Women's Rights

Women’s rights is a subject which should be treated by a woman…

But, hey ho.

March 8th is a key date for women, it’s International Women’s Day and also, as 8-M, the big day in the Spanish calendar for women to take to the streets and remind us all of their value (and their numbers).

However, it’s all a question of Power. We men must hold the keys, whether with the help of a male God (and his Pope) or a male Caesar. We are after all, stronger and better fitted to hold command, and anyway, don’t we treat the women well?

This is the background to our (male) right to treat women as we wish. To oppress them at our will. We invent endless laws about their bodies, their possessions, their clothes, their sex and even their minds.

So it was a disturbing time for us when women got the vote. United, that was half the electorate right there – and the women, banded together, would no longer allow any nonsense. Throw in equal education, full working opportunities (when will women receive the same wages as men?), and equal numbers in the boardroom and the government, and we find a world where the apparently weaker, smaller half of it has the same (well, it’s getting there) rights as the menfolk.

Most of these advances are down to the women themselves, because, undivided, they can move mountains. Sometimes, they get help. From Pedro Sánchez: "This Government puts feminism and equality at the centre of all political action".

The 8-M is the time when Spanish women take to the streets, to demonstrate for their rights and to remind the more conservative males of their strength. But what happens if they can be split in some way – into two different groups, as happened in the latest demonstrations earlier this month? Specifically, the Unidas Podemos - backed Confluencia 8-M (here) and the Movimiento Feminista de Madrid – a group found favourable in the eyes of the PP.  

The rights of minority groups such as the prostitutes and the transsexuals have muddied the waters; purposely so, perhaps.

One right-wing news-site says that more than half of Spanish women don’t identify with the feminist movement. The notorious Ana Rosa Quintana from Tele5 being one of them.

Now, isn’t that a good thing for a conservative to hear?