Familienpolitik

When José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was elected prime minister of Spain in 2004, he declared that his cabinet would be made up of an equal number of female ministers as male ministers. Now that he has been reelected to a second term he has upped the ante.

His cabinet is now composed of more women than men. His new defense minister is a woman, Carme Chacón, the former minister of housing. And she’s seven months pregnant.

The photograph of Chacón inspecting troops accompanying this Time article expresses both Chacón’s apparent confidence in accepting the role and her utter femininity. This is not a woman playing at being a man. She is, instead, described as being “a woman in full womanhood.”

The article ends with speculation about what Chacón and the country will do after she gives birth. Like every Spanish woman, Chacón has the legal right to 16 weeks paid maternity leave. The author suggests that in the interest of keeping his defense minister on the job, Zapatero should now turn his progressive politics toward extending paternity leave allowances from the current 15 days to something a little more equitable.

Although I know many women outside of Europe might be salivating at the thought of four months paid maternity leave, I wonder if there isn’t a loss of gender equality in providing such time off, most clearly visible in the difference in time off available to men and women. As this article implies, there may be some jobs that are too important to take a four month break from.

If such a maternity leave protection exists, should bosses refrain from hiring women to positions where such an absence would be problematic? And assuming that both parents could stay home for the same amount of time, how would couples choose who would stay home? Based on the perceived importance of their jobs?

It takes a visibly pregnant woman in a historically male position to bring these issues into focus.

Tags: family policy, Maternity leave, Paternity leave, Spain