Carmen Calvo, president of the Council of State and former vice president of the Government, was a feminist before she was a socialist. A life of double militancy that she captures in the recently published book Nosotras (ed. Planeta), where she collects and reviews the causes of feminism, which are the core of democracy. Feminism is born spurred, she says, when patriarchal society leaves more than half of the population, women, outside the logic of modernity. And from here, Calvo makes the commitment to reform the Constitution so that it categorically affirms that men and women are equal.
The book was presented at the end of February, and this Wednesday he took up his new position. The president of the Council of State understands that for “political and democratic principles to be truly feminist” it must be noted that the first major cause of discrimination in the world, wherever it is, is being born a woman. For this reason, it focuses on article 14 of the Magna Carta, which establishes that “Spanish people are equal before the law, without any discrimination due to birth, race, sex, religion, opinion or any other condition or circumstance. personal or social.
It is evident that the article refers to sex discrimination. But what Calvo maintains, and is at the root of feminism, is that it is not enough to conform to the totum revolutum of article 14, where it appears alongside other types of discrimination. Because sex, he points out, is what originates or aggravates all other discriminations. In any race, sexual orientation or religion, women are in inferior conditions, for the simple fact of being so.
Some European constitutions already include this specific reference, there is no indication at this time of the possibility of this path being opened in Spain. The president of the Council of State believes that the time will come to propose this change, but she believes that patriarchy and neo-machismo continue to put up legal barriers.
In the book, Calvo puts on the table an exhaustive review of what feminism is, without shying away from the controversy over the trans law, which pitted her against Irene Montero and ultimately led to her departure from the Government. She remembers the decision she made to abstain from voting on the law, breaking voting discipline. That day she had to take a stand in the debate about her dual militancy, and she did so not only for what the feminist movement means but, she says, for herself. She also remembers the need for the defense and attention to diversity not to be confused with the deep fight for equality.
In an analysis of the current moment, she considers that women are still trying to achieve full citizenship, a fight that has its axis in the need to “be autonomous and owners of our bodies.” And she therefore rejects the desire to limit discourse about women “to our precariousness, to our position as victims and subordination,” in accordance with what the system wants.
A system in which it warns that patriarchy has no choice but to accept this fight for equality, but what it wants is for women to play with its board and its pieces. Feminism, explains Carmen Calvo, “breaks in to make it clear that we demand to be accepted in our difference. And true equality, for example, cannot ignore motherhood and all its consequences.” Therefore, she vindicates the conception of motherhood in terms of “power.” There are hardly any men, according to her analysis, who recognize the immense power of women being able to get pregnant.
The common thread that the president of the Council of State weaves also leads to the analysis of sexist violence, a violence that denies “freedom, individuality and deep respect” for the vital position of women as human beings.
The feminist struggle is advancing little by little because it is necessary to create new structures. For this reason, she considers it necessary that one day a political party commits to translating the strength of feminism into seats. It would be the way to more easily convert their demands into laws. The struggle of women understood as a fundamental axis in an electoral key. And in this sense, she warns that the feminist agenda has exploded in the last elections in “everyone's face.”
In this way, she analyzes the radical opposition of the extreme right to feminism, which tries to dismantle a sexist and unequal society and structures. Feminism, she remembers, is a political position and specifies that neither being a woman means being a feminist, nor does having a woman in a position of power guarantee feminist policies.
For this reason, it warns that society is witnessing a neo-machismo exercised from politics by women, who defend patriarchy when they are there because of the work that others, feminists, did before.
