As feminist groups in Spain prepared for today’s [8 March] women's strike, a Spanish bishop used his radio show to accuse some radical feminists of being influenced by the devil. On his show Sexto Continente, broadcast by Radio Maria, the Bishop of San Sebastian Jose Ignacio Munilla said the decision to strike was taken by a harmful wing of feminism that promotes “gender ideology.”
According to Bishop Munilla, the feminist movement divided into two different strands during the 1960s: “authentic, feminine feminism” and “destructive feminism manipulated by gender ideology”. What for him is the acceptable face of feminism is the “feminism of difference and complementarity”. Unacceptable is “egalitarianism feminism” which he claims “establishes that men and women are the same and that differences are down to sociological reasons”.
The collectives behind the strike would belong to the second category, he said.
Spain's first "feminist strike" has been deliberately timed to take place on International Women's Day.
Bishop Munilla said that gender ideology was adopted under the influence of the devil, and in taking this path feminism had committed “harakiri”, making women themselves its main victims. This is the tendency that has – self-destructively – forced the feminist movement to defend the struggle for legal and free abortion rights as well as some “lesbian and bisexual causes”, he said.
Abortion is currently legal in Spain for up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.
Men have been asked to support women’s strike day by covering for striking women, taking care of children and not discounting strikers’ wages.
Pic: Many women continued to work on International Women's Day. This pic shows women work at a construction site in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on March 8, 2018. (Xinhua/Salim/PA)
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