Soledad Murillo


Soledad Murillo de la Vega is a Spanish feminist sociologist, researcher, and politician. Since 9 June 2018 she has been the Secretary of State for Equality in the government of Pedro Sánchez. From 2004 to 2008 she was the Secretary General for Equality of Spain's, occupying the top political position in matters of equality in the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. From 2009 to 2013 she was part of the United Nations' Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Committee, and from 2011 to 2015 she was a member of the for the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party.
She holds a PhD in Sociology from the Complutense University of Madrid and is a full professor of the Department of Sociology and Communication at the University of Salamanca's Faculty of Social Sciences, where she promoted the Women's Studies Seminar and advocated for the first doctorate in Gender Studies. Her research as a sociologist has focused on the analysis of men's and women's time in terms of the tensions generated by the compatibility of the labor market with family life, analyzing why such reconciliation is a feminine and non-masculine problem, as well as associationism in women's organizations.

Biography

Soledad Murillo received a licentiate in Sociology from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1981, a university where she completed her doctorate in Sociology in the Department of Methodology, Research, and Theory of Communication. From 1990 to 1992 she took postgraduate studies in Feminism and Enlightenment. In 1993 she presented her doctoral thesis La división sexual de los espacios público, privado y doméstico.
From 1988 to 1991 she worked as a technical staff member in the Ministry of Labor's Subdirectorate of Studies. In 1993 she joined the University of Salamanca as a full professor of Sociology, where she remained until 2004.
In 1995, she promoted the University of Salamanca's Women's Studies Seminar, and was its president from 1997 until it was disbanded in 2009.
and Leire Pajín in March 2005
On 30 April 2004, she was appointed to a new position created by the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Secretary General for Equality, with the objective of fighting gender violence and establishing real equality between women and men. She served during the eighth legislature presided over by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a period in which she promoted the. She was dismissed on 17 April 2008.
On 12 December 2008, she was appointed director of the Equality Unit of the University of Salamanca.
From 2009 to 2013 she was part of the United Nations' Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Committee.
From 2011 to 2015 she was a member of the in opposition for the PSOE.
In 2015 she occupied the second place on the PSOE list for Salamanca in the legislative elections without achieving a seat. She maintained her struggle against gender violence.
She was a full professor of the Department of Sociology and Communication at the University of Salamanca's Faculty of Social Sciences when in June 2018 she was appointed Secretary of State for Equality at the proposal of the Vice President of the Government and Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts, and Equality, Carmen Calvo, in the government of Pedro Sánchez.

Time and the conciliation between the public and the private

In various publications Murillo denounces the social devaluation of the private and domestic sphere despite the number of hours invested in the production of household goods and services, as well as the care of dependents, which also requires the existence of a person responsible for their organization, usually a woman. Also the lack of privacy and "own time" of the women who devote most of their time to family obligations and care for the people around them.
In 2003 she directed the study Ciudadanía activa: las Asociaciones de Mujeres en España, with the participation of 807 women's associations, in which the keys to advancing towards civil dialogue between public authorities and associations that give body to social movements were presented, and identified the weaknesses and challenges of the associations themselves. In it she denounces how women's groups perceive the discriminatory treatment to which they are subjected by the public powers, and as a result they consider that it is usual for political parties not to recognize their achievements, however important they have been, or that have helped to create social welfare.

Awards and recognitions

Individual