The official car parks at the doors of the Teatro Pavón in Madrid. Irene Montero comes out of the back door smiling. She enters the bright entrance courtyard. Photographers shoot left and right. The Ministry of Equality has summoned all the national television, radio and newspapers here for its great act on March 8, International Women’s Day. Montero, relaxed, finally smiles. She is in home. There is barely a trace of the parliamentary vacuum that lived on Tuesday in the Congress of Deputies. Alone, several meters from the Socialists, she symbolized the hardest hours of the government coalition with the reform of the law of only yes is yes promoted by the PSOE, its partner in the Executive. Here, in the theater, she was together with her circle of trust and work. The Secretary of State for the ministry, Ángela Rodríguez Pam; the Government delegate against Gender Violence, Victoria Rosell, and the general director of Sexual Diversity and LGTBI Rights, María Dolores García Rodrigo, among others. Montero looks at all of them. Smile. He kisses them:
“Hello girls, what’s up? How are you?”
And he melts into a big hug with Rosell and Rodríguez. “Aunt, sorry, I come from Congress,” he tells Rosell. “Nothing is wrong,” the government delegate replies, aware that the delay was already 30 minutes. The minister then greets the only minister who has come to the event, Joan Subirats, the head of the Universities. “Thank you for coming,” she whispers to him. A few minutes before ―those seconds before the security agents alert the authorities that the real authority is approaching― there was a cordial conversation between the minister himself and the Secretary of State for Equality. “Tomorrow we will approve the law,” Subirats told him (referring to the Organic Law of the University System). Rodríguez, ironic, smiling, released:
-Excellent! Be careful, they still throw it at you.
Ten minutes later, with more than 600 seats occupied by students from two public institutes in Madrid, as well as the general public ―mainly female and young―, the act began, which tried to be a live television program, moderated by the presenter of Telecinco Carlota Corredera. After the first 45 minutes, two young women in their 20s have risen from their seats from the last rows of the theater:
―Manipulating feminism harms women! Feminism belongs to everyone!
Montero has then taken the floor: “You can have different visions, but my obligation is to enforce the rights. To say that a trans woman is not a woman is to go against fundamental rights. What threatens women is the lack of sexual education, sexual offenders. Long live the feminist struggle.” The public has applauded between cheers: “Brava, Irene!”. Corredera, the presenter, has continued with the act with a certain joke:
“Well, it’s been a good morning.
Those who have lived with Montero in recent days draw an image of strength, also visible on this key day for her. “He’s strong. She is going for everything”, says a senior party official who spoke with her after ten o’clock on Tuesday night by phone. Montero has lived one of the hardest days since she agreed to the Ministry of Equality and politics. Her law, the law of only is yes, has taken the first step to be modified. More than 700 criminals have seen their sentences reduced by the norm. Aware of the harshness of the moment, he decided not to make statements after Congress. His only message was to share on his Instagram profile a photo of the Podemos deputy and personal friend, Lucía Dalda, who thus defended the party’s position from the rostrum: “The PSOE has allied with the PP and with Vox to return to the Criminal Code of La Manada, so that they ask us again if we close our legs well ”.
It is her third March 8 since she was a minister. Probably the most divided and polarized. Montero has returned to Congress this Wednesday morning. And she has been, once again, the target of all eyes. Inés Arrimadas, the spokesperson for Ciudadanos: “His is not feminism, it is sectarianism. Theirs is not feminism, it is incompetence ”. Montero, wearing a purple shirt, also responded to a Vox parliamentarian: “They try to criminalize trans people by saying that they are potential sexual offenders who are going to enter our safe spaces. No man needs to impersonate a woman to assault a woman.” And this time she, she did, she has answered the journalists: “What is at risk at this moment is not the coalition government, it is the rights of women. It is very bad news for the women of this country that the PSOE has joined hands with the PP to start the path that can lead us to return to the Penal Code of violence or intimidation, to the Penal Code of La Manada”.
Immediately, he has taken the official car and has gone to the Pavón Theater. Around two in the afternoon, and after finishing the act, he has gone to the headquarters of the Ministry of Equality, in Calle de Alcalá. There, in a room, he has eaten some snacks with his trusted core. Around 18.30 he has gone out again. He has turned to the feminist demonstration. There, again, her people were waiting for her: the Secretary of State for Equality, the Secretary of State against Gender Violence. Even Juan Carlos Monedero, with whom he has melted into a hug. “We are going to continue conquering the rights for all women,” he told the media. “Being a woman means having a higher risk of poverty.” Three minutes later, she has sighed. She has smiled. “Yes, she is strong,” emphasizes one of his trusted people during the demonstration.
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