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Women’s political representation in Spain
Spain, a parliamentary monarchy, has an advanced legislation in terms of gender perspective. In 2004, Spain approved an innovative law against gender based violence, and in 2017, the Parliament signed a Covenant to eradicate the deficiencies in the effective protection of women.
In 2018 and 2019, Spain lived its more significant feminist mobilizations. Currently, it has a Government with the participation of two leftist political parties. The agreement to govern together includes a specific chapter on feminist policies on employment, occupation and concrete measures to fight gender-based violence, closing gaps in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, among others. However, despite all this, women in Spain continue to suffer from discrimination, femicide and sexism.
The feminist movement in Spain
Spain’s feminist movement reached its peak moment just before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Since 2018, the diversity of the movement has been prioritized and strengthened, with the participation of migrant women, women of color and LGTBIQ individuals and collectives. But since 2020, the movement started seeing more fragmentation caused by polarized debates related to transgenderism, and transwomen in particular. This was sparked by the government’s announcement of a law that would allow free self-determination of gender, deepening the debate between feminists and even causing a severe crisis in the coalition government formed by two political parties with opposing positions on this issue.
Forms of discrimination against women
Gender-based violence continues to be a serious problem in Spain. Every year, an average of 60 women are murdered by their partners or ex-partners. Almost 1,100 women have been killed since 2003, the year when the Spanish government began to keep records of these murders. It is estimated that more than 600,000 in Spain suffer from different forms of gender-based violence.
Fighting this type of violence has become a political priority for activists in recent years, although there are still significant shortcomings in terms of resources and the training of judges and police.
When it comes to equal pay between men and women, Spain occupies the 29th position in the International Gender Gap Index. If Spain continues to advance at the current rate, the gap will not be closed before 2064.
Currently, feminists in Spain demand a radical end to the structural discrimination of women and the precariousness and poverty of women, and demand to stop the growing evolutionist agenda of the far right in the country. The ban of surrogacy is one of the feminist demands that enjoy consensus within the feminist movement in Spain.
