Profile: Dolores Gómez – Moving from strength to strength

Dolores Gomez not only leads shellfish gatherers in the male-dominated Galician seafood sector but also places feminism front and centre in the conversation

By Sandra Amezaga (s.amezaga@udc.es), PhD Student, University of A Coruña, Faculty of Sociology, Spain and Secretary, Women Salgadas-Galician Association of Women of the Sea, Spain

Dolores Gómez Ordoñez has been the President of Mulleres Salgadas since 2019. Mulleres Salgadas is an association of shellfish gatherers in Spain. It was founded in 2016 and was initially called Asociación de Mulleres do mar de Arousa, and confined its activities to areas around the Arousa estuary and the provinces of A Coruña and Pontevedra. In later years, the organization became autonomous and changed its name to Mulleres Salgadas-Asociación Galega de Mulleres do Mar, and gradually spread throughout the whole territory of Galicia.

The President of Mulleres Salgadas, Dolores Gómez Ordoñez, has a wide-ranging background that includes years of experience in the tourism sector. In 1991, after obtaining a Certificate in Business Administration, Dolores spent a year in Manchester, UK, improving her proficiency in English while working part-time in the hospitality industry. In 1992, she returned to her hometown in Spain, and joined her family-run business – a mytiliculture company that cultivated mussels commercially on rafts. After her parents’ retirement, she took over the running of the company.

Dolores is committed to improving the management of marine and fishing resources through the adoption of sustainable, fair and egalitarian practices. She was the Chair of the organisation of mussel producers, ASPROMERI, in Rianxo between 2014 and 2020, gaining widespread recognition for her contributions; indeed, for a woman to head a producer organisation in a male-dominated sector is no small achievement.

Under Dolores’ mandate, Mulleres Salgadas consolidated its role as an agent of change in the Galician and Spanish fishing and seafood sector. In recent years, the association has declared itself feminist in its statutes and defends the need for a gender perspective in public policies related to the sea and the people who work in it. Together with her colleagues in the association, Dolores fights for the visibility and recognition of the important role that women play in fishing and to facilitate their access to management and leadership positions.