An investigation carried out in eight municipalities of
Córdoba shows the strong inequalities experienced by women in the world of
work. The study explains how employment plans would not be oriented to actions
that reverse the inequality suffered by women in the labor market but to
facilitate access to work for poor women and children in charge, in activities
that are extensions of the reproductive role that they are historically
attributed and confined to the home..
The work has been prepared based on interviews with key
agents in eight municipalities of the province of Córdoba: Bell Ville, Rio
Cuarto, San Francisco, Cruz del Eje, Unquillo, Jesús María, Laboulaye and Villa
María. This is a series of reflections aimed at understanding the devices under
which the inequities experienced by women within the world of work are
reinforced and reproduced in the local space. The research was carried out by
Leticia Echavarri, Javier Moreira Slepoy and Carlos La Serna, researchers from
the Research and Training Institute in Public Administration (IIFAP).
Equality as an argument
The argument that men and women are equal can make
invisible the obstacles that women suffer in their work trajectories.
"From the liberal right one thinks about a formal equality, impelled from
the dawn of the democratic revolution under the motto 'we are all equal before
the Law'. Under this conception, which is protected by criteria of supposed
objectivity and neutrality, it is impossible to see how past and present
discriminations are perpetuated, "the authors of the research explain to
InfoUniversidades.
And they add: "In the use of meritocratic criteria,
which are based on the criterion of formal equality, there are hidden obstacles
that women suffer in their work trajectories related, among other aspects, to
the reproductive work that has been assigned exclusively to them. the sexual
division of labor. When we talk about discrimination against women and the
consequent need for the implementation of affirmative-type measures, we refer
the possibility of ending the subordination of women in terms of group. In the
definition of equality it is impossible to see how past and present discriminations
are perpetuated. "
For the authors of the research, it was significant that
the same interviewees who celebrate equality between men and women (and reject
outright the use of special measures that give space to women) recognize the
time, the burden of reproductive work that almost exclusively weighs in the women.
Isolated cases
Some of the interviewees in the work say such as "in
reality, the woman is occupying a rather leading role, right? Our mayor is a
woman ...". The researchers explain that the recourse to maintain that men
and women occupy equal positions by means of the illustration of a concrete
case of which it is known, is deceptive. "The interviewee ignores the data
that, according to a study carried out in 16 countries of the region, out of a
total of almost 16 thousand municipalities, women represent only 5 percent of
their intendants. And that the average proportion of Latin America in general,
and of each country in particular, little has changed since the decade of the
'80s. Nor did the territorial pattern of location of the intendants vary, almost
the majority in rural municipalities and small cities, "de la Serna
affirms.
First, reproductive work
The research indicates that the measures tending to
facilitate the articulation of women of their productive and reproductive roles
would seem to have a high degree of consensus on the part of municipal agents.
For its part, the promotion of measures that modify the prevailing sexual
division of labor and remove established power relations would be rejected
almost outright. The authors affirm that the dominant perception is that the
woman "can" go out to perform productive work, as long as she
continues to carry out her reproductive work properly, in which the patriarchal
system of domination is based.
The privileges of men are based on the lack of rights of
women. When we speak of privileges, we are referring to identities and
problematizing how these identities benefit from the exploitation of other
identities. When we deny the existence of privileges, we are, in reality,
perpetuating and validating oppression. The privileges are a set of benefits
provided to a certain social group. Patriarchy as a social and historical
system has raised deep roots in our process of culture and power relations.
This power granted to the privileged is exercised through an organically
articulated social structure that naturalizes it and also prevents the
privileged from recognizing it. The privileged understand that we all have the
same opportunities to promote rights, ignoring their institutionally and
culturally protected status.
Concrete examples: a man has the privilege of being
respected in the work environment without being harassed. A man has the
privilege of being listened to, not because what he has to say is necessarily
more interesting than what a person who self-perceives as a woman would say.
The word and public space were always denied to women. Women have the right to
speak, but the patriarchal culture invalidates their voice, puts them in a weak
condition and devoid of cognitive capacity.
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario