The penultimate session of the cycle “Female leadership in strategic sectors during the pandemic” has focused on the cultural industry sector, seriously affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

Firstly, Mónica Mateos, manager of the Barcelona Institute of Culture, presented the situation of women in the cultural sector of Barcelona in the extraordinary context that we are experiencing.

Mateos has highlighted how the direction of cultural events shows a trend towards parity. Even so, “if we talk about leadership, in aspects of direction and gender we observe that only 17% of festivals are run only by women”, said the ICUB manager. Then, she added that “women are the majority as users, as creators, it is improving and in awards and scholarships there is an imbalance in favor of men”.

Then, she has given way to the round table, moderated by Isabel Martínez-Cosentino, member of the 50a50 Association, and with Gisela Romeros Morales, head of Sales of Violets, a feminist audiovisual producer; Iris Veras Pintos, Head of Marketing at Violets; María Luisa Samaranch, founder of Sd·Edicions; and Raquel Bassas Catalán, manager at Beba33, music manager and event producer.

Isabel Martínez-Cosentino highlighted that “the unemployment rate for women is double that of men in this sector due to the pandemic”, and she asked the speakers how they have faced the year with the crisis.

Gisela Romeros explained how Violets reinvented itself: “Violets is a means of expression and female empowerment and we want to offer audiovisual tools to give women a voice. We have taken advantage of digital tools to make short films from distance”.

Bassas said that 2020 would have been a great year for the cultural sector, which had not yet caught the rhythm prior to the crisis of 2009: “The work of this last year has gone through the rescheduling and cancellation of concerts. There has been a lot of help among professionals in the sector. Despite being an area where only the artist is seen, behind it there is a very large industry that is working”.

To enhance the role of women in the cultural sector, Maria Lluïsa Samaranch stated that work should be promoted from education. “Girls should be told that they can get to the same places and jobs as men. Until we won’t have it internalized, we will have to demand this parity”.

Finally, the increasingly predominant role of women within the cultural sector was highlighted. “Culture is very feminine. It used to be at the consumer level, but now it is more so at the management level“, said Raquel Bassas.

The next session will be focused on female leadership in health and nutrition and will be the one that closes this cycle.