Etxebarria: from feminism to the pharmacy's 'social shield'

Etxebarria and the pharmacy tweet that is shaking up the rental debate

There are messages that spread because of what they say and others because of who signs them. Lucía Etxebarria's belongs to both categories. The writer offered a simple analogy —a pharmacy forced to give away medicines to anyone who declares themselves vulnerable goes bust within two years— and capped it with an uncomfortable conclusion: that, she argues, is the social shield (Spain's welfare safety net); and that is why there are no rental flats. The discussion she peine has gone more than a year and a half without cooling, and in that time it has served for more than handing out party cards: it has put on the table who really sustains the price of housing and who pays the bill for social spending.

The pharmacy analogy, applied to housing

The comparison has an obvious merit: it forces the question of who pays. In healthcare, the answer is the state. Pharmacies already dispense free medicines to certain groups, but the bill is not borne by the pharmacist, and that detail dismantles much of the example. In housing there is no third party to cover the difference between what the property costs and what its occupant can pay. Hence some read the tweet as an accurate diagnosis: what would be unthinkable in any other sector is tolerated without problem when the person affected is the owner.

Another current points to just the opposite: that the writer mixes two different markets, ignores the weight of supply and turns a structural problem into a slogan. The example, they say, is impeccable in form and dishonest at bottom.

The journey: from pogre standard-bearer to clash with the ley trans

In 2016 Etxebarria's public profile was different. She defended feminism, denounced gender violence and structural sens, and presented herself as committed to equality and LGBT rights. Her distancing from the government begins to be documented during the pandemic, when criticism of the management and of figures such as the equality minister intensified. The definitive clash comes with the ley trans (Spain's trans law): the writer maintained that only two genders exist and, according to accounts surrounding the episode, that cost her a smear campaign and several professional commissions.

From that period, one of the curiosities most circulated about her survives: the legend that she claimed 'murciélago' was the only Spanish word with all five vowels. It is false, and at the time it prompted a reader to send a letter to a newspaper listing counterexamples with real venom. Her current megaphone is her own YouTube channel, where, even those who do not share her line admit, she says quite reasonable things.

Why is immigration blamed for rental prices?

Here the matter gets tangled. One part of the analysis argues that the rise in housing prices has a demographic cause: if a market with rigid supply is joined by hundreds of thousands of people a year willing to share a flat and pay for a room, the price goes up. The figures used along those lines are rough-and-ready, but illustrative: 1.000 euros for a room or a shared flat of 60 metros against salaries of 1.400 in logistics, hospitality or construction. The average wage earner, it is argued, cannot compete with that.

The counterargument has as much traction as the previous one. Prices fall if supply increases, but also if demand falls, so reducing the arrival of population would ease pressure. However, expelling those who work and pay contributions cuts revenue from IRPF (Spain's personal income tax) and social security contributions while spending on public employees and pensions continues. And without new construction, the existing housing stock would remain just as expensive. The only point of agreement, if there is one, is that the problem is supply and that no one has found a way to expand it without public money.

The social shield and who pays the bill

The other axis is spending. Some sum it up in one sentence: people believe everything is free if the state provides it, until they see their first payslip. Under that logic, the social shield would have turned into benefits, rental aid and resources for people in vulnerable situations, sustained by taxes and debt while public services degrade for those who actually fund them. The underlying warning is not sarracena, it is arithmetic: if spending is financed by credit, in a few years there will be no shield for anyone.

On the other side of the scales is the structure that lives off the system: associations, entities and organisations that depend on subsidies and that, out of self-interest, defend the status quo. This is the part of the analysis that explains why shifts in opinion among public figures are less frequent than outrage suggests.

The pendulum no one sees

The uncomfortable question remains: does this tweet signal a real change in vote? No one knows, and experience points the other way. Some have spent years hearing left-wing acquaintances repeat identical arguments and then watching them vote exactly the same way. Others attribute the gesture to calculation: dropping an idea that pleases the other side to win an audience on hostile ground. And a third, more cynical line holds that there is no pendulum at all, only agendas. The analysis gets stuck exactly there: on whether discontent over housing and public spending moves votes or only moves conversation.