The Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, has had to face two questions of an intimate nature on Tuesday in the press conference after the Council of Ministers. Belarra appeared before the media to explain the details derived from the approval of the Family Law.
In the words of the minister, it is a law that begins to “remedy historical deficiencies” and that “reinforces the protection of all families.” In addition, Belarra has specified that one of his objectives is to advance in the guarantee of the right to conciliation, in such a way that fathers and mothers “have to be just that, and not superheroes.”
During question time, two journalists questioned the minister about her own personal case. Belarra became a mother for the second time on October 21 and she has been gradually joining work without suddenly consuming the 16 weeks of maternity leave which you can qualify for.
In this sense, one of the journalists wanted to know if he thought he was “setting a good example” by giving up her maternity leave to file the law. The minister has detailed to those present with some emphaticity that she has not given up her permission: “It isn’t true”.
“I’m on a partial furlough”he explained, “although obviously I would like to enjoy my leave in another way, but I have enjoyed the first six weeks of leave with some obligations that the position demands”.
The fact is that this question has led the minister to share a reflection with journalists: “I would like to ask myself if this question would be asked of a minister who was a man, as there have been cases. My colleague Alberto Garzón, for example, and he was never asked this question”. In fact, the Minister of Consumption was, after the birth of his second daughter, the first Spanish minister to take paternity leave.
However, despite Belarra’s efforts to show her discomfort with certain questions due to the simple fact of being a woman, another journalist has addressed the same issue, to which the minister has responded: “The scrutiny of the personal lives of the ministerswith a, is not the same as that of the ministers and I think that this has to lead us to reflect as a society and the need for the advances that feminism is proposing in our country”.
