Access to the political and economic power

To what extent are there more men in key positions in the political and economic area? Traditionally, guidelines and rules which helped men to access to decision-making bodies were established. For this reason men used to reach a privileged position within power. Feminist studies confirm that there are still barriers related to the double burden of family and work life, to the male model established as the standard in the spheres of power or to the social role assigned to women.

The aim of this section is to analyse to what extent women are present in the different levels of power, to gather the perceptions of the inequality factors and to analyse the measures which promote their involvement on equal terms in the political and economic areas.

Concerning the political power, we focus our attention on the imbalances in the municipal power and on the level of development of the gender equality policies. Regarding to the economic power, we believe that it is necessary to analyse the inequalities in the industrial and business fabric as well as in the public employment fabric, with special attention given to existing entrepreneurial projects led by women.

For the time being, this section does not have all the needed information to allow an in-depth analysis. Nonetheless, we show a proposal on indicators and premises in order to guide future researches and to analyse the existing inequalities in the city drawn from the research and make them clearly visible.

Presence of women in the municipal political power

Data source: Local Government of Santiago de Compostela, 2016.

Data source: Local Government of Santiago de Compostela, 2016.

The greatest differences in the participation can be found in the commission of Social Area, Culture and Services and the commission of Town Planning, Infrastructure, Housing and Environment. The first of them is notably female-dominant, while the second is more male-dominant. Chairmanship seems to be balanced.

Municipal policies of gender equality

Data source: Department of Equality, Development and Tourism 2016

Data source: Department of Equality, Development and Tourism 2016

Data source: Department of Equality, Development and Tourism 2016

Data source: Department of Equality, Development and Tourism 2016

In the qualitative research the economic situation of the country is considered a threat which can lead to an elimination of gender policies. These policies are a fundamental guarantee to the exercise of citizenship rights of women and girls.

Female presence in the business and industrial sector

In the qualitative research the excessive masculinisation of the business and industrial sector of the town was pointed out in several occasions, paying special attention to the Tambre industrial estate.

The existence of the glass ceiling is mentioned and the superiority of roles and dynamics in spaces of power are highly connected with masculine patterns where women have no room.

Furthermore the research points out the existence of cases of sexual harassment and sex-based harassment in the work environment of the business network and service sector.

That’s why it was considered necessary to measure the percentage difference between women and men in key decision-making bodies of big companies, in professional and business associations and in trade unions. Furthermore there is a need to measure the presence of business women networks in the city.

At the moment the only indicator that counts on information about this is presented hereunder.

Data source: Website of the Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation, 2016.

Of the 8 people who are part of the Executive Committee none is a woman. In the composition of the plenary session there are two spokeswomen.

Female presence in public companies

In the qualitative research the need to measure the imbalance between women and men in decision-making jobs in public, municipal and autonomous companies is identified.

For the moment the only indicator that counts on information on this is shown in the following.

Data source: Local government of Santiago de Compostela, 2016.

In the case of municipal companies and autonomous bodies the people representing the municipality are distributed unequally according to sex. 37.2% of the representatives are women.  The most female-dominant bodies are the Auditorium of Galicia and the Animal Refugee Foundation (Fundación Refuxio de Animais) opposite to TUSSA, UNINOVA or the Award Advisory Board (Consello Asesor de Condecoracións).

Commercial and market sector

The qualitative research identifies the need to investigate further about the existing imbalance in executive and management jobs in commercial associations and shopping centres. It also points out the existence of gender barriers to reach positions of power in the associations and organisations connected to the sector.

The most severe gender breaches, regarding the barriers that women have to face in order to access economic power, are located in the market area. Inequalities are very obvious and deep with respect to ownership (excessively masculinised) and the effective management of business (virtually all female). This is why there is a need to measure the percentage difference between women owners and women who run the stalls of the local market.

Female entrepreneurship

The executed qualitative research emphasizes the need to study which percentage of all self-employment projects are promoted by women. These include projects in which the social capital is invested in its majority by women or, in case of social economy companies, when the number of female partners is higher than the number of men.

One of the factors that points out the excessive masculinisation of this field is the influence of the unequal use of time. Furthermore we insist in the importance to work towards changing the masculine patterns which are normalised in the circles of economic power.