Although I was born in Cuba, I consider myself muy espanola because my father was Catalan and my mother was part Catalan, Castilian and Andalusian.

I also want to add that my family moved to the United States in the early 1960′s when I was a very young child. My family always kept our Spanish traditions alive especially our Spanish caracter.

It is that Spanish caracter that has made many Cuban Anerican women of Spanish origen been so succesful and highly competerive in the USA. Many Cuban American Women of Spanish origen make the same salaries or better than many American males working in the same professions/jobs. I happen to be one of them. In my case I give credit to my Catalan heritage’ ability to negotiate for everything.

My impression is that Spanish women may indeed voice their complaints more than in other countries. But I would add that the same goes for Spanish men: my personal impression is that they are also more vocal.

Does this mean that they take no c…p, ever?

On one hand, my belief is that on a day-to-day basis, maybe they do not. For example, it seems true that they do not take kindly to anyone who tries to push in front of them. I think it is great that they make people respect their rights.

On the other hand, looking at the low wages, high unemployment rate, job precarity (1/3 temp jobs, a higher rate than in any other European country), the social differences between poor and rich people (being heavier than in many other European countries), the fact that no matter what they say it is still very much a patriarcal society, the low level of social policy (by European standards at least), I am going to have to say that Spaniards in general seem to put up with far more “bad” things than their neighbours.

Not to mention the glass ceiling and wage differences between men and women, of which I have heard countless Spanish women even deny the existence.

In all fairness, I come from a country where people are a bit feisty – to say the least – when it comes to getting any social welfare they can, and keeping it.
So of course in comparison, the contented attitude with which Spaniards take their economical and social situation has never ceased to amaze me.

To sum this up, I will say that they may complain, yes. They may sound assertive. But my feeling – and I may be wrong – is that this stops at day-to-day level and does not touch the more global social, economical and gender issues.

Or maybe it is something else.

Maybe it is that the things that I have mentioned above matter to me personally, but they do not matter to a Spanish woman: for example I do not see any problem in taking my husband’s name, but I do mind not getting a good promotion and I would certainly mind having to work for a low wage.

Maybe for Spanish women, it is the other way around.
In this case, yes, I would be inclined to say that take no c..p indeed.

I think to look at the reason for this, Franco or no Franco, we have to look back at least 30 years, and even a bit longer. For a person around my age (32) the difference in freedom and opportunities that our mothers had in their youth compared to ours is massive (I reckon that even my grandmother enjoyed more freedom than my mother when she was young). Being able to see how women have worked for their men and children, giving all of their time in usually not very rewarding tasks, makes one appreciate much more the freedom and opportunities that the women enjoy now a days, and I guess that makes us very protective and defensive about it. I guess what happens in general is that we apply the same protection to other matters of life as well, for example if someone jumps the queue. But here we should also take into account that the Spanish society is a complaining society: The Spanish, in general, love complaining and do so, both men and women, in a much direct way than people from other countries.

Going back to equality… from what I’ve seen in England, for English women my age equality is not a big issue, mainly because they take it for granted. And even if in Spain, at least when I was a teenager, we looked at the North European women with admiration regarding equality, I’ve seen a few chauvinists behaviours in young English couples that I wouldn’t accept nor most of my friends would. One good example is taking your husband name when you marry. I know is a cultural thing, but in Spain most of the women would laugh about that possibility. Even today parents can choose the order of their children’ surnames – people in Spain take two surnames, usually the father’s one comes first and then the mother’s one, but now a days you can choose to put the mother’s one first.

One last thing @Parubin, the difference in salaries applies as well to women in the age of having children, even if they don’t have any. Ask for a salary rise when you are between 30-35 (women in Spain have their children later than in other countries) and I bet that in most of the private companies there is a difference as well.

Generalizations are always somewhat risky and even more so in the case of racial stereotypes, which are often downright pejorative. (the watermelon-and-chicken stereotype has always sounded ridiculous to me, anyway, because these food items are very popular around the globe).
So yes, we should be cautious.

But cultural differences between groups do exist, which is why intercultural management skills are such a hot item these days.

I do believe Spanish women tend to be assertive rather than submissive or complacent, and this is something I like about them. In Dutch we have a saying which roughly translates as ‘they don’t allow others to snatch the cheese from their sandwich’. This certainly seems to apply to many Spanish women.

I think in the past there are endless examples of the English defending their rights! Had we not, we’d all be speaking German! Or even Spanish, if the if “Armada Vencible” was anything but a complete shambles! Talk is cheap, but if necessary, we can be stirred into action.