The women's movement, gender equality agencies and central-state debates on political representation in Spain

Abstract

Introduction This chapter examines the role of the Women's Institute ( Instituto de la Mujer , WI) and the women's secretariat of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( Partido Socialista Obrero Español , PSOE) – hereafter ‘PSOE women's secretariat’ – in three central-state debates on political representation in Spain since 1983. The WI is the main central-state level women's policy office in Spain. As the analysis in this chapter demonstrates, the WI and the PSOE women's secretariat were able to represent women's movement goals and gender the frame of two debates on political representation: the discussion that in 1988 led to the adoption by the PSOE of a 25 per cent women's quota, and in 1997 resulted in the increase of this quota to 40 per cent. In the third discussion (on a mandatory 40 per cent women's quota for all parties submitted by the PSOE in 2001), an energetic PSOE women's secretariat was unable to counteract the WI, whose activities were not feminist. Women were allowed to participate in the policy process but the policy outcome (the rejection of the bill in 2003) was contrary to the demand advanced by the women's movement. The women-friendly outcomes of the first two debates occurred under governments formed by the PSOE. The women's movement was at a stage of consolidation and the active WI and PSOE women's secretariat were attentive to the development of measures to increase women's political representation.

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