At a time when women’s rights are under severe attack in the United States, Americans might be shocked to learn of the recent feminist advances in Spain. These laws include newly liberalized abortion rights, a proposal to give women paid menstrual leave, expanded sex-education laws, and more.

Those gains have come as a result of a mobilized feminist movement in the Spanish streets. But they’ve also been a result of a left-wing coalition government between the Socialist Workers’ Party and Unidas Podemos, coming to power in 2020.

Unidas Podemos’s Irene Montero, a member of parliament who has served as Spain’s minister of equality since 2020, has been a staunch advocate for these policies. On a recent trip to the United States, Montero spoke in New York with Jacobin deputy editor Micah Uetricht about the feminist gains made in Spain and the state of women’s rights in the United States. The conversation has been translated from Spanish.