Machismo yields to ministras

[sweet! -o]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0422/p06s02-woeu.html

Machismo yields to ministras

When eight women in Zapatero's new cabinet of 16 were sworn in Sunday,
gender parity was achieved.

By Lisa Abend and Geoff Pingree | Contributors to The Christian
Science Monitor

MADRID - The country that invented the term "machismo" in the 16th
century has suddenly found itself on the forefront of women's rights
in Europe.

When members of the Spanish government's new cabinet arrived Sunday
morning to be sworn in at Madrid's Zarzuela Palace, eight of the 16
ministers who stood before King Juan Carlos and promised to uphold the
Constitution were women. With these appointments, Spain becomes one of
just two European countries to achieve gender parity at the highest
level of government.

It is a remarkable shift in a political system long dominated by
men. "I didn't think it would happen," says Marta Ortiz, who has been
working on women's rights issues since 1975, the year dictator
Francisco Franco died. Now she is the president of the Spanish chapter
of the European Women's Lobby.

While the appointments fulfill a campaign promise by Spain's new prime
minister, Josi Luis Rodrmguez Zapatero, they also reflect a larger
societal shift in the country. Thirty years ago, under the Franco
regime, women could not hold jobs without their husbands' permission;
Only in 1981 did Spain legalize divorce.

"Women have made very important advances in this country," says Paloma
Saavedra, president of the Citizen's Network of Europe, a lobby
group. "Women's groups have been actively working since 1992 for
democratic parity, and I think we've convinced the parties that they
have to include it [in their platforms]. Today, nobody disputes
democratic parity."

In his investiture speech before Congress last Thursday, Mr. Zapatero,
who led the country's Socialist Party to victory in recent elections,
promised to amend the Constitution's articles that govern royal
succession, so that women will be equally eligible to assume the
Spanish Crown.

He appointed Spain's first-ever female vice president, Maria Teresa
Fernandez de la Vega, and has tapped women to head several ministries,
including those of Culture, Education, Environment, and
Agriculture. Of 350 seats in Congress, 126, or 36 percent, are now
filled by women - a 27 percent increase since the 2000 elections.

By contrast, only 12.2 percent of the members of the French National
Assembly and 17.9 percent of the British House of Commons are female.

Observers attribute the move toward gender equality in Europe to
efforts by Socialist leaders like Zapatero. "It all depends on the
leadership," says Catherine Hoskyns, professor emerita of European
Studies at the University of Coventry in England. "If the leadership
is committed, as it seems to be in Spain, then equality can be
achieved."

Mona Krook, who is researching gender quotas in the European Union at
Columbia University, notes that a European directive to fix gender
quotas first came from the Socialist International in the late 1980s,
and was adopted by the Spanish Socialist Party soon after. "The whole
demand to have equal numbers of women in Spanish politics," she
explains, "is very much connected to the Socialist Party."

Although gender parity is voluntary in Spain - not legislated, as it
is in France and Belgium - Spain now ranks with some of the most
historically progressive European governments, like Sweden and
Finland, in its representation of women.

Ms. Krook attributes this transformation to Spain's recent history,
and particularly its evolution from a dictatorship to a
democracy. "You see this in a lot of countries that go through a
transition to democracy," she explains. "In that context, you start
talking about how to include more people. "

In fact, even under Josi Marma Aznar's conservative Popular Party,
more women were getting appointed to political posts - a sign of
overall changing attitudes toward women. Domestic violence - once a
taboo subject - is receiving unprecedented attention, and not just
from politicians.

This year's Goya Awards for best Spanish film went to "Te doy mis
ojos" ("I give you my eyes"), a film that confronted spousal abuse
through its graphic portrayal of a couple locked in a pattern of
domestic violence.

And the Socialists have promised to liberalize the nation's abortion
laws, a promise that has already drawn criticism from Spanish
clergy. Currently abortions are only available to women for whom
pregnancy is deemed a physical or psychological danger; Zapatero wants
them to be legally available to any woman in her first trimester.

Cardinal Antonio Marma Rouco, the leader of the Spanish church, has
been careful to guard his opinions regarding the new government. But
at a recent gathering of clerics and conservative politicians,
Mr. Rouco accused those intent on implementing changes in abortion
practices of being blind to the "grave consequences" of the reform.

With European Parliament elections slated for June, gender equality
promises to be an important issue across the Continent. Although
directors of the Brussels-based European Women's Lobby declined to be
interviewed for this article, the organization's website indicates
that it recently launched a campaign to increase female representation
in the EU government.

Women currently hold 31 percent of the seats in the European
Parliament, but many fear that number will decline with the addition
of the new member states May 1, since they have a low rate of female
representation.

In Spain, most expect the pattern of equal representation to continue,
however, and the Socialist Party has promised that at least 40 percent
of its candidates for the European elections will be women. "The fact
that the party in government is committed to parity," says Ms. Ortiz,
"is going to pressure all the other parties to do the same."

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