Spain marches for International Women’s Day

Now a global phenomenon, the Women’s Day strike is not limited to Spain – Greece held its first-ever today – and the idea is for users of public services, including private-sector industries, to experience what would happen if female workers literally disappeared from the planet.

This meant only 76% of trains, including the metro, were running in Madrid, but in practice very few women in the care and medical professions downed tools due to the vital nature of their jobs.

Spain’s calls for equality relate to women’s safety, especially in light of the recent final prosecution report relating to the disappearance of Madrid teenager Diana Quer, who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a complete stranger whilst walking back from the local fiestas in A Pobra do Caramiñal to her family holiday home in August 2016.

Women’s safety in public, their right to be free from sexual harassment, along with domestic and gender violence – which also affects men but, statistically, in Spain at least, is overwhelmingly committed by males against females – were the crucial issues the demonstrations focused on, although other issues such as care duties falling mainly on female shoulders, the gender pay gap which is calculated to be around 30%, and female under-representation in leadership roles, sports and history were also on the agenda.

Demonstrators wore purple, the colour used in protest against sexual harassment and violence against women.

Parliamentary chairwoman Ana Pastor, of the right-wing PP, gave public thanks to ‘the women who had done it all before us’, whilst Madrid’s mayoress Manuela Carmena of the left-wing Podemos branch Ahora Madrid – who has always urged women in leadership roles to ‘govern like women, not try to be men’ – said feminism was what ‘united’ both genders and all political colours.

Olympic gold medallist swimmer Mireia Belmonte said her sport was not one where inequality was really present, as male and female swimmers received equal coverage, prestige and sponsorship, but that ‘the ones with a higher media profile’ such as ‘football and basketball’ suffered from under-representation in women.

Banco Santander CEO Ana Botín raised concerns about artificial intelligence and robotics, referring to International Monetary Fund (FMI) research showing that these were mainly focused on ‘taking away’ jobs predominantly carried out by women.

Left-wing political parties Podemos and the PSOE (socialists), the latter of whom is currently in power, are keen to effect feminist policies and ensure equality for both genders, and centre-right Ciudadanos thanked the ‘brave and hard-working’ women within the party.

Although many women on the right-wing PP championed International Women’s Day, party leader Pablo Casado refused to join any of the demonstrations, calling them ‘left-wing political propaganda’ and saying feminism was ‘trying to put my son and daughter in conflict with each other’.

Far-right Vox, which wants to scrap hard-won equality laws – relating to gender, transgender persons, foreign residents, refugees and bisexual and homosexual persons – is against all that International Women’s Day represents.

A group of demonstrators visited Vox’s headquarters in Madrid, and party leader Santiago Abascal wrote on Twitter: “Thank you for your unhinged visit. We enjoyed it very much,” adding a ‘laughing’ emoticon face.

An International Women’s Day study has shown that Spain is the 12^th-best country in the world for women to live, in terms of equality – Iceland continues to be number one.

Spain is also one of the countries with the highest government representation among women, which started in earnest with socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who ensured his cabinet was at least 50% female after winning the 2004 elections; and although the country has never yet had a female president, Bank of Spain director, Royal Spanish Language Academy (RAE) leader, chairwoman of the Spanish Commission for Organisation and the Economy (CEOE), General Judicial Power Council, Constitutional or Supreme Court, the presence of women in national and regional government was strongly felt today: several regional Parliaments had to call off planned meetings because they were short on numbers as their women were on strike.