The current Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, and the Minister of Equality and Feminism, Tània Verge, yesterday took the lead in a dialogue on feminism organized by the Government of the Generalitat, which took on special relevance due to the current political context. Nine days before the elections, the minister has not had any prominence in the campaign of Yolanda Díaz’s coalition, but her name has been assiduously on the lips of the ERC candidate for Congress Gabriel Rufián, who has claimed the political figure of the minister to attack Yolanda Díaz and one of the direct rivals of the Republicans in Catalonia, En Comú Podem.
Although the event was dressed in the institutionality provided by the head of the Government and the presence of councilors such as Ester Capella, the meeting was held in the commons for fear that it would be considered an electoral event.
Faced with a large representation of ERC and a delegation of the commons headed by Jéssica Albiach, Montero committed himself to defending women’s rights against a “reactionary wave of questioning of feminism”, and called to “protect alliances” among the “plurinational majority that has been at the foot of the cannon” in this legislature.
Montero was much more measured than Verge, who in a veiled criticism of Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz, critics of “trench feminism”, pointed out that “this is not the time for weak answers, nor to say that “some feminist discourses they give arguments to the extreme right, because it is a lie and it is outrageous”.
