Ungrateful Citizens? Women's Rights Policies in Zapatero's Spain

Abstract

Women attracted the lion's share of government initiatives in the area of citizenship rights during the government of Zapatero (2004–8) in Spain. Highlights of these efforts were policies on gender violence and gender equality. We analyse these policies in terms of their scope, people's awareness, implementation and the level of support from other parties in the opposition. We then look for the possible impact of these policies on the gender gap in political interest and voting orientations. We find that equality policies might have motivated some women, former IU voters, to switch their vote for the PSOE.

Keywords:

• Political Interest
• Gender Gap
• Politics of Presence
• Empowerment
• Zapatero's Spain

Acknowledgements

We thank Marta Fraile, Gema García, Álvaro Martínez, María Luz Martínez Alarcón and Alberto Sanz for their help. We are also grateful to Bonnie Field and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous version of this work.

Notes

^*Authors are listed in alphabetical order and share responsibility

[1] El Mundo, 16 April 2006.

[2] On violence: Law 1/2004, ‘Medidas de protección integral contra la violencia de género’, Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE), no. 313, 29 December 2004. On education: Organic Law 2/2006, ‘Educación’, BOE, no. 106, 4 May 2006. On dependency: Law 39/2006, ‘Promoción de la autonomía personal y atención a personas en situación de dependencia’, BOE, no. 299, 15 December 2006. On equality: Law 3/2007, ‘Igualdad efectiva entre hombres y mujeres’, BOE, no. 71, 23 March 2007.

[3] Junta Electoral Central 5/2007, 12 April 2007.

[4] The Spanish government has published a number of basic introductory papers on the scope and the functioning of the equality law for the local elections of 2007 and the general elections of 2008 (Ministerio del Interior 2007; 2008). See also ‘Ley para la Igualdad de Mujeres y Hombres’, Ministerio de Igualdad, < http://www.migualdad.es/mujer/medios/docs/Folleto_Igualdad.pdf>.

[5] CIS no. 2745 (December 2007).

[6] CIS no. 2630 (December 2005).

[7] The pooled dataset when the dependent variable is interest in politics includes the following CIS surveys: 1788 (January 1989), 2450 (March 2002), 2632 (January 2006) and 2760 (April 2008). When the dependent variable is vote for PSOE versus vote for PP or vote for IU the dataset includes the following CIS surveys: 1788 (January 1989), 2128 (December 1994), 2450 (March 2002), 2602 (April 2005) and 2760 (April 2008).

[8] The Economist, ‘The second transition’, 24 June 2004.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Irene Martín

* *Authors are listed in alphabetical order and share responsibility