Word on the street. With fewer than 10% of its street names dedicated to inspirational women

With fewer than 10% of its street names dedicated to inspirational women, Spain is in the process of addressing (no pun intended!) its historic urban planning gender imbalance by renaming many of its countless thoroughfares still honouring former fascist generals, after prominent female members of society instead…

“It’s almost as if the situation is the practical confirmation of that popular saying, ‘a woman’s place is in the home and not in the street’,” urban planning expert Professor Arias Chachero told Spanish newspaper El Diario.

Although Spain’s Historical Memory Law formally condemned the fascist regime in 2007, calling for the elimination of links to it, the legislation was largely unenforced in order not to affront the sensitivities of collective memory. But with the huge gains of leftist alliance Podemos in the May 2015 local elections, all that changed.

Of the handful of streets already named after women, almost all have traditionally immortalised nuns and female saints, though uncharacteristically and somewhat controversially one of Madrid’s city squares was renamed Plaza Margaret Thatcher in 2014.

As you’d expect, some cities have reacted to the initiative sooner than others. In fact, Córdoba was ahead of its time when it stipulated back in 2005 that 50% of all new street names should honour women. In Madrid, a thoroughfare named after fascist general Andrés Saliquet is to be renamed – rather fittingly – in honour of Soledad Cazorla, Spain’s first female prosecutor to specialise in cases of gender violence.

In León, citizens nominated the likes of Rosa Parks, Frida Kahlo, Jane Austen and local inventor Ángela Ruiz Robles to have streets named after them only last month. And currently the cities of Valencia, Bilbao and Oviedo are all going ahead with name changes. As is Cádiz, where out of a total of 736 streets, only 8 bear women’s names.

Which makes me wonder what famous names you’d like to see gracing the streets of Málaga? Calle Michelle Obama sounds like a good start to me…