English in Madrid

Source: Pexels ( Liliana Drew) Spain hopes domestic tasks app will ensure men * pull their weight Free app designed to shed light on ‘mental load ’ overwhelmingly carried by women * when it comes to chores The Spanish government is hoping to encourage men to do more at home by developing a free app that will log how much time each household or family member spends on domestic chores. Announcing the measure in Geneva earlier this week, Spain’s secretary of state for equality, Ángela Rodríguez, said the aim was to shed light on the invisible “mental load” overwhelmingly carried by women when it comes to domestic tasks. Rodríguez told the UN committee on the elimination of discrimination against women: “We’ll soon be unveiling an app that will allow people to log the household chores that different members of the family perform so we can see how many hours of work we each spend on housework and thus reorder the time we spend doing that housework.” She said the new app, whos...

Spanish PM leads outcry over students filmed chanting abuse at women’s halls Ministers join censure after male student cheered on by mob for calling women in Madrid residence ‘whores’ and ‘nymphomaniacs’ Source: You Tube (Guardian News) Key Words: Students Sexist Insults Madrid Senior Spanish government figures, including the prime minister, have condemned the behaviour of a group of male university students who were filmed cheering and howling after one of them hurled threatening , obscene and sexist insults at female students in a neighbouring block . Footage of the incident, shot on Sunday at the Elías Ahuja hall of residence in Madrid, shows one student calling women in the Santa Mónica hall “whores” and “fucking nymphomaniacs” and telling them to come “out of your dens like rabbits”. His words are met with roars and cheers from dozens of others in the block, who throw open their window shutters in unison to join in . Authorities at the hall, which is run by the Augus...

Source:  Imani Bahati en Unsplash Spain plans menstrual leave in new law for those with severe pain  Spain is plan ning to introduce medical leave for women who suffer from severe period pain, media reports suggest .  A draft bill says women could have three days of leave a month - extended to five in some circumstances.  But politicians warned that the draft - leaked to Spanish media outlets - was still being worked on .  If passed, it would be the first such legal entitlement in Europe. Only a handful of countries around the world have such legislation in place .  The Spanish legislation is part of a much wider reproductive health reform which will include changes to the country's abortion laws.  Media outlets who have seen portions of the law report that it is due to be presented to cabinet early next week.  Three-day sick leave for painful periods will be allowed with a doctor's note , the draft says, potentially extending ...

Source: Wikipedia Ban on ' harmful ' gender stereotypes in adverts comes into force   A ban on adverts that perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes, such as men struggling with changing nappies , comes into force. A new rule written into the UK's Advertising Codes should mean adverts that perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes are taken off TV. From today, commercials must not include stereotypes "which are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence ". According to the ASA, the aim is to identify specific harm that should be prevented, rather than banning gender stereotypes altogether. Craig Jones, director of communications for the ASA, says: "You won't see an end to men doing DIY in ads or women doing shopping because we believe that not all gender stereotypes are harmful, but we've set out examples of ones we think are harmful, images like a family trashing the house and the mother having sole responsibility for clea...

Fran Rivera: Bullfighter sparks revenge porn row in Spain A top Spanish bullfighter has drawn a fierce backlash for his comments on the case of a young woman who killed herself days after a sex video featuring her was widely shared. The 32-year-old mother-of-two, named by Spanish media as Verónica Rubio, took her own life on Saturday. It is being treated as a case of revenge porn - the non-consensual sharing of sexual images online.  Last week work colleagues had shared the video, reportedly recorded five years earlier, before she was married, by a former partner. Spanish media report that she hanged herself the day after her husband saw the video. "It's not manly to make a video like this go viral," the famous matador Fran Rivera, 45, told Espejo Público, a television programme, when asked about the case. "But men, and I say this because I'm a man, were unable to have such a video and not share it." Although he also said that the de...

Source:  Ivan Bandura on Unsplash Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri fuel stereotype that women are "subservient" - UN report  The report notes that the inability for female-voiced assistants to respond to insults can highlight female "powerlessness". Artificial intelligence voice assistants, such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, are perpetuating and spreading gender stereotypes, says a new UN report. Titled "I'd blush if I could", the report from UNESCO says the almost exclusive market of female voice assistants fuels stereotypes that women are "obliging, docile and eager-to-please helpers". And with assistants responding to requests no matter the manner in which they are asked, this also reinforces the idea in some communities that women are "subservient and tolerant of poor treatment". Canalys, a technology research company, has estimated that 100 million "smart speakers", which are use...

Gillette faces backlash and boycott over '#MeToo advert' A Gillette advert which references bullying, the #MeToo movement and toxic masculinity has split opinion online. The razor company's short film, called Believe, plays on their famous slogan "The best a man can get", replacing it with "The best men can be". The company says it wants men to hold each other " accountable " . Some have praised the message of the advert, which aims to update the company's 30-year-old tagline , but others say Gillette is "dead" to them. The ad has been watched more than 2 million times on YouTube in 48 hours. Source: You Tube (Dose of Good Ads)  Key words: Gillette ad 2019 It currently has 23,000 likes and 214,000 dislikes, at time of writing - and that's increasing all the time. In it, the company asks "Is this the best a man can get?" before showing images of bullying, sexual harassment , sexist behaviou...

