In 1971women marched through snowy London to demand liberation. Today women still march along the streets of most European cities. The equality we fought for in the past is still an illusion if we look at participaton in most companies' governing boards, or at the high numbers of gender violence crimes, or at the sex industry in most European cities.
It is true that women are still raped, it is true that, although there are more women MPs, numbers drop when we look at secretaries of state, or well-paid jobs. Nevertheless, conquests have taken place. For example women, nowadays, have more choices. They can decide what they want to be in the future. They can design their careers, they can decide whether they want to become mothers or not. Most women study in co-educational schools, where there is no discrimination for reasons of sex, as it was the case in Spain in the fifities, sixties and even seventies. This was very serious, because women were not prepared to take part in the public sphere, as men were. On the contrary, they were trained to be good mothers and good wives, good sisters, good carers of the elderly, of the young.
The most difficult battle for all is the one about symmetry in the home. What does this mean? That men have not been trained to be at home and sometimes they lack the necessary skills to be useful in the kitchen or in the family when someone is ill or disabled or even when there are children around who need to be taken care of. Only when men are ready to share their lot in the private sphere will women be able to really choose whether they want a top professional career. This battle is still to be fought. At the pace we are following maybe in 100 years equality will be a fact.
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