44% of seats in Congress are held by women. Their presence has been increasing especially since the Equality Law established in 2007 the parity electoral lists (60-40). But “gender marks” remain that are more difficult to perceive if one does not analyze who pulls the strings of power and who, in the end, takes the floor from the speakers’ rostrum in the great debates.
This is the aim of the study that researchers Marc Sanjaume (UPF), Joan Josep Vallbé (UB) and Marina Muñoz-Puig (UPF) have just published under the title Can women take the floor in parliament? where they report that parity is not always accompanied by an equal distribution of roles in legislative activity, in the number of speeches that are made from the rostrum and, also, in the duration of their political careers. Women deputies have shorter careers and seniority, therefore, is more difficult to achieve and maintain.
The research -published in the Women’s Studies International Forum- works on the data in the Congress of Deputies before and after the approval of the zipper lists, and reaches up to 2016. In conversation with this newspaper, Professor Sanjaume indicates that It is evident that progress has been made in terms of equality in the chambers, but the analysis can be fully extrapolated to the present. The equal presence and political leadership of women has increased, but these more hidden “gender marks” are present. “It is not a question of an ideological bias, but of a patriarchal structure that emanates, to a large extent, from the leadership of the political parties, with a greater male presence, from where the political activity of the group is controlled in the parliaments,” he points out. .
This is not an exclusive characteristic of the Spanish parliament. Recent research from Lund University (Sweden) reveals that in none of the parliaments studied – Germany, Norway, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Finland, Estonia and Sweden – the total number of speeches given by female MPs was greater than the number given by the deputies men. The increase in the presence of women does not exactly run parallel to their participation in the stands. Catalan researchers indicate that when women reached almost 40% of the seats in the Chamber, their discursive production was less than 30%.
There are gender brands that continue to be a black box, points out Marc Sanjaume. Issues entrenched in a patriarchal structure often through “informal mechanisms” in which men retain and do not share power. In this sense, it is highlighted that women achieve full access and leadership when they reach the third legislature in the chamber and then their participation declines. It does not decay, of course, of its own free will or due to lack of capacity. Instead, men are increasing their activity and power until they reach the fifth legislature.
If the presidency of the commissions in the current legislature in the Lower House is observed, those linked to the hard core of state power are mostly occupied by men: Constitutional, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Defense, Finance, Interior, Transportation, Labor, Industry.
A photograph that is also observed in Europe. With data from 2019 from the European Parliament, women in charge of commissions linked to the hard core of power is 33%, the same as those linked to the economy. It is this “black box” or “secret garden” -in academic language- that is hidden behind the advances in equality.
In Catalonia, the implementation in 2018 of the Parliament’s equality plan is undoing some of these gender and horizontal segregation marks. The composition and the presidency of the commissions tend to parity. Regarding the use of the floor in the rostrum, with data from 2019, the gap between representation and the use of the floor was two points. The investiture debate was the scenario in which the participation of women was lower (14.3%).
And in one of the underlying threads, the reference to the durability of the race, there is also discrimination in Parliament. The average permanence is 2.5 legislatures for deputies and 1.6 for women deputies, a gap that has increased in recent years. The political scene has been fragmented, it has been renewed, but you always have to look behind the image of the hemicycle.
