Dec 06 - Monument To Women Unveiled At Mid Harbour Roundabout
A monument celebrating women was unveiled today by Mrs Justine Picardo.
Designed by Ruth Massias Greenberg and sculpted by Ermelinda Duarte, the Monument to Women sits on the Mid Harbour roundabout and depicts a woman holding up the Rock.
At a reception in King’s Bastion held after the unveiling, Mrs Picardo delivered the following speech:
Chief Minister, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
Today we are here to pay tribute to a significant body of people.
To acknowledge a movement.
A movement that has impacted the course of history in Gibraltar.
A movement that has recognised the value of people who have been the backbone of our society.
And that movement is the advancement of women’s rights in Gibraltar.
An advancement that has seen women take on different roles throughout Gibraltar’s history for the benefit of our Community.
You see, we, the Gibraltarian women are made of some strong stuff.
Perhaps it is the mix we have in our DNA.
All that Italian, English, Spanish and Maltese blood that makes us Gibraltarian women quite unique.
Just think of the resilience and tenacity shown by the women who were evacuated out of Gibraltar during the Second World War.
They were sent to other countries without husbands or fathers.
It shows us what we are actually capable of.
It fell on the shoulders of those women to keep the flame of the Gibraltarian spirit burning thousands of miles from the Rock.
And then in 1966, there was wind that the frontier would close.
A group of pioneering women formed an Association called the Gibraltar Housewives Association.
They mobilised the entire nation.
They gathered hundreds of women.
They filled many of the posts that had been left vacant by frontier workers.
They, with their work, their movement and their resolve, ensured that Gibraltar did not come to a standstill.
In that same year, they also managed to collect the signatures of 7500 women, to petition Her Majesty The Queen to keep Gibraltar British in perpetuity.
This figure represented 96.5% of the women in Gibraltar.
No mean feat in the days before online petitions!
In the 80’s, the Gibraltar Housewives Association became the Gibraltar Women’s Association.
They have continued the fight for equality for women in Gibraltar ever since.
So in their 50th Anniversary year, it is fitting that we as a people honour women in Gibraltar.
It is particularly fitting that we should do so by creating a monument that represents women in all shapes and forms and from all walks of life in the creation designed by Ruth Massias Greenberg.
It has been magnificently brought to life by Ermelinda Duarte.
The monument depicts three women symbolically representing the Rock of Gibraltar.
They change form depending on which angle the sun is beaming.
It’s a symbol of strength and versatility.
Just like Gibraltarian women. Able to adapt to any situation that life throws at us.
But, just because we are erecting a monument to women does not mean that the movement is over.
It does not mean that we, as women, have achieved all that we have to achieve to gain true equality.
There is still a lot to do and there is still a lot to accomplish.
Women still need to be encouraged to break the glass ceiling.
Girls in our Community need to grow up knowing that they too can take any senior post.
That posts such as the CEO of any large corporation, or even something like becoming the Chief Minister of Gibraltar is within their grasp.
They need to know that their dreams are also attainable if they work hard towards them.
Not if they work double what men work but if they work just as hard.
And at the moment, I am not sure if society is equipped to allow women to do that.
You see, in Gibraltar I do believe we have equal opportunities.
But I think we lack the social and professional infrastructure to deal with the needs that women have to work to the same level as men if they have a family, for example.
Paternity leave is two weeks when maternity leave is three months.
Most women feel they need to stay longer on unpaid maternity leave, or some women just want to stay longer caring for their babies.
But what happens during this time?
Their male peers continue to rise on the career ladder whilst mothers have had a six-month or even a twelve-month set back.
Perhaps employers should be more amenable to flexi-hours or allow women to work from home without penalising their career prospects.
Perhaps we should encourage men to stay at home with their children too, or give them the flexi-hours to take care of their kids so that parental leave and childcare can be evenly distributed between parents.
But have we advanced to that level of thinking and liberalism as a society yet?
Most women who choose to have families have to work twice as hard as the man who also chooses to have a family.
And unfortunately, for a woman it is a choice we have to make.
Because our biological clocks are ticking.
They tick away throughout our prime working years.
During that time our male counterparts are speeding through their professions whilst Society expects us to be at home breastfeeding or preparing bottles.
Take my own family for example. In my marriage, we are both equals. (At least that what he thinks!)
My husband and I both went to university, worked at the same law firm and are both parents to the same children.
