Spanish right wing media harshly attack the women in the Zapatero cabinet

Spanish right wing media harshly attack the women in the Zapatero cabinet
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By h.b. - Apr 15, 2008 - 8:00 PM

Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, with his new cabinet - Photo EFE

The choices of the Prime Minister for the Minister of Defence and Minister of Equality have been particularly attacked in the right wing press in Spain today.

The right wing press in Spain on Tuesday harshly attacked the decision of the Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to name a majority of women in his new cabinet, and named sections of the armed forces as being upset that the Catalan, Carme Chacón, who is also seven months pregnant, had been selected as the new Minister for Defence.

Chacón was called ‘la del bombo’ – 'her of the bass drum', by David Gistau in the El Mundo newspaper, who went on to question her patriotic spirit. Writing in ABC, Antonio Burgos said he accepted her, but ‘as a pet for the battalion, regiment, brigade or division’.

Some media claim military sources as saying that the choice of Chacón was a ‘provocation’ as ‘she wants to turn the armed forces into a non-governmental organisation with guns’.
Speaking on the COPE radio station the President of the minority Spanish Military Association, AME, said it was ‘a blunder which would end up who knows where’.

The appointment of 31 year old Bibiana Aído as the youngest minister in history, at the new Ministry for Equality was also attacked harshly. The Partido Popular’s leader in Valencia, Francisco Camps, said she was an ‘eco-pacifist who comes with a guitar’.

Antonio Burgos from ABC said she was a flamenquita, referring to her past job in the promotion of flamenco, while Federico Jiménez Losantos, from the COPE radio station, asked whatever had she done to be chosen as a minister – Perhaps she had won a tournament for making the most silly remarks, he said.
Naming Aído was for Iñaki Ezkerra from La Razón, like something from Big Brother, but he added he did not know if was from George Orwell or the television show.

Federico Quevedo from Elconfidencial.com said that Zapatero was ‘turning equality of the sexes into a new state religion’.

Meanwhile the just re-elected 71 year old Italian, Silvio Berlusconi, has also commented on Zapatero’s choice of cabinet, describing it as 'too sentimental'. He said that in Italy men were dominant in politics, and it was not easy for women to be at the centre of governmental activity.
Italian papers responded to the new Zapatero team with headlines such as ‘Iberian revolution, the Government is a woman’ and Zapatero ‘Feminista Máximo’.

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