2 minute read
The open door
Cassandra Nash
SPAIN’S government has 23 ministers and 14 of them are women, successors to Federica Montseny, Spain’s first female minister and one of the first in Europe.
Montseny was born in Madrid in 1905 although her parents, both teachers and both anarchists, were Catalan by birth. She was initially home schooled but studied Philosophy and Literature at Barcelona University where she joined the National Confederation of Labour (CNT) and wrote for anarchist publications.
The Republican Prime Minister, Francisco Largo Caballero offered Montseny the Ministry of Health and Social Assistance in November 1936, four months after Franco’s uprising had precipitated the Civil War.
She remained there until May 1937 when she resigned in protest at the government’s treatment of anarchists in Barcelona. During that time she introduced a short lived Abortion Law and opened centres where prostitutes found accommodation and training to help them seek alternative employment.
Montseny and her family fled to France in February 1939 when the Civil War was all but lost. She died in Toulouse in January 1994 and one of her daughters, Vida, later said not without bitterness that Federica had turned her back on the role of wife and mother to devote herself to politics and the rights of women.
Fortyfive years were to pass before Spain had another female minister, when Soledad Becerril was Minister of Culture in Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo’s Union de Centro Democratico (UCD) government from December 1981 until December 1982.
In all there have been 61 female ministers since the Transition to democracy on Franco’s death in 1975.
The majority of Montseny and Becerril’s successors have belonged or belong to the PSOE socialist party and the conservative Partido Popular.
There have also been Independent ministers affiliated to no party at all, two from Podemos and one from Spain’s PCE communist party.
What Federica Montseny would have made of her successors and their policies is beside the point. She was there first and she held the door open for them.
to be many very funny and very clever comedians and comedy sketches. From the respectable Two Ronnies and the saucy Benny Hill to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and from Monty Python to Spitting Image and the situation comedy of Fawlty Towers, they were very amusing. And we had unique standup comedians ranging from Bob Monkhouse to Les Dawson and from Spike Milligan to Jasper Carrott. And we should
Recently, a sitcom from the 70s ‘Rising Damp’ may be edited to be rerun for modern audiences on the grounds of racial slurs. Likewise a proposed resuscitation of Fawlty Towers is to be scrutinised for gratuitous violence (against Manuel)!
If shown again unedited, it would be an interesting test of how far we have come up or down since the 70s.
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THERE are lots of reasons why a cat might hide. Cats hide to feel safe, and in order to protect themselves from things they perceive as dangerous or stressful so it’s important to find out the reasons why your cat is hiding.
Cats as a species are selfreliant, so when faced with a difficult situation your cat would naturally prefer to avoid it rather than charge in and fight.
Your cat will hide when there is something, or someone, nearby that is causing them concern. They may be frightened or just wary about something unfamiliar and might want to keep out of the way, just in case.
If you leave them to it you will usually find that they will come out of hiding once they have realised that whatever it was they were frightened of isn’t actually scary at all.
Hiding places are one of your cat’s basic needs. Providing a selection of
