Though Franco died in 1975, many streets and squares still bear his and his associates’ names, surviving under a policy of forgiving and forgetting the crimes committed during his rule. Now, they’re finally being swept away, and a clutch of major cities are using the opportunity to commemorate more women, who currently lend their names to just 5 percent of Spain’s streets. The changes might rattle some traditionalists, and also annoy Spain’s lingering fascist sympathizers, but they also seem long overdue. So why now?
The simple reason is that Spain’s political map has changed radically since the 2015 elections, at least at the municipal level. After decades of see-sawing between the right wing Popular Party and the center-left Socialist Party, many Spanish voters opted for a host of smaller left wing parties that gather together under the umbrella of the Podemos party. Podemos-linked coalitions have taken power in many key cities, including Madrid and Barcelona, and they aren’t turning a blind eye to reminders of Spain’s bloody 20th century dictatorship. [...]
While street names are a key place to commemorate important figures in Spain, the scales are overwhelmingly tipped toward men. The women who are featured are typically saints or nuns, providing a skewed picture of women’s role in national life. An article from El Diario, for example, found 137 Madrid streets named after apparitions of the Virgin Mary (such as Our Lady of the Pillar) and 125 named after female saints, but only one named after a female teacher. As Professor Patricia Arias Chachero says in that article, “It’s almost as if the situation is the practical confirmation of the popular saying—that a woman’s place is not in the street, but in the house.”
ome cities have been trying to remedy this imbalance for a while. In 2005, for example, Córdoba mandated that 50 percent of all new street names commemorate women. This year, the tide seems to be turning faster. The northern city of León just invited the public to choose from a list of women to be honored, with Rosa Parks, Frida Kahlo, Jane Austen and the mathematician and philosopher Hypatia all in the running. The most popular choice was Ángela Ruiz Robles, an inventor and León native whose 1949-patented Enciclopedia Mecánica is widely considered the first prototype for the electronic book reader.
No comments:
Post a Comment