do you use the same emergency number…112 to call the police?

the banks i think are a little optimistic to think this will be over in one year. i believe it will be much more.

( much more? is that correct english? living here for 9 years has made me doubt my english!)

Sometimes, missing out on the news is pure bliss as far as I’m concerned! Last week I was with some friends and after discussing this case we vented our feelings by making some very politically incorrect jokes about good old Fritzl which are not fit for print. But sometimes, you have to let off steam in order to deal with some of the things you see on the news.
By the way, about the subject of your podcast: I believe Michelle Bachelet (president of Chile) used to be Minister of Defense for a while. According to Isabel Allende, this country is far more conservative than Spain, so there is still hope for (wo)mankind on this planet.

@Edith – I only found out about the Austria case yesterday… insane indeed. I could not believe it.

RE Parubin: I never fully trust statistics, wherever they come from, but I do believe Spain is far from unique as far as domestic violence against women is concerned. Perhaps it’s true, as you say, that ‘violencia de género’ receives more media coverage in Spain than in other countries.

It may sound far-fetched, but in a way the recent incest case in Austria is also an example of machista violence against women. Even though this Fritzl character may be a very extreme case bordering on the insane, he does have something in common with all those wife-batterers and spouse-killers: a very low sense of self-esteem and a deep-seated fear of mature women. Cases like this tend to smear the reputation of an entire country. Thank goodness such a case has never come to light in Spain (yet). * knock on wood*

Does Marina have rules about recording dinner/conversations ?

-Cheers

I saw an interesting article somewhere recently about how a large proportion of women in high flying executive careers often quit after a few years simply because they find it is not what they want to do. They decide they’d rather do something more rewarding but with lower pay, such as teaching, and feel they had been pressurised into pursuing more “glamorous” and “high flying” careers which they ultimately found unsatisfactory.

The number of women dead as a result of beatings from husbands or exes is 2.4 per 1.000.000 living women in Spain, whereas in the UK is 4.4, in Germany 3.6, in Finland 8.7, Norway 6.6…

In Spain there is an enormous sensitivity towards this type of crime, and every ‘domestic murder’ makes the headlines and so it seems that the problem in Spain is a lot bigger than in the neighbouring countries, but it is quite the opposite.

This, of course, does not mean that the figures in Spain are something to be proud of. Each episode leaves a stain of shame.

About ZP’s feminism, I think he sends good signals to Spanish society by trusting primarily on women, but this is as well a marketing measure. About positive discrimination laws (that would ensure a minimum quota for women on political lists or even on board of directors of private owned companies) I’m not sure about the convenience of it. I’m more inclined towards personal and individual freedom with little interference of the lawmakers on these issues. Let political parties to freely decide their representants (regardless of the gender) and people will as well decide freely the best of them. And let the owners of the companies to decide who is the best to run the business and increase the value of the investment basing this desition on a criteria of competence and not if it is a woman or a man in the board.

Links to countries statistics of ‘domestic violence’ against women :

EL MUNDO :
http://www.elmundo.es/documentos/2004/06/sociedad/malostratos/cifras_03.html

EL PAIS :
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Solo/23/paises/saben/cuantas/mujeres/mueren/ano/violencia/machista/elpepusoc/20070602elpepisoc_3/Tes