When the parties remember women
It's been almost 93 years since women were able to vote in a general election in Spain for the first time. In other words, many of our grandmothers couldn't express their political opinion on a ballot when they were young. Add to this the long period of Franco's regime, during which women were confined to the domestic sphere. All that wasn't so long ago. It's worth remembering as a starting point.
The milestone of the first female vote in Spain was preceded by much debate. Despite what it might seem, not all the left worked with the same intensity to achieve it. Passive suffrage existed, meaning women could be elected, but they could not vote. However, there were very few female deputies in the Cortes when the desirability of female suffrage was debated during the Second Republic.
One of those women was Congresswoman Clara Campoamor , the main advocate for women's suffrage. The more radical left supported the measure conceptually, but advocated postponing it in practice for tactical reasons: they believed women would tip the result to the conservative side, influenced by the Catholic Church and their husbands. In the 1933 elections, the right certainly won, although experts maintain that women's voting behavior was not that far removed from men's. Other factors were more decisive, such as the unity of the center-right forces.
Read also The Junts plan Lola García
Since the transition, women's votes have received little attention. Their behavior didn't seem to provoke major political upheavals, unlike, for example, the case of older people. Pensions have been a significant part of the electoral contest in recent decades, as they represent a tempting opportunity for the two major Spanish parties, the PP and the PSOE. But that is changing. The gender of the voter has taken on special significance, as was evident in the recent general elections.
The CIS conducted a study based on the July 23, 2023, elections, concluding that the shift in the women's vote was decisive in the outcome and Pedro Sánchez's survival. According to this survey of 27,000 voters, women's willingness to vote for left-wing parties (PSOE and Sumar) was 44%, almost 13 points more than for the right (31.4%), while among men this difference was barely one point.
The study was even more detailed: the first party chosen by women was the PSOE (31%), followed by the PP (25%), Sumar (13%), and Vox (6%). Men preferred Santiago Abascal's party twice as much as women. That campaign began a month earlier with Sánchez on Onda Cero amending the policies of his Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, of Podemos. The president explained that he had friends "between 40 and 50 years old" who had sometimes felt "uncomfortable" with Montero's speeches, "more confrontational than integrative."
Read also A race to the courts Lola García
But Carlos Mazón's agreement with Vox in the Valencian Community pivoted the campaign around these PP pacts with the far right, also taking advantage of the fact that one of the Vox candidates had been convicted of abusing his ex-wife, and that Alberto Núñez Feijóo justified it by saying he had had a "tough divorce." So Sánchez forgot about those "friends" and insisted on the message of the Popular Party's collusion with Vox's machismo. The PP realized the direction of events, and Feijóo held meetings with feminists during those days, but the shift of women's votes toward the PSOE had already been consolidated.
We live in a world where we are all part of a segmented market. We are sold a product or an ideology using algorithms that dissect our preferences to hit the nail on the head, even those desires we didn't even know we harbored, and which they skillfully transform into needs. Political parties are digging into niche voters and have detected that women's is one of the most likely to change their mindset at this time.
Sánchez is confident of maintaining this female electoral support. To counter the negative image resulting from the Ábalos case, the PSOE will submit the law to Congress to abolish prostitution , despite the fact that it lacks sufficient support to move forward (those on its left advocate decriminalization) and that, even if it were approved, its practical implementation would be extremely complicated. However, the comprehensive law against trafficking , which already passed the Council of Ministers in the spring of 2024, has a better chance of receiving parliamentary approval.
The president of the People's Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, takes a photo with some women during an event in Cádiz.
Roman Rios / EFEThe right has also set to work to reverse what happened in 2023. Competing with the PSOE on feminism is difficult, but the PP's strategy is to denounce the Prime Minister's alleged hypocrisy in this matter. Thus, Feijóo has found a goldmine in former minister José Luis Ábalos and his henchman Koldo García, who have been known to handle prostitute catalogs and audio recordings discussing these services.
Feijóo misses almost any significant public intervention to identify the Socialists as "whoremongers" and accuse the president of having "lived in brothels," a reference to the two saunas run by relatives of the father of Begoña Gómez, Sánchez's wife . Until recently, these types of expressions were reserved for the PP leader's henchmen, but the party knows that these cases have taken their toll on the PSOE's female voter base. According to the CIS survey from last July, one in four women would have abandoned the Socialists had the elections been held at that time, while the loss of support among men was not as pronounced. If those women don't end up switching parties, at least Feijóo hopes that anger or disenchantment will drive them to stay home on election day. The same study revealed an increase in young female voters for Sumar/Podemos and Vox.
Read also Vox doesn't play, but it wins Lola García
Even Santiago Abascal has realized he was leaving out half the population. Vox experienced significant growth largely thanks to a surge in young male voters, and women seemed reluctant to buy its sexist rhetoric. But now, too, the far right is making inroads into the female vote, also young. Abascal is also focused on linking the Socialists to prostitution and, specifically, the Prime Minister, whom he called a "pimp" over the weekend.
But Vox's main strategy is to spread alarmist messages according to which women can practically never step foot outside without risking rape by an immigrant, especially a Muslim. To address women and include them in his discourse, Abascal also uses distinctive language that includes a far-from-innocent possessive: "Our wives" or "our daughters." The goal is to protect them without bothering them.
It's best to look at it from an optimistic perspective and think that Clara Campoamor would be happy with the attention (so to speak) that the parties are now paying to the female vote, which she worked so hard to win. But we shouldn't be fooled. Political interest in female voters often consists more of verbal flashes than actual policies.
lavanguardia
