In order to lead the new political association of Guaran-Ahal Dugu in Gipuzkoa there were twelve candidates: the twelve were men. That of Gipuzkoa was no exception. That is, only two of the ten major cities in the Spanish state have been elected women to chair Podemos. Parity measures have received violent criticism and mockery from opposition parties. Many women say that they do not want to be deserving of a quota, but to the extent that sexism hampers equal opportunities, meritocracy is neither fair nor real. Or should we think that in Podemos there is no significant partner or member with leadership capacity?

Until equality laws were developed, men were the absolute masters of political institutions (more than 80% in the 1980s of the Basque Parliament). Positive measures to correct historical imbalances (e.g. zipper strips) are essential, but not sufficient. We must start at the root, analyse the causes in depth and take action on the basis of that analysis. EUDEL, for example, promoted leadership and prominence in the socialization of women as well as in the case of men and, seeing that they are not rewarded, in 2012 opened Virginia Woolf Basqueskola, an empowerment initiative with public conversation workshops or coaching sessions.

But I am concerned about a new obstacle: the accession of political men to power. You know the consequence of parity: where there were two men, to enter a woman, one of them will have to leave the position. In order to avoid the competitiveness of women, men use their corporativism and their daily machistan attitudes. Also today, many loyalties, alliances and political decisions take place in non-formal masculine areas: the poteo, the football match... Thus, they try to maintain the feeling that women are foreign to politics.

Last December I was in Caracas, at an international meeting organized by the Ministry of Culture of Venezuela, with the invitation to speak at a round table entitled Feminism, gender and power. The momentary presence of slogans such as “Chavez did not die, multiplied” indicated the weight of the shadow of the “eternal commander” (they call it). Chavez said in 2011 that “the socialist revolution has to be a feminist.” This had an enormous symbolic influence on the attitude of public opinion towards feminism. However, in these days the protagonists were men, human rights or environmental concerns were spoken at any round table, while the words in favour of women’s rights were limited to feminist initiatives. That is, the transversal feminist wager did not appear at all.

Before Chavez Zapatero also claimed feminism, and recently Juan Carlos purse de Podemos has also proclaimed a feminist (ask the feminists of Madrid what they think of Monedero). It is significant that a political leader expresses his adherence to feminism. But many left-wing men shake their feminist symbols as they remain firmly tied to their patriarchal privileges and powers. The symbolic wager is beneficial if it is carried out with consistent measures, if it is not a hypocritical gesture.

Unfortunately, when in the political associations of the left like Podemos I meet the good health of the patriarchy, I remember with bitterness the motto of the movement 15-M, directed to the PP and the PSOE: “No, no, they don’t represent me.”