That simple. There isn't a single girl or six-year-old boy who doesn't already know that half of 10 is 5. So why is it so hard for them to understand in Parliament?
These last parliamentary weeks have been hectic, with weekly plenary sessions to get all the legislative initiatives that, like bad students, the Canarian Coalition Government has been leaving to be approved at the end of the legislature, some almost in stoppage time.
One of them has been the proposal to modify the Canarian Equality Law of 2010, which came to the House in duplicate: one at the request of the Canarian Coalition and the other from the PSOE.
That two parties, almost simultaneously, decided to open the melon to introduce modifications to this law could be justified as a result of the tense debate that took place last year in the process of renewing several of the bodies dependent on Parliament, the Advisory Council, the Common Deputy and the Economic and Social Council. Curiously, some of them, such as the Advisory Council, with a trajectory in its composition exclusively male.
In the three bodies, from a gender perspective, the panorama was bleak, women were directly not present, or, at most, were underrepresented.
Had no one noticed the photo, the image projected by a body like the Advisory Council composed only of men?
From Podemos Canarias we warned of that conservative, stale and macho anachronism. Our parliamentary group warned from the first moment that if a proposal for equal renewal in the three bodies was not raised, they would not have our vote or our support.
Then something very curious happened, the Government group, Coalición Canaria, pulled out of its sleeve the need to modify the Canarian Equality Law of 2010 as a necessary requirement for the renewal of the bodies dependent on Parliament to have a balanced presence of women and men.
Curious, we say, because while it is true that the text of the Law in force did not expressly and specifically mention the three bodies in question, there was no article that prevented applying common sense and the spirit that emanates and runs through the entire law.
That supposed need to modify the law sounded like an excuse to do something that, as was well demonstrated, was not necessary, since finally the renewal was resolved with the will of all the parliamentary groups - this time they needed the support of Podemos and they did not veto us - presenting proposals that guaranteed that there would be a more or less balanced presence of women and men in the Advisory Council, the Common Deputy, and the Economic and Social Council.
Although, yes, before the odd numbers the majority has always been for the benefit of the gentlemen, lest they feel discriminated against!
We took the modification of the law as good, but not necessary, if this was, as it seemed, the only way that some political forces had to force themselves to respect and comply with the laws - their own laws! Although we assumed that, once in place, it would be done with the intention of advancing in equality and overcoming the timid steps that were taken in their day on the concept of balanced representation, when the most that seemed to be aspired to was a 60/40.
The PSOE, with good judgment in our opinion, took the opportunity to, once the melon was opened, introduce something important, that no advertising be contracted with public money in any media that publishes advertisements about contacts related to sexual exploitation and prostitution, which despite being a proposal that in the form of a non-Law proposition, had been presented by Coalición Canaria, remains unfulfilled by the Government of the same party that proposed it.
With the proposal to modify this law we have verified once again the level of hypocrisy and the little importance that this Government and those who support it (PP and ASG) give to issues related to equality or sexist violence.
Words and declarations of good intentions are not enough if they are not accompanied by the necessary actions, and we see with indignation and sadness how laws, protocols and proposals that were approved in this chamber are systematically violated on a daily basis, fair and beautiful on paper, but which are nothing if there is no will to comply with them.
We recently verified this with the shocking account of the spokesperson of the association "Todas somos Guaci", sister of the victim of sexist violence who was brutally murdered by her partner, also the father of the two creatures she left traumatized and orphaned, in 2013.
Change something so that everything stays the same, that is the impression we have after seeing that practically no significant progress is made with the modification of this law that does not even subscribe to the observations made by the Advisory Council, in which, among other things, it is recognized that the numerical balance is 50 percent and would be recommended in the case of bodies or institutions whose composition is integrated by even numbers of people, and, in any case, as close as possible in the case that the composition was odd, with the option of alternating the majority of one gender or another in each mandate.
It was not possible, those premises were not even accepted and they insisted on maintaining the figures of the past, with a 60/40 as a numerical balance, something that comes from afar, when the first steps towards equality were timidly taken and thinking about parity and zipper lists was a very distant horizon.
Therefore, our group abstained from a modification that does not modify anything. To make a charade and continue with the theater, with us, with our group, do not count.
Mathematics do not deceive, half of ten is five.
And these are not stories, but accounts.
María del Río Sánchez
President of the Podemos Canarias Parliamentary Group
Candidate for Lanzarote of Podemos Canarias to Parliament
Secretary of Equality, Feminisms and LGTBI of Podemos Canarias
