Women, gender equality and constitutional change: lessons from Catalonia and Scotland

Meryl Kenny (UNSW) and Tània Verge (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

This blog draws on discussions held at the Women and Constitutional Futures Seminar: Gender Equality Matters in a New Scotland held on 14/15 February 2013 at the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the STUC Women’s Conversations event held on 18 February 2013. 

A version of this blog is also available in Catalan HERE.

On 11 September 2012, almost 2 million people – a quarter of Catalonia’s population – rallied in the streets of Barcelona in support of independence. Early elections were immediately called to give the new Catalan parliament a clear mandate to negotiate with the central Spanish state over the right to self-determination and the governing Catalan parties set a time limit for calling a referendum in 2014, the same year that Scots will be asked if they want independence. In this blog, we explore the parallels between the…