Spain swings hammer at glass ceiling
Socialist leader is trying to make mark as `feminist,' but some foes say policies treat women `like statistics'
By Tom Hundley
Tribune foreign correspondent
August 27, 2006
MADRID -- Vogue magazine is not known to be high on the reading list of most European socialists.
But the Spanish edition of the fashion magazine has featured a flattering photo spread of eight female members of Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Cabinet.
Not long after his surprise election two years ago, the Spanish leader declared his determination to make his mark as Spain's "feminist" prime minister. He demonstrated his seriousness by naming women to eight of his government's 16 senior Cabinet positions, including the post of deputy prime minister.
Within days of taking office, Zapatero tackled what he called Spain's "worst shame," domestic violence against women. During the right-wing dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, it was legal for husbands to "discipline" their wives by beating them. Three decades after Franco's death, the problem lingers.
But under "zero tolerance" laws that went into effect last year, police are required to act swiftly after a complaint, and abusive men face imprisonment. Spanish judges also are experimenting with electronic tagging to keep abusers away from their victims.
Next, Zapatero took on that most patriarchal of all Spanish institutions, the Roman Catholic Church. He upset the Spanish bishops and the Vatican by liberalizing the laws on divorce and abortion. He also gave the go-ahead for same-sex marriages and stem cell research.
Pope snubbed
When Pope Benedict XVI visited Spain last month, he offered pointed criticism of the government's social policies, but Zapatero took the opportunity to further distance himself from the church by skipping the papal mass.
Zapatero's latest goal is new legislation requiring that neither sex make up more than 60 percent of any party's election candidates. The bill also calls for Spanish companies that do business with the government to appoint women to 40 percent of the positions on their corporate boards.
Opponents of the proposed legislation acknowledge that Spain has some catching up to do on gender issues, but they argue the new laws wouldn't help.
Ana Pastor of the opposition Popular Party and health minister in the previous government described Zapatero's proposals as "laws of the elite" that "treat women like statistics."
"Instead of laws that address real problems, it deals with electoral lists and corporate boards," she said. "They [the Socialist Party] think that by obliging women to be in government, they are allowing them to govern."
Spanish business leaders also have come out against the proposed legislation, saying quotas for corporate boards will make the companies less competitive.
But Soledad Murillo, in charge of gender policies at the Ministry of Labor, rejects the criticism.
`Not talking about quotas'
"I think it's a good law," she said. "We are not talking about quotas; we are talking about proportionality.
"The companies are criticizing. They say: `We can't put someone on the board just because of her sex.' But we are saying `Consider competence and experience first--and then gender.'"
Murillo argued that in Spain, with its still-developing corporate culture, the government's top-down approach to gender equality was the quickest way to achieve the desired results.
In trying to increase the presence of women in the highest business echelons, Spain is following the example of Norway, which earlier this year became the first European country to mandate that 40 percent of the board members of the country's large corporations be women.
But unlike Spain's proposal, which sets a target of eight years to comply and would punish non-compliance with the loss of government contracts, Norway's law, which went into effect in January, gives companies two years to comply and punishes non-compliance with disbandment of the company.
While European companies tend to lag their American counterparts in promoting women to top executive positions, European women do much better in the political sphere.
The fact that Germany is led by a woman scarcely turns a head. One of the two front-runners to succeed French President Jacques Chirac is a woman.
In Spain, women not only make up half the Cabinet, they occupy 36 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament.
In Britain, however, the party of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is struggling to increase the number of women on its electoral lists. At present, women occupy only 9 percent of the Conservative Party's seats in Parliament.
Tory leader David Cameron last week announced reforms that would require local associations to place more women on the short lists of candidates for targeted seats, a move that provoked an angry backlash among male and female Tories.
