My case set jurisprudence.

It was the first sentence in Spain in which a mother with reduced working hours requested the morning shift to be able to match on schedule with her children.

I won the trial and… two years later I lost my job. And then I understood that popular curse that says: «Hope you have judgments and you win them!». I had been in that staff position for 9 years. My eldest son had just turned 4 years old, my youngest daughter was 2.

If the wage and labor discrimination of women is a fact, it is even worse if you are a mother. It should be said that at that time, that a doctor asked for a reduction in working hours was not well considered at all. It seemed that you were not going to commit with your work. Meanwhile, the situation was: reduced salary that I dedicated to pay a person to take care of my children when, in fact, it was me who I wanted to be with them, educate them and enjoy them. And, bad work environment because there was no the willingness that I could exercise this right avoiding a negative impact on my colleagues.

I know that I made a choice that was not in line with what the society in which I had been educated expected from me, and yet, it was relatively easy for me to take it taking into account my personal history and with full awareness of knowing that it was the choice that would make me happier as it was. So not only do I not regret taking it, but I feel proud of it despite the professional and personal inconveniences that it entailed.

I will not make the mistake of say thanks for the experience, I did not want to lose my job, you can not and should not thank an unfair situation. I can say however, that thanks to my deep conviction that this was the best decision, and despite the consequences derived and unexpected from this election, I managed to overcome it and have a fuller life than if I had stayed in my work with some schedules impossible to reconcile with those of my children. Among other things I learned that in the face of a bad job, a new horizon opens up to find a better one. I was not alone, my partner and father of our children supported me at all times in this long and contentious journey, and I counted on the inestimable professional help of an excellent labor lawyer woman, now my friend.

If, in 2003, the # had been fashionable and there had been an equivalent to #metoo in terms of the discrimination of women in the workplace for the simple fact of being and exercising our rights, I would have joined it. Perhaps #momtoo would have been the right one: «as a woman and mother has also happened to me» or «besides being a professional, I am also a mother«. I had never tell this story before, today, March 8th, I feel it is a good time, the right day.

I move to another city where I get a new job as medial doctor specialist in a public hospital, I reincorporated to work, but the schedules continued being irreconcilable with the family life and children schedules. From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. in theory an affordable schedule, but it was added one or two days of late afternoon work in order to reduce the waiting lists, which went from 3 in the afternoon to 10 at night resulting in the final amount of non-stop 14 hours of work…

Nevertheless the labor difficulties, we had a third child, «in for a penny, in for a pound«. I always tell couples that they have to have the kids when you feel like it because there is never an optimum time at work to plan so, and… as a reward of such challenge, during the maternal leave, I was offered an on line job as a Neuroradiologist. Despite my indefinite place in a public hospital, I did not think about it twice, I discarded the possibility of requesting a new reduction of working hours because I had already tried it without success, I resigned my place, and I ventured to start an uncertain working future, which again caused amazement in my professional environment.

Taking this second decision was not very difficult either, it was in the same line as the first time. For me, the most important, if I had no choice but to prioritize between the professional and the familiar plane, was, without a doubt, to be able to be with my children. Working from home without giving up my specialty, with the week working days and free time to choose, allowed me to be every afternoon with my children, have more time for me, and attend emergencies of colds, fevers without stress and without having to stop working. I went to pick up at school the one who was sick, I took him/her to home and there we were so nicely.

Today I see with hope the situation of my female colleagues, it seems that it has improved a little. After me, I feel proud to see  how other women request more and more reductions in working hours and they are granted more easily, mainly because more women doctors start to take on the chief positions.

And I believe that this is the important point of inflection, in order that women can conciliate we need more women in politics by legislating, in the headships and in the management of companies. But in order to achieve this, we should not have to give up doing it in a schedule compatible with the school day of our children. It is useless if we have to «masculinize»  ourselves to get and keep in a decisive position. We must be able to exercise them as women, giving example of a conciliatory schedule, more flexible, more important in terms of productivity than the number of hours of physical presence.

And we have to do it together with men, complementing us, not overcoming them, in collaboration not in competition, with them, who are our partners and the fathers of our children. We will not succeed if we do not add them, if we are not on the same side. How? changing the education we give our children based on a patriarchal, productive and consumer society, for another matriarchal, collaborative and more conciliatory one… a huge educational challenge.

How to explain that in Spain, a country in Europe, the continent where there is greater wealth and social achievements from all over the world, there is still a wage disparity between men and women, and the birth rate is so low? there is something that we are not facing well.

I am currently very happy because I have a job in a European telemedicine company that allows me to develop my specialty. The only thing that I somehow regret is that having studied and enjoyed an enviable university education almost free and of great quality in my country, I am actually working for the United Kingdom. It is not that the patients of the United Kingdom do not deserve good specialists, no that’s not the point, it is that I would have liked to return to my country the social debt that I feel I contracted with it informing Spanish patients as a token of gratitude for the university education, Medical Internal Residence (MIR) and Master subspeciality formation that I have received, neither more nor less.

I have a beautiful 17 years old daughter and I hope with all my heart that she can have it better than me, that she does not earn less for being a woman and that she does not have to give up her professional career due to the fact that someday she wants to be a mother. I hope she will be able to conciliate these two things, enjoy their children if she wants to have them, and be able to continue contributing to society with all the knowledge she will have learned with so many years of study. We should not have to choose between one thing or the other, we are women and professionals, mothers and specialists, we want to be and contribute, we contribute and participate, we add and we love, it is the only way we can personally perform and improve the society to which we belong.

And in total I have three wonderful children to whom I have been able to dedicate, to educate and enjoy them without giving up my working life, in a healthy balance between the personal and the professional fields. In my current work I no longer have to fight for equality between genders, now I can finally dedicate myself only to what I studied so much, to diagnose neurological diseases and to fight against brain tumors to which in different ways I try to win the hard battle that we are fighting …

I keep the reward that my children would appreciate in this gesture, in this personal and social struggle, how much I love them … and I feel personally proud, I believe that as a hard-working woman I have already contributed to improve the existing conditions.

Now, it is the time for the next generation to make progress based on our achievements. And, I follow you, young women and mothers, very close, believe me if I tell you that I live your yearnings and difficulties as my own, and that I support you, not with the strength of youth but with the determination of my age, together in the gap with the resolution that if not you, your daughters will.

I pass you the baton…

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