That's not a bomb she's hiding.

This is interesting.

MADRID: When she was appointed Spain's first female defense minister in April, the aspect of Carmé Chacón that drew the most public attention was not her gender, nor her rapid rise through the ranks of the governing Socialist party, but her prominent prenatal bump.

Chacón, who began leave Tuesday after giving birth to a boy, became an instant symbol of the Socialist government's commitment to gender parity in Spain, a traditionally macho society whose new equality laws are among the most progressive in Europe.

I don't know much about Spanish politics, but I can certainly buy the argument that this is a symbolic gesture meant to force a rethinking of what the military means or to signal a shift in the identity of the military. While I do have some hesitation about swallowing the idea of a pregnant woman being reduced only to her symbolic value as the creator of life, I can appreciate the effort to juxtapose concepts that we don't normally associate with each other. It also makes us question how we understand ideas of manliness and womanliness.

Women who have risen to positions of power elsewhere have assumed the mantle of "macho," whether they contribute to that image or not. In order to even attain that position, they certainly have to exhibit characteristics often associated with being a man: assertiveness, aggressiveness, confidence, independence. And here we have a woman who has presumably done all that, and she occupies one of the most typically aggressive positions in government -- but the fact that she is a woman is inescapable. Her baby bump is showing.

And this:

However, José Conde, president of the Association of Spanish Soldiers, a group composed mainly of retired military personnel, called the appointment of "a Catalan, pregnant, woman" an "insult" to the army. Catalonia, the semi-autonomous region where Chacón grew up, is viewed by conservatives as an enclave of anti-Spanish sentiment.

Which part is the "insult"? Catalan? Pregnant? Woman? All of the above? I think some people are feeling the itch of cognitive dissonance.