My husband, as Chief Minister, works extremely long hours in the office and then has to attend functions and travel.
As a lawyer, I also have to work long hours.
As the wife of the Chief Minister I to also attend functions and sometimes travel to accompany him on Government business or travel in the context of my own business.
So on the face of it, you could say we are on a par right?
Yet, he is able to do his job and focus solely on it because he does not have to think about anything else.
At no point during the day, does he wonder whether Oliver has enough nappies for the week or whether we have enough yogurts to prepare Sebastian’s lunchbox for the following day.
Which reminds me that you really need to make the manifesto commitment on school lunches a reality … Don’t worry ladies, I have your backs!
He just has to think about work.
And he is able to do that because I do everything else.
I take care of the kids, the house, the cars, the extra-curricular activities, the parties, the food shopping and the clothes shopping, and now because schools don’t think parents do enough now we have Victorian Days, Egyptian Days and World Book Days where we have to run around looking for a costume, and then of course my work.
Like so many other families, we had to make that choice.
It’s a choice that enables him to focus on his career at the moment and a choice that I put mine on standby until the kids get older.
But the fact that I have had to make that choice, demonstrates that we are not yet evolved as a society where men and women are truly equal.
Where a women still get comments such as, “ah you’re still working, I thought you had left when you had your first child”.
We need to move on as society and as women, we need to continue to fight for full equality.
We have to support women's right to choose, whether it is to advance our careers or be a stay at home mum without feeling guilty in doing so.
2016 has been a big year for women and what we have achieved.
It is the year that we have the second female Prime Minister in Britain.
A year when for the first time in history a woman won the popular vote in the race for the Office of the President of the United States.
And in Gibraltar, 2016 is the year in which a woman, Gemma Vasquez ably led the stronger-in campaign to a 96% victory in the Brexit Referendum.
A great year for women.
An inspiring year for young girls.
But it is also the year that a young girl in Gibraltar was denigrated on social media and the press.
Why?
Because she was showing too much leg for some people’s liking in a poster advertising the Literary Festival.
Looking at the poster I literally struggled to see what the controversy was about.
And I still don’t get it.
We need to move away from the sexualisation of women in every sense.
Where girls feel they have to disrobe to get noticed or conversely cover themselves up to their necks to appear literate
Where girls feel they cannot wear the clothes or shoes they want to because they wont be taken seriously.
Because men, and now in many cases women, it seems, will look at what they are wearing, or not wearing, rather than what they have to say.
Where women feel they have to emasculate themselves or look less feminine to be able to have a voice in a male dominated world.
And I think that is why the Gibraltar Women’s Association still has a big role to play.
The Women’s Association represents the union of women who support each other’s choices and the rights of women to choose.
An organisation that does not offer any judgement on other women and instead offers encouragement and advocates for the rights of women to be in control of their own fate.
We need to teach our daughters that what matters is who they are as people and that being born female does not make you the fairer, the weaker or the lesser sex.
And we also need to educate our sons.
We need to teach them about respect towards girls and women.
And we need to nurture them to be the husbands and fathers that we would want for ourselves.
The fact is we don’t realise just how lucky we are in Gibraltar.
Think about this.
In many other countries around the world, right now, at this very precise moment, there are women who are being beaten to death.
There are women who are being raped.
There are women who are being set on fire for choosing to love a man that their family does not approve of.
There are girls that are being forced to marry at the age of 10.
There are babies that are being abandoned or killed because they have been born female.
And there are girls who are right now having their genitals mutilated.
We do not realise just how lucky we are in Gibraltar.
And how that luck, in this case, has simply got to do with the place you are born.
In Gibraltar we, thankfully, do not have to endure any of these abhorrent acts which are inflicted on some people because they happen to have been born female.
So this amazing monument to women, is not just a tribute to women in Gibraltar.
It is a tribute to our society and to the people in our community.
Because we are a people who don't just tolerate, we respect.
We respect women.
We respect all religions and races.
We respect people of different sexual orientations.
We respect people's choices and their rights to a different political view.
And, more importantly we just respect each other, as a people.
But that does not mean that we have to be complacent about the advancement of women’s rights in our nation.
Just because we do not live in an oppressive society does not mean that the search for equality for women in Gibraltar is over.
There is still a lot that needs to be done.
And we women, and men, need to continue our campaign and endeavour to get there.
Let this monument serve as a constant reminder of that.
Thank you very much.
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