Lucía wants to be a bomber in the Community of Madrid. He knows that the evidence is difficult and that very few have achieved what she tries in the current opposition. Even so, he trains six days a week and sometimes bends the sessions because he lacks a lot to run the 2,000 meters that the resistance test demands in at least seven minutes and 40 seconds, the minimum to approve. Getting seven minutes and 10 seconds, the maximum score, is almost impossible. “How are I not going to be able to suck the brands that have assigned to the men?” He asks. Lucia, who is not called Lucia, but prefers to preserve her identity, goes to the pneumologist, in case something is wrong with her lungs, but they do not detect any problem. Desperate, he begins to investigate and discovers that brands are much more demanding for women because they are not correctly adjusted to biological differences between both recognized sexes scientifically. “How many times have we made us feel that we are not valid, that we are defective, and we are looking for and looking for what happened to us? We had never stopped to look at the reality of the fifties (the minimum score),” he said with helplessness. “We began to oppose, we saw that it was the game that there was and accepted the rules,” he ends. Lucia almost always speaks of “us” because the data supports her: since 2019 she does not enter a single woman in the fire department of the Community of Madrid and that year they only achieved two of the available 150 place. According to a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, there are 59 bomberies among the 1,648 troops, only 3.5%. However, not all turn off fires, but the administration does not need their number. The firefighter Manuel Ariza, delegate of CC OO Madrid, comments that the data is difficult to calculate because it varies depending on the needs, but it is almost “anecdotal”: about 10, less than 1%. In the opposition in progress there are 267 seats, the theoretical test has already been performed and physics has been pending, which will be carried out in the coming weeks. 2,025 candidates concur, of which 74 are women and several of them have joined to analyze the scales. In the resistance test, for example, they discovered that two of the determining aspects are the capacity of transport and oxygen consumption and that they differ between 10 and 20% between both sexes. However, this difference is not reflected in brands. To the last opposition, from December 2023, 1,610 applicants were presented for 125 places, of which 44 were women. Only three exceeded the theoretical examination – which contributes 20 of the 50 points – and passed to the physical part – the remaining 30 points – whose first test was the resistance. None of the three finalists approved it. It is the theoretical evidence, precisely, the first obstacle of the oppositions, says Israel Naveso, spokesman for the federated fire union in CSIT and majority in the community, because the cutting notes “are very high”. In this test they and they start on equal terms. “Even more had arrived (physics), the reality is that, unless you have been athlete, you take all your life running marathons or have an innate talent, they are years of training,” says Clara, another opponent, who also hides her real name. “And we are not talking about the Dieces, but of reaching the approved,” he concludes. Lucia says that sometimes “it seems” that they will not be interested in the profession, but that when you see what happens that in bodies where the tests for women have already been scaled, “you realize that yes.” However, there they are also still a minority. The Madrid City Council, known for the rigor of its evidence for both sexes, has different scales according to biology, but there are only three women of 1,500 firefighters. The one in Catalonia has reserved in the last calls 40% of the positions for them – a decision that caused controversy between the bomber themselves of the body that were against the gender quota in this profession -, but currently there are only 85 of 2,811. “The community guarantees in all its selection processes the principles of equality, merit and capacity of citizens, and of course, equal opportunities,” The Ministry. “The criteria are totally objective and scientific,” he adds. Behind the baremation, he assures that they are the International Association of Athletics Federations, the work of sports technicians and specialists and “the dialogue with the staff and the union representatives.” “We want to attract women. Therefore, in recent years the minimum marks have been adapted in physical tests and, above, bonus corrective percentages,” the spokesperson settled. In the academies there is talk that a profile of “particularly strong young people” is wanted. The Ministry does not clarify whether it is true, but recalls that, “with the objective of ensuring the safety of citizens and firefighters themselves, it is necessary to establish a high level of demand in physical tests for all.” He assures that the tasks of a firefighter do not always imply brute strength and go far beyond fires. There are floods, accidents and suicide attempts, he says. “A fire with an autonomous breathing equipment is entered, but a woman consumes less oxygen, which helps if the route is very long. We are also smaller if you have to enter a small space,” Clara argues. For ship, instead, the problem of oppositions is another. The Fire Union has been asking for an update of the physical part for years, which has followed the same model for 30 years. Naveso points out that other bodies have already renewed it with “closer” tests to the work carried out by firefighters, such as gincanas or the transfer of weights. In these tests, he says, brands for both sexes are the same because they are trying to efficiently solve the situations of reality, regardless of whether they are man or female, and not just to evaluate the physical condition. “If, when updating the tests, more companions enter, who enter,” says the firefighter, who does not believe that within the body there are extreme positions “against anyone.” However, the adequacy of the tests does not arrive, he emphasizes, because those who could do so are more interested in “politicizing” the matter rather than to meet the requirements of the professionals. According to Ariza, of CC OO, the strict physical state that is requested in the tests does not have to do with the condition of the firefighters in exercise. “If the force were the essential, some, that we are already older, would have taken us out,” he says, who is 56 years old and ensures that it is “unimaginable” that firefighters are required to maintain the way they entered when they entered. In his park, there are five men around 50. “Should we throw us out for that?” He asks. “The most important thing is to talk about this. It is a matter of social justice,” he says. To start “From within”, on May 22, CC OO has organized an encounter with members of the body men and women, performance experts and athletes to publicly corroborate what the applicants have been suffering in silence. Lucia and Clara have reserved a few hours of a day in which they should be training to tell this newspaper their history. The dreaded physical test is less than a month and still fight to get in the gym that minimum they will have to reach the ground. They know that it is too late for the rules of these oppositions to change. “It’s what there is, I’m going to give everything I have and hopefully I get it,” says Clara. His hope is that, in the following call, what they now ask are taken into account, because they do not rule out that, in one or two years, they will see the gyms again. (Tagstotranslate) Community of Madrid
