Feijóo calls himself a feminist and vows to dismantle Spain's Equality Ministry

Feijóo calls himself a feminist and vows to dismantle the Ministry of Equality

Alberto Feijóo has said he is a feminist. He said it in the same breath as announcing that he will fold the Ministry of Equality into other ministries, and he justified it with a homely formula: "How could I not be a feminist when I grew up in a house with far more women than men?" The statement, spread by a tweet from El País, captures the contradiction running through Spain's public debate: a conservative leader who embraces the label while proposing to dismantle the very department that institutionalises it.

What calling yourself a feminist means today

The first consequence is semantic. If the leader of the PP (Spain's conservative People's Party) calls himself a feminist, the word stops identifying a left-wing position and becomes a contested signifier. Some argue this empties it of meaning; the counter-argument is that it broadens the umbrella. The truth is that the gesture comes with no programme behind it: the only concrete measure is the absorption of Equality into other portfolios.

The announcement is not new in Spanish right-wing strategy, but it is new coming from someone who aspires to lead the Government. The move has two audiences: the moderate voter uncomfortable with the tone of the harder right, and the party's own electorate, which demands gestures against what it sees as institutional excess.

The reaction: from mockery to electoral calculation

The reaction has not been unanimous. Part of the public has greeted the remark with sarcasm, comparing it to those declarations of belonging to a club by virtue of having been born near its headquarters. Others have seen it as a straightforward insult to the voter's intelligence.

But there is a third reading, and it is the most common: the answer wins votes. Not out of feminist conviction, but because it normalises the idea that a right-wing candidate can use the term without embarrassment. In a country where the label has served as a dividing line, appropriating it defuses the rival's attack.

The detail that has drawn the most attention is the absence of the classic "I have lgtb friends" formula, replaced here by "I grew up with women." The rhetorical mechanism is identical: identity is proven by proximity, not by programme.

The Ministry of Equality hangs in the balance

The proposal to fold Equality into other ministries is the part least discussed and the one with the greatest consequences. No details have been given on which departments would absorb its powers or which budget lines would be reassigned. Nor has it been clarified what would happen to the bodies under its wing.

Some point to a low-cost political move: the department has a high media profile but a limited budget within overall public spending. Abolishing it symbolically pays more than keeping it costs.

Vox's calculation and the investiture scenario

On the right flank, the reading is tactical. If Vox were to accept propping up Feijóo without entering the Government, it could condition the investiture with a simple threat: meet the demands, or we go back to the polls and the adversary governs. It is the classic game of the external partner, with the risk that voters punish the lack of results.

The cautious prediction: if the announcement remains a statement and never materialises into a ministerial restructuring decree, the cost will be zero and the gain, fleeting. If it does materialise, the debate over what institutional feminism is will stop being rhetorical.