Source: Wikipedia (LG Girls )   Walk-on 'grid girls' scrapped from Formula One races Formula One says the custom does not resonate with its brand values and "clearly is at odds with modern day societal norms". Women who walk on to the grid at the start of Formula One races will no longer be used, the sport's organisers have said. The change will apply from the start of the new Grand Prix season, with the first race taking place in Melbourne, Australia on 25 March. The women, commonly called grid girls, are often seen carrying the drivers' standards which indicate their race numbers and their location on the starting line. They also often line the route that the top three drivers take as they head to the podium at the end of a race. Sean Bratches, managing director of commercial operations at F1, said: " Over the last year we have looked at a number of areas which we felt needed updat ing so as to be more in tune with our vision ...

Source:  Mikael Stenberg on Unsplash Parity in paternity and maternity leave approved by Spanish parliament  People’s party, expected to form a minority government soon, opposes the measure saying it will significantly increase costs  Paid paternity leave in Spain is to be increased to 16 weeks to give men parity with women, under new measures agreed by parliament. Fathers are currently entitled to 13 consecutive days off work, starting two days prior to the birth, adoption or fostering of a child. This increases to 20 days if the family is large – with three or more children – or if the child is born with a disability. Under existing arrangements, 10 weeks of maternity leave can be transferred to the father, an option taken up by less than 2% of men. Under the new law, maternity and paternity leave will not be transferable. The proposal was put forward by the anti-austerity Podemos party on the grounds that both the Spanish constitution and Eu...

Source:  Jude Beck on Unsplash Rise in stay-at-home fathers fuelled by growing numbers of female breadwinners The number of stay-at-home fathers reached a record high last year, new figures show, as families saw a rise in female breadwinners. Men now make up nearly 10 per cent of those who care for children while their partner goes out to work, official employment statistics revealed today. There were 227,000 men staying at home to look after family between September and November last year, a rise of 19,000 compared to the same period in 2011 and the highest increase since figures began in 1993. Experts suggested that the shift was down to men losing their jobs in the recession and either failing to find new employment or deciding that it did not make financial sense for them to return to work if their partner was a high earner.   Source: Daily Telegraph      Vocabulary :   to fuel -   a breadwinner - el sostén ...

Source:  Breno Assis on Unsplas h IT’S OFFICIAL...WOMEN ARE SAFER DRIVERS THAN MEN MEN may not like reading this but women are officially better behind the wheel.   They break speed limits less, brake less suddenly and avoid danger after dark by driving considerably less often at night than male motorists.   Overall, a team of experts has concluded, women are up to a fifth safer on the road. The verdict comes from the study of data from black box recorders in the vehicles of 19,000 motorists which were used to monitor more than 40 million journeys and 154 million miles of travel over four years. Half the drivers were men and half were women. The research was carried out by car monitoring firm Wunelli, which analyses black box systems used by some insurance companies to set premiums.  Their experts found women drive 28 per cent less at night than men, exceed speed limits 12 per cent less and brake hard 11 per cent less.  The news comes a month befo...

Couples who share the housework are more likely to divorce, study finds Divorce rates are far higher among “modern” couples who share the housework than in those where the woman does the lion’s share of the chores, a Norwegian study has found. In what appears to be a slap in the face for gender equality, the report found the divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally was around 50 per cent higher than among those where the woman did most of the work. “What we’ve seen is that sharing equal responsibility for work in the home doesn’t necessarily contribute to contentment,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study entitled “Equality in the Home”.  The lack of correlation between equality at home and quality of life was surprising, the researcher said.  “One would think that break-ups would occur more often in families with less equality at home, but our statistics show the opposite,” he said.  The figures clearly show that “the more a man does in...

Source:  Random Institute on Unsplash Shanghai Metro 'dress code' warning sparks debate A Shanghai Metro microblog post urging women to ''pay attention to how you dress'' to avoid sexual harassment has sparked protests and strong reactions. The metro operator posted a picture of a woman in a see-through dress on its Twitter-like Weibo account, saying: "It's no wonder that some people get harassed if they dress like this." This drew criticism for discrimination and sexism from irate women. But in an online poll, most agreed that women should dress more conservatively. The post published by Shanghai No 2 Subway Co on Wednesday added that there were many perverts on the subway and asked women to ''cherish'' themselves. This set off a flurry of comments online, with many decrying the suggestion that women were to blame for sexual harassment by dressing scantily. "According to this logic, all men can harass ...

Image Source  Today many countries around the world celebrate Women's Day . International Women's Day highlights hurdles obstruction equality Domestic violence against women, pay inequality and abortion rights among issues raised International Women's Day was marked amid a mood of anger that the struggle for equality is far from being won. In Istanbul, the Ukrainian women's rights activists, Femen, staged a topless demonstration in bruise-like makeup to protest against domestic violence hours after a man in the Turkish capital shot dead a female relative because she left home following an argument with her husband. In Cairo, hundreds of women marched for equal rights and a gender balance in Egyptian politics.  In France, Nicolas Sarkozy visited female workers at a bra factory whose jobs had been under threat, Carla Bruni was due to appear on a TV current affairs show to discuss women's rights and the Socialist frontrunner in the presidential race, François...

Source: Anastase Maragos on Unsplash Body image concerns more men than women, research finds Anxiety about body image has led to some men conceding they would exchange a year of their life for the perfect physique More men worry about their body shape and appearance – beer bellies, "man boobs" or going bald – than women do about how they look, according to research. More than four in five men (80.7%) talk in ways that promote anxiety about their body image by referring to perceived flaws and imperfections, compared with 75% of women. Similarly, 38% of men would sacrifice at least a year of their life in exchange for a perfect body – again, a higher proportion than women. "These findings tell us that men are concerned about body image, just like women. We knew that 'body talk' affected women and young people and now we know that it affects men too," said Dr Phillippa Diedrichs, from the centre of appearance research at the University of the West of E...