We are in a process of Popular Legislative Initiative to create an unconditional Basic Income, and we are often debating the appropriateness or otherwise of the proposal. Not so much because of its proven economic viability, but because of more philosophical issues or how to deal with changes.

Now, because of the consequences it may have on women, I would like to stress the disadvantages that some feminists put on basic income. The questions that can be asked are: Can it not be that women, when they have basic income, decide to stay at home? With the tendency of women to assume care work, income will not continue to promote it? With the precariousness of underpaid and undervalued care, will women not prefer to leave paid employment?

We are not asking for EUR 900, we are not asking for an amount of money, we are not asking for a handout. The euro is a means, not an objective. We are calling for the recognition of a universal right: the right to a dignified life, to survive with a basic income that goes beyond the poverty line.

Is there any impediment for women to have more autonomy to decide, even if they decide what we decide? Or are we not prepared?

And now, when?

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In ten years the centenary of universal suffrage will be celebrated in the Spanish State. In October 1931, we achieved the right of women to vote. It was achieved by forty votes of difference. There were women and men who opposed the women's vote, but we did. The right to vote, the right to vote that we would like, not the right to vote "well", not the right to vote "to the left", only the universal right to vote was achieved. And there was a great debate, as it is today with the right to a dignified life or with the Unconditional Basic Income.

The opposition was not from an uneducated person or women activists, but from Victoria Kent (1898-1987), the first Spanish lawyer of the Socialist Radical Republican Party. Her speech was based on the lack of training of women to exercise the right to vote. It was better to postpone it so that the clergy could not vote on the right. "If all Spanish women were simple workers, if Spanish women had spent a university period and were free in their conscience, today I would stand before the whole House to ask for the women's vote. But at this time I rise up, to say the opposite and with all the courage of my spirit." These are words from Victoria Kent, which were also supported by Margarita Nelken or Hildegart Rodríguez. Nelken was the one who opposed the female vote because she considered that the woman “had to prepare for that responsibility.”

It was a man, Miguel de Unamuno, who denounced it in an article published in El Sol on October 4, 1931: "This male historical character that the regular or secular clergy rules Spanish women from the confessional point of view is the hysterical desire for masculinity that the dictator Primo de Rivera mentioned a day earlier," he added.

Now, through the Unconditional Basic Income, a petition has been presented in the Basque Parliament for all people to have the right to a dignified life. And now we want them to accept it, we can't wait. We can't be afraid that women will decide "wrong."

What would we expect? Until all women are prepared and educated? Would that guarantee us empowerment at all levels? Be emancipated?

Who are we to decide when women are prepared to exercise the right to a dignified life and to access the Unconditional Basic Income? When will everyone be willing to use a LOGSE "well", use it responsibly and emancipate it?

Amelia Valcárcele presents Women in the history of RTVE. As the documentary Clara Campoamor argues: "The defence of the female vote was based on principles and not on consequences," we can now say the same thing.

Defending Unconditional Basic Income is a necessity, it is based on universal principles, and feminist women cannot exclude it, based on the consequences it may have on women.