Female Supremacy Articles - Page 15

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As Australia grapples with Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward's report calling on men to do their fair share of household chores, Spain has used the force of law to propel lazy husbands off their couches and marital beds and into the historically female territory of the kitchen, bathroom and nursery.

The historically socially conservative Catholic country dominated by a male hierarchy is undergoing a delayed social revolution, evidenced by yesterday's decision by Spain's parliament to legalise gay marriage.

Yet despite the prescriptive nature of the new gender laws - due to pass the Spanish Senate this week - there is no means of enforcing equal sharing of unpaid work in the home in a nation where many mothers still regularly do their adult sons' washing and young girlfriends automatically prepare their partners' meals.

The Spanish MP who championed the reform, the Basque Nationalist Party's Margaret Uria, said it was fundamentally a symbolic gesture that nonetheless "sends a message" to Spanish men who are notoriously allergic to household chores.

The reforms were something "feminists have been wanting for a long time" because the "idea of equality within marriage always stumbles over the problem of work in the house and caring for dependent people".