Here’s an image Spaniards will not soon forget: their new defense minister, reviewing trim, crisply uniformed soldiers, with her baby bump on display.
The surprise appointment of Carme Chacon, age 37 and with no military experience, is the boldest statement yet from a Socialist government that has made gender equality one of its top priorities.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who won re-election in March, unveiled a Cabinet on Monday that not only gives Spain its first female defense minister but also features nine women to eight men.
That compares to a 50-50 split in his first term, when there were 16 ministers.
Photos of Chacon — who is seven months pregnant — reviewing the soldiers ran on the front page of seven national newspapers on Tuesday, and footage of the appearance dominated Spanish television.
Although women’s rights advocates have praised Chacon’s appointment, some conservatives have raised objections. A group of retired officers criticized her lack of military background while insisting her pregnancy was not a problem.
Chacon is now one of the most visible members of a government that has enacted sweeping social legislation designed to rid traditionally male-dominated Spain of gender discrimination.
It legalized gay marriage, streamlined divorce procedures, forced political parties to field more female candidates and passed a law designed to promote women in the workplace and pressure companies to put more of them in their boardrooms.
This time Zapatero even created a new department, the Equality Ministry, to press these goals. The portfolio went to a 31-year-old woman, Bibiana Aido.
Women’s advocacy groups are delighted with the prime minister’s choice of Chacon to oversee a military force that was not even open to women a generation ago. Now 15 percent of its 130,000 troops are women.
She called the troops to attention, ordered them to join her in saying “Long live Spain, long live the King,” and gave a brief speech in which she said her appointment was a sign of progress.
Spaniards are now wondering how the military will digest having a female boss.
A senior military official told the newspaper El Pais anonymously that “we receive her with the same respect as her predecessors, and with even more politeness.”
The Association of the Spanish Military, made up of retirees, called Zapatero’s decision a mistake — not because of her pregnancy but because it feels she is too inexperienced.
The conservative newspaper El Mundo said it has no problem with seeing a female defense minister, but a pregnant one raises all kinds of concerns, such as whether she will take all of the 16 weeks of leave she is entitled to when the baby is born in June.
The combination of a crisis situation among Spanish peacekeepers in Afghanistan or Lebanon and a defense minister on maternity leave would leave Spain in an “absurd” situation, it said an editorial. Plus, Chacon has no knowledge of military affairs.
“All signs are that Zapatero is using the armed forces as a guinea pig for a provocative experiment,” it said. “Time will tell if this is major progress or nonsense.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS