Last November, Ana Redondo picked up the portfolio of Minister of Equality from Irene Montero. The waters were going down turbulently, the leader of Podemos and her formation had battled with the PSOE to maintain this Ministry in the new Government after a turbulent legislature and Pedro Sánchez was betting on a change of course. Redondo came to lower the decibels of confrontation, especially in the political scenario, and it is this path that she wants to take. It will not be easy to remake the consensus, but in this context we must read the management and the discreet profile of these first stages of the legislature.
The division within the feminist movement persists, bitter above all around the debate on the trans law and what the right to free gender self-determination implies. Today, for the third consecutive year, feminism will once again march separately in Madrid and Redondo tries to maintain a certain political balance from the ministry. She will go to the demonstration called by the 8M Commission, which the PSOE has always attended, and at the same time she has publicly defended that feminists take to the streets, whether in one or several marches.
A position that has earned her criticism from both sectors of feminism. But the sources consulted in Equality insist that although it is not easy, the objective in this legislature is to reduce tension and rebuild some consensus.
The Government is not going to reverse the Trans Law, as is still requested by socialist feminism, and the minister has stressed that it is a PSOE law. The Ministry understands that the debate on the right to gender identity is an issue that youth assume, and therefore they want to look further afield. In this context, an appeal for unconstitutionality is also being considered against the reform of the trans law carried out by Isabel Díaz Ayuso in the Madrid Assembly, which has eliminated the right to free gender self-determination.
This is a battle with the PP, and something else is the Government’s strategy in the Cortes. With the departure of Irene Montero from the Ministry, and also from the Congress stage – she is running as a Podemos candidate in the European elections – the tension of the political confrontation has decreased. Regardless of the fact that the political agenda now pivots on other issues, Podemos’s strong commitment to pushing forward the Trans Law and the Sexual Freedom Law, with the controversy over sentence reductions, provoked a confrontation that, according to government sources, facilitated the opposition role of the right.
The Government understands that an excessively polarized debate – like the one that occurred last term – must be avoided, since it encourages the growth of neo-machismo. The Ministry of Equality does not intend to carry out intense legislative activity, and wants to focus on the fight against sexist violence. Today, the Council of Ministers plans to expand the Viogén system – for the protection of victims of sexist violence – in accordance with the European directive. This is the great challenge of Equality, and where there is consensus in feminism.