Spaniards are sick and tired of progressive ‘climate-sexual socialism’.
Spain is currently making a political shift to the right. Spanish socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez (PSOE) announced after the recent defeat in the last regional elections that early parliamentary elections will take place on 23 July 2023. The conservative-right (PP: Partido Popular) and far-right (VOX) are on the rise. Did you think that Dutch politics (or American, or… you name it) is unpleasantly messy, things are not much better among its southern neighbours.
The most controversial minister of the leftist coalition Unidas Podemos and PSOE is undoubtedly the minister of Equality, 35-year-old Irene Montero. In the three years of her ministership on behalf of the party Podemos, she initiated all kinds of laws and initiatives to make Spain a feminist country. The country is now one of Europe’s most progressive countries when it comes to gender equality. This turnaround of previously largely Catholic, conservative Spain may soon be overturned by fierce opponents found mainly on the right and far right. Montero is loved and hated, but nobody can deny she is a fearless politician.
Interrupted by TERFS
Irene Montero is pretty much the Sigrid Kaag (Dutch Minister of Finance on behalf of D66: a Dutch progressive/leftist party) of Spain, but where Kaag stays calm, tad dull, Montero is passionate and outspoken (Spanish politicians are more fierce than the Dutch for sure!). Once Montero, like Kaag, has also been interrupted at a congress by a ‘radical feminist’ who shouted that trans women are not women. She unsuccessfully invited the protesting voice to the podium to give her the floor. Kaag did too, but here the ‘radical feminist’, also peacefully called TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist), did boldly come forward — her name is Lydia Daniel.
Thorn in the flesh
Montero has proved to be a fighter for diversity, especially LGBTQ rights. The transgender law has passed, but not smoothly. The ley trans determines amongst others that anyone from the age of 16 can have their registered gender changed in a passport or identity card without the consent of a doctor or psychologist. In addition, lesbian couples and transgender people with the ability to have babies are guaranteed access to artificial reproductive technologies.
Other spearheads include sexual education, violencia machista (male violence against women), further improvement of access to abortion (from 16 years of age without parental consent), paid menstrual leave and the solo sí es sí law. The latter law means that when consent to sex is absent, it’s an act of sexual violence. That law too came with quite some obstacles, but it passed. And all of them topics that are deep down a thorn in the flesh of conservative, far-right and religious Spaniards.
Equality begins with sexual education
Compared to Spain, the Netherlands is actually a prudish country. Why? As on International Women’s Day 8 March, the Spanish Ministry of Equality launched a major campaign on sexual awareness and education that was supposed to lift taboos. A provocative video that carries the message to talk about sexuality accompanied by flashy images of people making love because, according to the ministry, equality starts with sexual education. In the Netherlands quite some people would be outraged with such a campaign.
‘In Spain, people don’t talk about sexuality,’ says a corpulent woman who heavily starts kissing a young man in a hallway. This campaign should change that. ‘Now that you see us, let’s talk,’ says the slogan. Heavy women, older women, menstruating women, lesbians, they all come into the picture, each to lift a particular taboo. Men do not matter for a moment.
Watching the campaign spot makes a bit uncomfortable, precisely because of its diversity. But because of the diverse women it’s a true representation of the raw reality. Whether this should be a government issue? Honestly, I have my doubts. Certainly, in the Netherlands such a campaign would cause quite a stir. Nevertheless, I think it’s quite extraordinary that such thing is possible in Spain.
Promiscuity
But many Spaniards seem fed up with these progressive policies of Irene Montero and others and want a different sound. That other sound now appears to come only from the right and far-right, and that means back to earlier years where abortion is restricted and where gender-related violence is denied. Not to mention the climate crisis (it just doesn’t exist). That sexual freedom and equality being promoted would cause abortions and debauchery. And Spanish women are already having fewer and fewer babies. Clearly, should they soon get the chance, the conservative and far-right will be the first to abolish the Ministry of Equality.
Progress?
Is it really progress when it turns out that an employee of the Lidl supermarket in Malaga addresses a trans woman as a man and is immediately threatened with dismissal because the trans woman demands it? Is it progress when Montero explains on Twitter in response to the commotion: trans women are women and it is transphobia, hatred and cruelty to deny that? She implies: the employee is a hater and transphobic; she has earned a possible dismissal (if that is even legally possible). Below her tweet, all hell broke out on Spanish social media.
Equality seems more true for some vocal minorities. The alternative isn’t that of the nuanced middle, because there is no such thing. Now you move immediately to conservative and ultra-right if you want to oppose such developments as a Spaniard. And that is what Spaniards seem to have done with the latest regional elections. Most autonomous regions are now led by right-wing (PP) and especially ultra-right-wing (VOX) presidents. The Balearic Islands elected Catholic far-right-wing Mallorquin Gabriel Le Senne (1977) as president of the Balearic parliament last week. Previously, the Balearic presidency was still in the hands of the social democrats of PSOE.
‘The great replacement’
Le Senne speaks of ‘radical feminism’ where men would be discriminated against, ‘climate terrorism’, ‘environmental catastrophism’, and opposes immigration, euthanasia, abortion, animalism (giving animals rights) and sexual education in schools that results in the ‘hyper-sexualisation’ of children. Earlier, Le Senne, who is also a lawyer, was a columnist for a Majorcan newspaper for four years, writing about ‘el gran reemplazo’ (the great replacement), or the repopulation theory propagated in the Netherlands by far-right politician Thierry Baudet.
The current president of the Balearic parliament wrote for instance: “Europeans in general are being replaced by Africans. In the United States, more and more inhabitants are Hispanic-Americans, so that perhaps in a few decades all of America will be Hispanic. In Spain between Hispanics and Africans, it is not clear where it will end, but it is clear that we natives are increasingly threatened with extinction.”
A Baudet at the helm
On climate change, Le Senne calls the climate crisis “climate terrorism”: “They ruin us (…) by making light, food and water more expensive”. Another way to “ruin us”, he writes, is by being “affective-sexual so that we forget to procreate” — and start a family according to the standards of Catholicism. The combination of the two “evils” defines the far right as “climate-sexual socialism”. So we have a Thierry Baudet at the helm on the Spanish Balearic Islands. Given his statements in the (social) media, it is not exactly something to be delighted about.
Too extreme
On 23 July Spaniards will speak out in early parliamentary elections. The left has made a pact in no time against the advancing right and ultra-right with the new party Sumar led by the capable Yolanda Díaz (Podemos), Labour minister in the current cabinet. Fellow party member Díaz has already stated that there is no place for Montero. The fearless feminist Irene Montero, who routinely pronounces the inclusive ‘niñas, niños and niñes’ (gender-neutral), may be too extreme for the progressive Spain that may soon no longer exist. Whichever way all goes, it promises to be a tumultuous hot summer.
~
P.S. A Dutch man who lives on Ibiza calls me ‘woke’ because of this article I shared on Facebook with the introduction: A Spanish Baudet at the helm of the Balearic Islands. Of course, that makes me immediately a wokist, haha. He obviously didn’t read it. It’s far more easy to stick labels these days than to really delve into something. But happy though I apparently gave him a good laugh 😉
Con Amor,
Eva
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☆evalunes 
Interesting insights in Spanish politics! Learnt a lot! Thanks!
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Great to hear Gloortje! I was actually thinking about you when I wrote this as it is quite your topic 🙂
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[…] behaviour without consent which is sexual violence against women that needs to be stopped in Spain. Montero is known for her unstoppable work to make and keep Spain a feminist […]
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