Spain: Catalan solidarity has a female character

Historically, the Catalan society has prooved its capacity for self-organisation. The ONGDs (NGOs for Development) are a mere example of this reality. They have proposed the ?modest? goal of changing a world where unfair and unequal relations between countries and individuals are the usual pattern and where women amount to 70% of people living in absolute poverty. In their opinion, women?s subordination and exclusion is the most characteristic trait of the prevailing economic, political, social and ideological system.

Despite their firm commitment to fight against poverty and unfairness, the ONGDs also reflect the society they belong to. In fact, a closer look at the internal organisation of such organisations reflect an inequality of relations between women and men within their structures and work patterns. They must therefore be extremely self-critical and revise their structures and their work, to find out their weaknesses and to look for ways to overcome them. This has recently been done by the Catalan Federation of ONGDs through a study focused on a diagnosis of the present situation concerning the introduction of the gender perspective in its member organisations.

In this framework, the gender perspective is defined as a political, theoretical and technical proposal which plans to modify the structures of gender inequality existing in all living spheres. This means questioning all the structures and values that reproduce inequality between women and men and committing to modifying women?s conditions and positions and to achieving relations between men and women which are fairer and more based on equality and solidarity.

This study, to which 48 NGOs participated, shows that the field of solidarity is not impervious to the prevailing social reality. Thus, women are over-represented in the aid to co-operation sector in Catalonia: female employees double male employees and there are 1,5 female volunteers for every male volunteer. In contrast, in the field of political volunteerism, which relates to the decision-making bodies such as boards of management and steering committees, men amount to 54% and women to 29%. The same happens regarding technical positions such as managers and co-ordinators, where men prevail and reach these positions earlier than women, whilst the latter are more common in intermediate positions.

This pattern is reproduced in other areas, such as recruiting and working hours: most women are recruited on a partial basis despite the fact that more women than men are post-graduate students.

ONGDs are thus met with the challenge of having to redesign their work and organisation patterns and to include the paradigm of the gender perspective in order to become true actors of social transformation. This is an urgent and basic task to be performed in the context of a global economy that broadens the gap between those who can afford to waste money and those who do not have enough resources to make a living.