Women's legal age

The Enlightenment is not an outdated and obsolete chapter in the history of ideas, but rather the normative core of liberal democracy. It is, above all, the political commitment to replacing submission to tradition, dogma, and the whims of power with autonomy, and to replacing authoritarianism with critical thinking. Kant summarized it when he said that the Enlightenment is "humankind's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." And with the advance of reactionary darkness, we must remember that light is preferable to darkness and that the defense of democracy continues.

This "emergence" from immaturity is not only moral; it is institutional. Liberal democracy does not promise virtue, but limits: limits on power, limits on those who want revealed truth to become law, limits on the temptation to impose a single identity. The Enlightenment is not a naive enthusiasm for progress; it is a set of guarantees: separation of powers, fundamental rights, freedom of expression, and pluralism. Everything that prevents power from becoming absolute or from confusing or subordinating human law to God's law.

When this heritage weakens, what falters is not only political culture, but democracy itself, which demands effort because it needs critical citizens, vigilant institutions, and a public sphere capable of discussion without excommunication.

At this point, secularism ceases to be a cultural detail and becomes a structural element. Secularism is not hostility toward religion; it is the neutrality of the State toward convictions. It is the mechanism that guarantees that the public sphere is governed by debatable and shareable norms, not by dogmas. Without secularism, democracy loses its neutral ground; without the Enlightenment, secularism, instead of protecting rights, restricts them in the name of a supposed cultural cohesion. Democratic secularism, and also the non-denominational nature of the state, is not against beliefs; it is against the political privilege of any belief.

Women's rights are a central component of the democratic project, not a sectoral agenda. It is a struggle for the right to exist as free, autonomous subjects with their own voice. When women's sexual freedom is questioned, when abuse is trivialized, when attempts are made to define their identity from the outside, what is being done is denying them the "maturity" proclaimed by the Enlightenment. Obscurantism, whether religious, cultural, or political, does not only attack specific rights: it attacks the very idea of ​​women as citizens.

Women's rights are a contemporary expression of fundamental rights. Defending women's sexual freedom, physical integrity, public voice, and full citizenship is defending the very heart of liberal democracy. When obscurantism—in its various forms—attempts to limit these rights, what it calls into question is the Enlightenment promise of mature citizens. Secularism is its institutional form; feminism, one of its most demanding expressions. The persistence of a radical idea: that women—like all human beings—are free, autonomous subjects with their own voice. Without this, there is no Enlightenment; and without Enlightenment, democracy is hollowed out.

The debate on the burka in Spain It cannot be reduced to an identity struggle or a cultural confrontation. If it is to be situated within the framework of liberal democracy, the central question is different: how can the fundamental rights of women as autonomous subjects, with their own bodies, legal identity, and public voice, be best protected? A society that proclaims equality between men and women cannot ignore that the complete concealment of the face—when linked to religious mandates or community pressures—is a form of civil invisibility.

The argument is not against a faith, but against any practice that places women under more restrictive standards than men. Muslim women have the same rights as non-Muslim women: individual freedom, bodily autonomy, and the capacity to decide without guardianship. Religious freedom is a fundamental right, but it is not absolute: it finds its limit when it conflicts with equality and human dignity.

The fight against the subordination of women is not a pamphlet. It is a gesture, a continuous demand. Whether on Epstein's island, in the office of a police superior, in a meeting room, or on the street, whatever their religion or profession, women have the same rights and dignity as men, and the first right is the right to exist as an adult in a democracy.