On February 20

On this day in ...
... 1895, an hour after he left the meeting of a women's rights group led by May Wright Sewall, Susan B. Anthony, and Anna Howard Shaw, 77-year-old abolitionist and suffragist Frederick Douglass collapsed and died at his home in Washington, D.C. The New York Times obituary said of the man depicted below left in a Rochester, New York, statue of him and Anthony at tea:

It is a singular fact, in connection with the death of Mr. Douglass, that the very last hours of his life were given in attention to one of the principles to which he has devoted his energies since his escape from slavery. This morning he drove into Washington from his residence, about a mile out from Anacostia, a suburb just across the eastern branch of the Potomac, and at 10 o'clock appeared at Metzerott Hall, where the Women's National Council is holding its triennial. Mr. Douglass was a regularly-enrolled member of the National Women's Suffrage Association, and had always attended its conventions.

... 2005, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega (right), Spain's Vice President, announced that 76% of the electorate had voted for the Constitutional Treaty of the European Union in the 1st referendum on the charter. The treaty faltered in other countries, however, and its successor, the Lisbon Treaty, likewise remains unratified, as IntLawGrrls posted.

(Prior February 20 posts are here and here.)

Power in pink. Or not.

Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero made waves last month by appointing the 1st-ever majority woman Cabinet in Spain (above) and, one ventures to guess, just about anywhere else. The new appointments are not entirely pathbreaking given that Zapatero, "a self-proclaimed feminist" elected after the Socialist Party's victory in 1994, had appointed 8 women to his old 16-member Cabinet. And his Vice President was María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, who will retain that post.
New appointees are: Minister of Defense Carme Chacón, who's due to give birth any week; Minister for Equality Bibiana Aído Almagro, the youngest person ever to serve in a Spanish Cabinet; Housing Minister Beatriz Corredor; and Science & Investigation Minister Cristina Garmendia.
To bring the new Cabinet total to 9 women out of 17 members, add these women, each of whom had held office before: Environment Minister Elena Espinosa; Public Administration Minister Elena Salgado; Education, Social Affairs & Sports Minister Mercedes Cabrera; and Transport & Development Minister Magdalena Álvarez.
The reaction of some to this tipping of the male-female balance? A phrase familiar to IntLawGrrls readers:
Too pink.
A Spanish commentator went so far as to deride these ministers as "'inexperienced seamstresses,'" notwithstanding that many have been public servants before, nor that 2, Fernández and Álvarez, hold Ph.D.s.
Criticism's come from outside the country, too, most notably from newly re-elected Italian President Silvio Berlusconi:

'Zapatero has formed a government that is too pink, something that we cannot do in Italy because there is a prevalence of men in politics and it isn't easy to find women who are qualified ... He will have problems leading them. Now he's asked for it.'

That said, Berlusconi himself has just appointed some women to his own new Cabinet -- though the appointments are not quite the 1/3 women that voters expected. While campaigning he'd promised 4 such appointments in a Cabinet of 12 members. But with election came a much larger Cabinet -- 23 members, of whom 4 are women (below). Of those, however, only 2 women are Italian "ministers who merit the name," as a column in London's Guardian put it: new Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini and new Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo. The other 2 are "described as 'ministers without portfolio'" -- and it's reported that 1 of them, Mara Carfagna,

will have a hard job living down her (quite recent) past as a topless model and beauty queen ('Miss Smiles and Songs'). All the more so since Italy's new prime minister has given her responsibility for equal opportunities.

'Nuff said.

(Credits for photo at top and bottom. Thanks to our colleague Anil Kalhan for alerting us to these doings.)

Ley de Memoria Histórica de España

Fully 32 years after transition from the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco to civilian government in the form of a constitutional monarchy, Spain's moving toward enactment of la Ley de Memoria Histórica, the Law of Historical Memory. Proposed last summer by the government of President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a Socialist, the bill's been opposed by right-wing politicians who "argu[ed] it reopened wounds that would further divide the country," the Los Angeles Times reported. Disputing that claim was Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega (below left), who declared, "Nothing could be further from the truth." Her position prevailed, and the lower house of Parliament okayed the bill earlier this month. Senate approval is expected soon to follow.
Among the features of the law, which focuses on Spain's Civil War of 1936-39, would be: annulment of convictions of dissidents; restoration of citizenship to dissidents forced into exile; banning of fascist rallies at Franco's burial site; and government exhumation of mass graves.
Just as NGOs like Asociación para la recuperación de la memoria histórica have worked to uncover events during Franco's regime, private groups already have undertaken some exhumations. Francesc Torres' photographs of mass graves are now on exhibit at the International Centre for Photography in New York. Speaking at once of his work and of la Ley de Memoria Histórica, Torres told London's Guardian:

'There can be a good use of memory, a setting the record straight, and making sure things like this never happen again.'

(photo above right (c) 2007 Francesc Torres)