary arts and educative methods. Those who didn´t have a chance to school are absolutely cute and I would love to see them engaged in an educative plan, personal and familiar, as the inclusion strategy implies. I´m more than interested in developing and applying an inclusive educative plan for illiterate adult immigrant women.
For an inclusive specialist, having lived in such a diversity of educational methods is priceless. It only needs to be well coordinated, as for the moment, it looks lost in space.
There was only one logical social intervention in all this time, a mister made a support plan that was orientated, and by this, his lives were saved, deep traumas were ended, and kids had a future. In the rest of the cases, unfortunately, women were dragged around from one place to another, from one institution to another, in an illogical dynamic.
What I saw was disastrous and did complained about it. New centers are dedicated to women, offering classes for them specially, but not letting immigrant women inside…or organizing important educative activities with very limited places, therefore faking the imposed activity.
Immigrant women are people too and if you are working with them, respect them, give them a glass of water if they need it, before even asking. Our job is to anticipate, not obturate these beautiful creatures that if they asked for your help most definitely fight to survive in their reality. Social workers affected by racism and xenophobia have no place inside the system, no place around women and children they won´t be able to protect. Stop the social internal corruption, women´s rights are not optional and mothers should never pass through bureaucracy aggressivity.
What I could observe and deduct after personally experiencing economic vulnerability is that there is a big dancing around the subject, but women hardly receive real help, they are more obliged to say thank you! in different languages and redirected as much as possible towards a life in couple like an unknown man is more probably to be the savior than the very women, a mother taking over life in her hands as she probably anyways does.
The strong showing off of the ideological aspect in women´s rights implementation makes no service to the women. We need autonomy and the possibility where to apply our incredible skills, not another boss after being treated badly.
How do I feel as a woman in 2025? Since I´m in my 40´s I feel more confident than ever, since I´m loved, more powerful than ever is how I feel, since I´m writing in languages I have recently learned, much more intelligent than in my young years is how I fell. However, even if my development went increasingly up, the social interaction went down. There are no resources or effective guidance for women in my age segment, unmarried and without kids. Until our 60s - 70s we will be invisible to society or surviving discrimination and imposed vulnerability, even from inside the so-called support system.
As a woman in my 40s I feel that the ones in charge of the basic autonomy support, don´t equally apply it, therefore by implying exclusion, the social context especially prepares conditions of vulnerability. In a touristic town like Barcelona, women´s exploitation, especially immigrant women´s exploitation is an easily avoidable reality.
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