Spain – Anne Litwin

Women in different parts of the world have both similar and different experiences. Here are some updates from South Korea, Nigeria, Spain, France, and Saudi Arabia on workplace barriers, the #MeToo movement, and domestic violence.

South Korean Entrepreneurs

Women in South Korea, frustrated by a lack of opportunity in male-dominated corporations, are starting their own businesses at a record pace. Michael Schuman, writing for the New York Times, cites Park Hee-eun, principal at Altos Ventures, as saying, “In education we are equal to men, but after we enter into the traditional companies, they underestimate and undervalue women.” Schuman adds that only 10 percent of managers in South Korean companies are women and, in a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the pay gap between men and women is the widest among countries studied.

Schuman reports that women in South Korea are taking matters into their own hands. A Mastercard report on fifty-seven global economies found that South Korea shows the most progress in advancing women entrepreneurs and that more women than men are engaged in start-ups. Despite slow changes in societal attitudes about gender roles, difficulties in being taken seriously by male bankers, investors, executives, and employees, and constant discrimination and sexual harassment, more than 12 percent of working-age women in South Korea in 2018 were involved in starting or managing new companies. Go, women of South Korea!

Nigeria and the #MeToo Movement

Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times reports that the #MeToo movement came to Nigeria in February 2019, when a young pharmacist in the north took to Twitter to describe a sexual assault by her boyfriend. “Stories of abuse soon flew around the internet, many of them tagged ‘#ArewaMeToo,'” or #MeToo in the north. A few months later, after years of silence, Busola Dakolo came forward to accuse her pastor, a famous and powerful religious leader, of raping her when she was a teenager. Many more women came forward to accuse this same pastor, government officials, other church leaders, and university professors of abusing their power to solicit sex or commit sexual assault.

As in Europe and the United States, the backlash has been strong against the #MeToo women of Nigeria, who receive death threats and threats of criminal charges. Breaking their silence is particularly hard for Nigerian women, who fear shaming their families, scaring off potential husbands, and taking on the region’s most powerful men. These women are courageous, as are all women who speak out about sexual assault.

Spain and France on Domestic Violence

On Monday, November 25, 2019, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which was established twenty years ago by the United Nations, Spain and France moved in opposite directions on protections for women. Violence against women remains a serious problem in both countries:

Raphael Minder writes that over one thousand women in Spain have been reported as killed during domestic violence since statistics were first collected in 2003. Last year, 167,000 cases of domestic violence were reported.
In France, Aurelien Breeden reports that a woman is killed by a partner or former partner every three days, one of the highest rates in Western Europe. Every year in France, an estimated 219,000 women ages eighteen to seventy-five are the targets of physical or sexual violence by partners or former partners, but only 20 percent file official complaints.

On November 25, 2019, in France, the prime minister unveiled comprehensive new measures to combat domestic violence. While criticized for underfunding these initiatives, the government at least recognizes the seriousness of the situation. In Spain, however, the secretary general of the recently elected far-right Vox party took the opportunity to reaffirm his party’s intention to repeal a fifteen-year-old law intended to stop violence against women. Instead, the secretary general of Vox gave a speech about men who have been killed by women, as well as women who have suffered “violence from their lesbian partners.” This is a sad state of affairs.

Saudi Arabia and Women’s Rights

Mixed messages are coming from the leaders of Saudi Arabia about whether women actually have more rights. Megan Specia writes that the notoriously repressive country has long enforced an interpretation of Islam that restricts every aspect of life for women. While Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, took steps in 2017 to lift some restrictions for women, including allowing them to drive, the government also recently released a video that listed feminism, homosexuality, and atheism among ideologies that are considered to be “extremism.” While the video was taken down and declared by bin Salman to be a “mistake,” Saudi Arabia’s top women’s rights activists are still imprisoned, tortured, and subjected to physical and sexual violence. Definitely a mixed message.

We need to stay awake to all the progress and regression taking place globally so we can be ready to support each other.

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

Mayor Ada Colau of Barcelona, Spain.[/caption] I love Spain and have spent a lot of time there for work and leisure travel. I was, therefore, particularly interested in an article by Raphael Minder in the New York Times reporting that women in Spain have achieved greater parity in their national parliament, the Cortes Generales, than we have made in the US Congress. Women make up 40 percent of the Spanish Cortes while, according to the Rutgers Center for Women in Politics, women hold only 19.4 percent of all seats in the US Congress. Nonetheless, female politicians in Spain complain of having to counteract entrenched sexism. I understand that Spain has a deeply embedded culture of machismo, so I wondered whether female politicians in Spain have different experiences than their US counterparts. Minder interviewed a number of female politicians in Spain who reported

Sexual harassment is common, which includes inappropriate touching, leering, and sexualized comments.
The women receive insults for daring to express opinions that differ from those of male colleagues. Last year a group of female colleagues held an open meeting under the banner “We Haven’t Come to Look Good” and read aloud insults they have received on the job. These remarks tend to mix political criticism with personal insults. Legislator Anna Gabriel explained, “What we hear has to do with our political stance, but the comments almost always include something about our bodies, sexuality, sex lives, and whether we’re beautiful or not.”
Ada Colau, the woman mayor of Barcelona, reports that she has been told she should sell fish or scrub floors instead of being mayor.

Minder notes that sexism and sexual harassment are not limited to Spain, and I agree. In fact, I don’t detect any difference between these reports from female politicians in Spain and my previous article about the double standards women face in US politics. We see these same sexist dynamics in Donald J. Trump’s many demeaning comments during the 2016 presidential election about the appearance, attractiveness, and body parts of his female opponents and of other women who dared to challenge him. A recent article by Amber Phillips of The Washington Post about Hillary Clinton’s loss cites research from the nonpartisan Barbara Lee Foundation, which studies women in politics. Phillips includes the Lee Foundation’s suggestions for candidates:

Voters (both male and female) care whether their female politicians are likable, an attribute that is not something they need from their male political leaders.
Women candidates should not pose for a head shot. Instead, circulate more candid, informal photos of the candidate engaging with her community—say hanging out with children on a playground. “To show likability, a woman doing her job among constituents is effective,” the study’s authors say.
Women candidates should not take credit all the time for their accomplishments, which men are expected to do.
Women candidates need to recognize that their hair, makeup and clothes will be scrutinized by voters much more than a man’s.
If the candidate is a mother, voters worry about the impact her public-office job will have on her children. They do not hold men to this same standard.
Voters recognize this is all a double standard, and yet they “actively participate in it and are conscious of doing so.”

“Time and again, we found that women candidates still bump up against the gendered expectations voters have (for politicians),” said Barbara Lee, citing research her foundation and the nonpartisan Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University will release this spring. As for a woman running for president, Lee comments, “After all, for 228 years, the presidency has looked decidedly male.” Not enough American voters were able to accept a woman in that role. The misogyny displayed during the 2016 election has energized a record number of women to run for office in the United States in 2018 and 2020. Let’s work together to support our women candidates by pushing through this culture’s entrenched misogyny. Photo courtesy of Barcelona en Comú. CC by-nd 2.0]]>

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