SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 21 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Parliament of the Canary Islands hosted this Monday the meeting ‘Dialogues for equality. In the footsteps of Clara Campoamor’, a forum where the legislative and social advances experienced in Spain and the Canary Islands in recent decades in favor of equality between women and men were analyzed.
Organized by the Parliament of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo de Tenerife together with SER Canarias, the event was moderated by the journalist Lourdes Santana, regional director of the channel.
It was attended by the vice-president of Parliament, Rosa Dávila, the rector of the ULL, Rosa Aguilar, the director of the Canary Institute for Equality, Kika Fumero, the third vice-president and counselor of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Marián Franquet, and the president of the Fecam and mayoress of Candelaria, María Brito.
“Clara Campoamor’s speeches do not stop moving. If we are able to put ourselves at that moment, we must be aware of the tremendous courage and revolutionary nature of those words,” said the president at the opening of the forum, where he recalled that democracy ” it is built every day, because the rights that are recognized for everyone are in continuous discussion”.
He indicated that today, “many freedoms and spaces for coexistence are being questioned by political forces with representation in institutions.”
Matos highlighted how much Clara Campoamor’s words are valid today despite the years that have passed.
“She said that freedom is learned by exercising it, let’s remember that when the freedom of a group advances, the whole society advances,” she said.
The president of the Chamber recalled “the profound changes” that the Canary Islands have experienced in these 40 years of self-government and parliamentarism that will be fulfilled in 2022, changes that they also see in regards to the presence of deputies since in this tenth Legislature there are in this Parliament women of the seven islands, “a total of 31 compared to a single woman who was in the first representing half of the society of this land.”
WOMEN’S ALLIANCES
In her speech, Rosa Dávila emphasized that societies advance when there are great alliances of women.
He affirmed that the Parliament of the Canary Islands has been “the seat of historic moments” in the advancement of equality in the whole of Spain and indicated that a great alliance was produced in the archipelago to get the first great law on violence against women.
“The compañeras deputies, above the men, said that this law had to come out. It was a law that broke all schemes,” he said.
Dávila defended the need to “break ceilings and win spaces”, something that, from his management experience for twelve years in charge of a masculinized area, is possible. “We saw that equality policies could be made,” he said.
In this sense, the rector of the ULL pointed out that it was not until 1910 when women were allowed to access the university.
“We have to make girls believe that they have the same abilities and skills as any boy. Men and women must work on an equal footing so that women reach university convinced that they are capable of conquering the world,” he stressed.
For her part, María Brito remarked that “not everything has been achieved” and it is necessary to “believe, promote and materialize” what is being said, “weave alliances”. “We have to demand respect and build trust. Transparency, leadership and empowerment,” she said.
The president of the Fecam defended the importance of “overcoming stereotypes, because they represent the risk and danger that exists in the educational field, not only the formal one, but also in families.”
Brito stressed the fundamental role that administrations have in this regard.
A LEGACY
Kika Fumero also explained that at this time, “the focus is on developing all the actions transversally, which means a long-distance race.”
Regarding the “complicated years” due to the pandemic, he highlighted the work carried out jointly with the councils, trying to invent new ways to reach women and denounce them. “There are a lot of women left who are hard to reach,” he said.
Marián Franquet recalled that feminism “has always been characterized by questioning, and that requires steps” because “social structures are being changed.”
Thus, he highlighted the importance of “knowing and recognizing” and, in this sense, he said that Clara Campoamor was “a brilliant parliamentarian.”
“The legacy is the model of society that you leave; she left us a model where women would be subjects of law,” she said.
Franquet expressed that the “base of feminism has fought a lot so that there are women at the top” and added that women “who are at the top today must work so that those at the bottom can rise, because equality generates a healthy society.”
The vice president of the Cabildo defended that women weave “networks with other women”, even with their discrepancies “to favor feminist policies.”
The participants in the forum coincided in expressing their rejection and perplexity at the daily images where, in public acts, the representation of women is null or anecdotal. “It does not represent the image that is intended to be given by the institutions,” they said.
For her part, Lourdes Santana thanked the Parliament of the Canary Islands for this space dedicated to Clara Campoamor and the history of the female vote within the commemorative acts of the institution’s 40th anniversary.
“Clara Campoamor declared herself an enemy of extremism and a profoundly feminist. Her effort was not in vain and the proof is here today, in events like today’s,” a note from the Chamber stated.
