Fifteen years ago, I wrote an article which referred to the case of a planning inspector at a town hall in Mallorca who was under investigation for having been denounced by a woman who had alleged he had sought sexual favours in return for ‘regularising’ building work at her home. He was caught on a phone camera but denied having requested such favours. I only knew about the case because the woman in question had explained it to me. It wasn’t widely publicised.
In the same article, I asked readers if they would be shocked to learn about a restaurant owner who sought sexual favours in return for employment. I reckoned readers wouldn’t be. That was how it was, and a context for an official display of opposition to harassment of women and of violence. The then president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, and the Spanish Government’s delegate in the Balearics, Ramon Socias, stood side by side in brandishing red cards.
Well intentioned though this was, the red cards struck me as having been something of a trivialisation. But in more recent times, and to carry forward a footballing symbol into real life, there was the business with Luis Rubiales and Jenni Hermoso. What came across as a result of that, among other things, was the barely concealed anger of highly reputable football journalists like Guillem Balagué. The behaviour of Rubiales had been totally unacceptable, but it nevertheless reflected, as Balagué argued, an enduring attitude that considered it acceptable. He hoped that change would come about, and to the extent that a national debate was provoked, his hope was realised. This said, the legal case has yet to run its full course.
What progress may have been made since 2010 and because of the Rubiales affairs risks being undermined by attitudes that are certainly not confined to Spain. Fuelled by an out-of-control social media, where freedom of speech appears to be being interpreted as anything goes, we have had Lord Coe saying that he will demand urgent talks with Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg if he becomes president of the International Olympic Committee. He wants to stop “pond life” abusing sportswomen with impunity.
While Coe could equally have highlighted the pond life that abuses sportsmen as well, his remarks were against a background of International Women’s Day and a pursuit of equality that covers a range of issues, and so not only violence, abuse and harassment. In this sense in the Balearics, President Marga Prohens expressed her pride in work being done to achieve new rights for women through the government’s conciliation law.
She specified crisis centres for victims of sexual violence, the renewal of an agreement - which was first drawn up fifteen years ago - between the 112 emergency service and the government’s institute for women to protect women from violence, and support for small to medium-sized businesses in promoting equality plans. She went on to also express her pride in women who have broken through the glass ceiling in realising their potential, one of whom - it might be said - is her. There again, the world of politics has become increasingly characterised by an equality that doesn’t necessarily exist in other sectors.
Prohens qualified her remarks by adding that she was “aware of the path that still remains for effective and real equality between women and men, and on which the government is working”. For opposition parties, the government hasn’t been working hard enough. The conciliation law, approved by the cabinet in October, was taken to parliament three weeks ago. A member of Més, Marta Carrió, said it was in fact a law of “reconciliation” between Prohens’ Partido Popular and Vox. It had effectively been an agreement to allow the speaker of parliament, Gabriel Le Senne, to remain in position, calls for his resignation having been loud as a consequence of the incident in parliament when he tore up photos of Republican female victims of the Nationalists during the Civil War.
The minister for business and employment, Alejandro Sáenz de San Pedro, outlined measures contemplated by the law. These included, as examples, provisions for flexible working and businesses’ development of equality plans. For Carrió, these were of “low impact” and were just “a declaration of intentions”. Irantzu Fernández of PSOE accused the minister of lying when he said that he had spoken with unions and groups from civil society about the measures. She pointed out that this was a law that wasn’t even liked by Vox, though Vox had different motivations to the left in presenting amendments to the entire bill. In the end, Vox withdrew their amendments. Therein lay the apparent “reconciliation”.
For the opposition, the law lacked teeth, even if certain aspects of it, such as opening schools during holidays, will be welcomed by women and indeed men. But then this represents a form of child care, improvements to which were discussed at a conference in Palma to coincide with International Women’s Day eleven years ago. That conference had the title ‘Work, Family and Personal Life: A Triangle in Constant Evolution’. Constantly evolving, yes, but eleven years on, questions remain about true commitment to equality in the workplace.
This said, one aspect of equality, and an important one - the wage gap - does appear to have evolved favourably. In 2014, the UGT union pointed to a 16.4% gap between men and women in the Balearics, which just so happened to be the same as the European average, according to information from the European Commission and the International Labour Organization.
On Equal Pay Day, which was celebrated by Spain and the EU on February 20, the UGT was able to announce that the wage gap on the islands was now 7.4%. This compared with a state average of 17% and was the second lowest in Spain behind the Canaries (third if one includes the north African autonomous cities, Ceuta and Melilla). The union’s Xisca Garí pointed out that the gap was closing most rapidly in the Balearics, and she attributed this to Spanish labour reform that has benefited both women and men through the significant increase in job contracts for permanent employment rather than temporary.
Based on the most recent figures, those for 2022, Garí noted that despite the closing of the gap, women’s average salary was still 2,100 euros per annum lower than men’s. She also provided a caveat to explain the narrower gap in the Balearics compared with other regions. The economic model in the Balearics is firmly based on the service sector, e.g. tourism, as it is in the Canaries (albeit with less dependence as reflected by respective contributions to regional GDP). “The service sector,” she stated, “pays worse than the industrial sector, and as salaries are also low for men, the differences are lower”.
Therefore, the narrowing of the gap is perhaps something of an illusion, conditioned by an economic model that is a disadvantage to both sexes. While reinforcing the work that still needs to be done, the fact that salaries are moving closer does nevertheless have to be viewed as a positive. But wage discrimination continues, principally because of family care, while attitudinal discrimination remains. Still, one has to consider the constant evolution in historical terms and so, for instance, the type of discrimination that existed under Franco and when a ‘permiso marital’ was required. A woman couldn’t travel away or even work without her husband’s permission.
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