A report published last week by Spain’s Instituto de la Mujer (part of the Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales) reveals that 18 women were murdered by partners or ex-partners in the first three months of 2003, compared to 11 in the same period in 2002. 7302 women lodged formal complaints of maltreatment over the same period. The most dangerous place to be a woman in a relationship at the moment is Andalucia, where 11 of the killings took place. In the run-up to the municipal elections on May 25th, the politicians seem, for the first time, to be debating the problem. On Iñaki Gabilondo’s radio programme Hoy por hoy the day after the report, the Madrid socialist candidate Trinidad Jiménez (who is from Andalucia) launched a mini-attack on Ana Botella (the wife of Prime Minister José María Aznar), who is running on the PP ticket as the councilor for social affairs. Jiménez’s criticism was that Botella once contributed to some comments in a book of children’s stories in which Botella praised Cinderella’s ability to turn the other cheek when receiving physical abuse. Good detective work by Jiménez, though I suspect that in the bars of Spain, many men will be referring to her as crazy before they return home to hit their wives. If nothing else, Jiménez is bringing to people’s attention the suspect ideology lying behind a good deal of “harmless” children’s literature.
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