The majority that make up PP and Vox in the Cortes of Aragón voted this Thursday against admitting to processing the bill of the Statute of Rural Women of Aragón, an initiative registered by the PSOE and supported by the rest of the opposition groups.
The socialist deputy María Ariño defended in the hemicycle "a Statute for the Rural Woman of the 21st century, a free, independent woman, who works, who undertakes, who manages an operation, who raises the curtain of her business, who can be a mayor, farmer, rancher, seller, doctor, teacher, whatever she chooses, a woman who cares by choice, never by an invisible and inherited social imposition, who participates, who decides and who demands to occupy the spaces where power is taken." In contrast to this model, she assured, the right proposes "silence."
She emphasized that "this law does not come to impose on any woman how she has to live, it comes precisely to do the opposite, to give her tools to choose how she wants to live," something that, she said, "is crucial for our towns."
Ariño recalled that "for generations, rural women have been the invisible engine of our land, they have worked in the field, they have carried forward livestock operations, they have managed family accounts, they have cared for entire families and have sustained the commerce and associations of our towns: They have kept our towns alive, but the official history is written by others."
As she lamented, "the headline was another, the one who contributed was another, the owner was another and the one who decided, ultimately, was always another," advocating to "definitively bury that submissive and invisible model" and emphasizing that "recognizing the effort of those women is the only guarantee that their daughters and granddaughters do not have to go through the same."
She insisted that the Statute of Rural Women "is not a declaration of intentions," since "it speaks of real employment, of entrepreneurship, of combating gender violence, of promoting shared ownership and of imposing female participation in decision-making bodies."
The proposal, she added, "establishes measures to promote training, employment, and female entrepreneurship, in addition to specific attention for female farmers, ranchers, shared ownership, and the representation of women in rural organizations."
Equality, services, and future in the rural environment
On behalf of CHA, the parliamentarian Mary Carmen Bozal has intervened, who has emphasized that "talking about this Statute is talking about equality, but also about territory, public services, employment, housing, care, and future for all."
Bozal has recalled that "for too long many women have sustained exploitations, families, businesses, and entire communities without that work receiving the recognition it deserved. They have worked the land, they have cared, they have managed, but too often all of that has been labeled as help. And no, it was not help, it was work."
The deputy from Aragón-Teruel Existe, Pilar Buj, has maintained that the debate "is still fully relevant" and "is as necessary as the first day" because "the fight against depopulation and the inequality of women in rural areas cannot wait, especially when those in charge openly question the inequality of women."
Buj has emphasized that "things do not change by themselves, we have to make them change," highlighting "the specific difficulties that women face in the rural world" and valuing the articles aimed at promoting equality, improving working conditions, and strengthening the presence of women in the governing bodies of professional associations.
For IU, the deputy Marta Abengochea has recalled that this is the third time this proposal has reached the Plenary, criticizing "the blockage" of the PP and reproaching that "they prioritize partisan interests" over the rights of women in rural areas.
She has called to "guarantee rights and protect them," pointing out that when women are listed as holders of exploitations, these tend to be smaller or more fragmented, that they continue to bear the burden of care alone, and that "they also continue to face multiple violences."
Criticism from PP and Vox of the proposed text
The PP deputy María José Vicente has replied to the PSOE that "making laws is solving problems, but that alone does not guarantee that those problems disappear," adding that "a good intention does not automatically turn a norm into a good law," although she has said she shares the goal of expanding opportunities for women in the rural environment.
In their understanding, the proposition incurs in "a serious error," which is "the requirement that agrarian organizations, cooperatives, and associations achieve a minimum representation of 40% women in their governing bodies in order to access certain aids and subsidies."
"We do not dispute that women must be where decisions are made, of course they must be; what we dispute is whether a law, like the one you intend, should decide how an agrarian organization must configure its governing bodies in order to receive or not a public aid" because "equality is not achieved by imposing percentages from decisions."
From Vox, the deputy Ana Pardo has ironized by stating that "the Aragonese countryside is neither Mercosur, nor the 2030 Agenda, nor ruinous prices, nor unfair competition, nor suffocating bureaucracy, nor even the lack of generational change; no, the problem of the Aragonese countryside is that we do not have enough gender transversality."
In her intervention, she has maintained that "this is not about defending women, neither rural nor urban. This is nothing more than a new attempt at your ideological imposition," and has added that "when it comes to truly defending women, when it comes to protecting them from real violence, and here allow me to mention those poor women raped in Ceuta who for you do not exist, here your enthusiasm fades, and you fall silent, you fall silent, because you really do not care about women, you only care about your interest."
Pardo has questioned: "Do you really believe that a woman in an agrarian exploitation in Bajo Aragón or in a livestock farm in the Aragonese Pyrenees needs the regional government to come and give her empowerment talks, transversality, or parity?".