Paloma H. Matellano Madrid
Madrid
Updated Wednesday, February 14, 2024-13:47
Politics The Government appoints Carmen Calvo president of the Council of State after the Supreme Court annulled the appointment of Magdalena Valerio
Equality The Minister of Equality guarantees that there will be "no step back" in the Trans Law
"I want to review the progress made by the feminist movement, the activity carried out by the different political parties and their responsibility in achieving equality," states Carmen Calvo, former vice president of the Government, in the introduction to her book on feminism, titled
Nosotras
. However, in this review there is a notable absence: Irene Montero, who does not appear in the more than 200 pages of the body of the text, although she does appear in a reference within the notes and not exactly to flatter her. The almost four years of Podemos at the head of the
Ministry of Equality
are a gap in Calvo's essay, who, on the contrary, does not hesitate to boast about his own time at the head of that portfolio (2018-2020), although without the rank of Ministry at that time. : "She was the most feminist in history."
The former right-hand woman of Pedro Sánchez, promoted to president of the Council of State this week, left the coalition government in 2021 in the midst of a yes is yes dispute and with the PSOE leaning towards the
Trans Law
against her criteria. Carmen Calvo skipped party discipline in that vote, refusing to accept gender self-determination, and this ended up costing her her position in what was understood as a victory for Irene Montero. In his book, Calvo describes the day the Trans Law was approved as "
fateful
", although he avoids going into details about the reason for his decision: "I could not support a law from my party because my double militancy (socialist and feminist) made me forced me to choose, and I chose me. Nobody in the PSOE asked her for explanations or reproached her for her vote.
"There was no possible reconsideration, from my point of view it was us." It is the reflection from which the title of the book arises and with which Carmen Calvo justifies her position, that she advocates
linking the concept of woman with biological sex
, and not with gender. In the essay, Calvo repeatedly mentions "equality of the sexes", instead of "gender equality", and that she defends that it is sex that "radically determines the course of life." The former vice president reproaches those who question the meaning of 'being a woman' and considers that "giving gender a status of essentiality to the detriment of the category of sex puts women at risk of discrimination."
Thus, Carmen Calvo
charges in her essay against the
queer
doctrine ,
accusing it of "supporting patriarchy", and defends the elimination of gender, since she maintains that it is what "imprisons, transforms and constructs without freedom" women. The former vice president is also very forceful regarding the integration of other causes in the feminist struggle, describing it as "unacceptable": "The feminist movement has acted as a communicating vessel for the rights of minors, racialized minorities and LGTBI groups. , but
that brotherhood only works until competing interests emerge
."
On the contrary, later in the book and in a more conciliatory tone, Carmen Calvo says that the discrepancies between the different currents of feminism "are part of the maturity of the movement." "If anyone expected this not to happen, they are naive," she joked at the press conference to present the trial. Among these differences, the former vice president pays special attention to the debate on the
abolition of prostitution
, regretting that "regulationists who consider prostitution a job appear on both the extreme right and the extreme left."
It is not the only allusion that Calvo makes to those who occupy the political space further to his left, since at all times he insists on the existence of a "socialist feminism" and another "communist feminism", although he never manages to clearly explain the difference. Furthermore, although there is no mention of Irene Montero or Podemos in the entire essay, a press article that concerns them does appear in the final webography. It contains the reaction of the former Minister of Equality and other leaders of the purple party to statements by Pedro Sánchez in which the president
described Montero's policies as "uncomfortable speeches"
formulated "from the confrontation." Thus, the only appearance of the former minister in Calvo's essay occurs on the last page, in a link to a website.
Reproaches on the right
Popular Party and Vox are omnipresent in the book, since they are the main target of Calvo's darts. He reproaches the former that their
pacts with Vox
in regional and municipal governments have been "at the expense of their political-democratic obligations with women's rights", while the latter condemns that they have as a "workhorse" the repeal of the Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence of 2004. The former socialist vice president considers that the nineteen seats that Santiago Abascal's party lost in the last general elections are "an unequivocal consequence of the women's vote" and assures that it is the
feminist movement that is
who is "battle[ing] politically" against the right
.
Thus, Calvo reproaches PP and Vox for "not taking a clear position" against surrogacy
,
a practice to which the socialist does express a
resounding opposition
, claiming that "having a uterus is a desire, but not can be a right." Furthermore, congratulating herself for having passed the abortion law, the former vice president criticizes that the PP voted against that proposal despite the fact that "a good part of its electorate was in favor," according to what she claims was recognized by two popular deputies in the cafeteria. congressional. "They told us that, despite being in favor of the approval of the law,
'that brownie' we were going to 'swallow' it ourselves
," she recalls.
Likewise, Carmen Calvo has criticized that right-wing groups try to fuel internal controversies within feminism to divert the focus from what is truly important. "
We hold debates that are not necessary and there is a lack of debates that we need
," she denounced at the press conference this Tuesday, alluding to the danger posed by pornography, which "attacks the dignity of women." Calvo did not want to comment on which demonstration, of the two that will march again on 8-M, the Minister of Equality should attend.