So my husband and I were listening to NPR this morning over breakfast when we heard this snippet:
For the first time, Spain’s newly re-elected prime minister has announced a 17-member cabinet that has more women than men. One of them is Spain’s first female defense minister, who is also seven months pregnant. Her appointment is causing waves in the Spanish media and beyond.
Holy orange juice! And I thought my job was demanding. But bossing the military? Carme Chacon’s stress level trumps mine any day of the week. I’m trying to imagine sitting in on a Cabinet meeting suppressing pregnancy burps or waddling through a troop inspection in a big ol’ maternity sack-dress. (Although I must say she looks uncommonly good; check out this AP photo and Lisa Abend’s report from Madrid in this TIME.com article from yesterday.)
Never mind the hullaballoo in her famously male-dominated society; even the world’s press is raising eyebrows. The Globe & Mail of Canada calls her “Large and in Charge” (that’s a little rude, isn’t it?). But the appointment has everything to do with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s commitment to equality. According to Abend in TIME.com:
In his first term, he passed a sweeping law against domestic violence, legalized gay marriage, eased divorce laws, and required political parties to practice gender parity. He also appointed equal numbers of men and women to cabinet positions, and named María Teresa Fernández de la Vega as his deputy prime minister.
Not only that:
Thanks to Zapatero’s efforts, Spanish women are entitled to 16 weeks paid maternity leave.
Me, I’m betting Chacon is signing documents on her hospital bed. That’s the flip side of women taking these traditionally male jobs; they’re pressured to act more manly than any of their predecessors. Luckily, Hillary is long past her child-bearing years. As desperately as I want to see a woman in the Oval Office, I wouldn’t wish her my sciatica.