I was in Madrid for International Women’s Day where celebrations kicked off at midnight with the unceremonious sound of banging pots and pans. This was one of many protests that took place across the country. The slogan “If we stop, the world stops” was everywhere and this year saw Spanish women collectively strike for the first time, walking out of worksites nationwide.

As the action disrupted trains and blocked roads across the country, polling by the national newspaper El Pais found that more than four in five Spaniards supported the strike, and more than three-quarters thought women had it worse than men. I can see why. In the workplace women are paid around 13 per cent less than men for performing similar tasks.

From the outside, though, Spain appears in general to be a fairly equal country. It is among those countries with the highest representation of female parliamentarians, averaging almost 40 per cent between their upper and lower houses. But as important as equal pay and political participation are, there were some significant statistics that didn’t seem to receive as much attention on International Women’s Day.

The number of violent abuse reports is on the rise in Spain and surpassed 150,000 in 2017. The Spanish government was required to provide official protection to around 28,000 women last year. To me, this demonstrates a huge discrepancy between image and reality, particularly when talking about gender violence.

Take, for example, Sweden which despite being so often ranked as one of the most gender-equal countries on Earth, experienced a 61 per cent increase in sex crimes between 2007 and 2016. In our own backyards, New Zealand police attend a family violence incident every five and a half minutes. And in Australia, one in six women have experienced at least one incidence of violence from a current or former partner/boyfriend since age 15.

These are all countries that are normally ranked highly when discussing the treatment of women, yet seem to fail substantially on one of the most important measures: keeping women safe. To me it looks like there is a growing preoccupation with representative measures over realities. Obviously equal representation is a worthy goal, but we shouldn’t focus on it at the exclusion of focusing on women’s safety.

Political representation doesn’t necessarily translate into equality at a more basic level. Rwanda was ranked fifth by the World Economic Forum in terms of gender equality. No doubt this is largely to do with its parliamentary makeup: in 2003 the nation’s new constitution mandated that 30 per cent of all MPs were to be female. Today the actual representation is almost two-thirds of their Parliament — the highest in the world.

But this political participation has not achieved the kind of equality we might hope for. Instead this female-majority Parliament presides over a country with one of the highest rates of gender-based and domestic violence in Africa.

While it’s reassuring to know that women can aspire to political office in great numbers, it means little if they cannot feel safe in their own homes. Beyond that it appears that such representation may not even have empowered its elected officials. A PhD student recently documented how nearly all female Rwandan MPs — who hold some of the highest offices in the country — were still expected to go home to polish their husbands’ shoes, wash, iron, and prepare dinner. Yet still we laud Rwanda? It makes me question what we are willing to accept when it comes to the treatment of women.

This is not to say that political representation and equal pay are not worth fighting for. They absolutely are, but not at the price of women’s lives. Rather than be disheartened by these examples, we must redouble efforts to bridge the gender divide in all areas. It is a reminder that equality is hard fought and hard won, and we must always scrutinise our progress. To achieve real change we must look at the big picture, and work to ensure real equality for all women in all facets of our lives. 

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 225, April 2018: 26.