Once again, feminism tightens the rope of the government coalition and pushes relations between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos to the limit. The two partners intensify their dispute for the hegemony of that space at the cost of fighting for their own ideological agenda that has displaced the focus of the tangible problems that women suffer every day regarding their conditions of inequality and the social brakes that they bear the care.
These problems -such as sexist violence, lower wages for the same work, the so-called glass ceiling in the spheres of power, sacrifices in professional careers to care for children or dependent people, sexual harassment in spaces public and social networks, the sexualization of bodies or social pressure to subjugate stereotyped behaviors – are tiptoeing in the face of an agenda that has placed measures aimed at real and effective equality for women in a subordinate position with respect to women. LGTBI policies, in fact turning 8-M into a sort of second version of Pride.
The Trans Law is a clear example of this displacement in the public forum. This norm has generated a heated debate that has locked the feminist movement in general and the Ministry of Equality in particular in a permanent state of agitation and dispute for more than two years. And that has led to a fierce confrontation that has dug a deep division within feminism and, as a consequence, has become a reason for the expulsion and “cancellation” of historical figures in the struggle of women in Spain from the new spaces. decision-making and management of equality policies.
This war, which is often presented with the labels of “new” and “classic” feminism, already went through 8-M last year, when the demonstration that had been touring Madrid for decades broke out for the first time. The associations of women critical of the Trans Law and Irene Montero split with the call for their own march to denounce, among other things, that said law “erases” women. But it was also to bring to light her own ideological agenda, whose great political flag is the abolition of prostitution. This issue is not included in the manifestos of the conveners of the official march, the 8M Commission, because feminists who defend “non-punitivist” postulates or who advocate regulation coexist within it.
That banner of the abolition of prostitution is the one that the PSOE has historically also wielded and the one that it is vigorously raising politically in these times to counteract the growing influence of Podemos in feminist discourse. However, Ferraz’s difficult balances with the Trans Law have earned him the animosity of some and others. And what is worse, it has distanced from the PSOE historical references who have been part of the party or who have pushed it from the social movements for decades.
If this was already a great cause for concern, this 8-M arrives swept away by the tsunami of the law of only yes is yes and the nearly 800 reductions in sentences for sexual offenders. That is why the PSOE has been so expeditious in reacting and forceful when it comes to moving forward with a reform that ensures that, at least morally, it fixes the criminal mess and reconciles it with the women concerned about these consequences.
The correction of the law has crashed with the Numantine resistance of Podemos to touch the heart of its text and that Irene Montero is totally unauthorized. She already is as a result of the PSOE proposal, but at least Podemos, turning against her, tries to prevent her from buying that story of disapproval.
This situation has inflamed the confrontation, both underground and public, between the PSOE and Podemos for championing equality policies and has finished convincing many in the socialist ranks of the tremendous mistake that was that Sánchez handed over such a ministry to Podemos. From which he has been able to deploy his own ideological agenda and which has left the PSOE in the background in one of its star themes. One only has to listen to the interventions of the socialist deputies in Congress vindicating every day the feminist history of the PSOE to understand the face of the hegemonic dispute. Or attend to how Podemos sells that its feminist advances are “unprecedented.”
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