Tag Archive for: Equal Opportunities

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Weaving the networks that sustain us: this is how we live the Feminist Economics Meeting

Together with the Córdoba Feminist Economy Space and with the support of the Heinrich Boll Foundation, we held the first Provincial Feminist Economy Meeting on September 16 and 17 at the Provincial University of Córdoba. We have the presence of various organizations and self-managed experiences of the Feminist, Popular, Social, Solidarity, and Ecological Economy.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

For two days, self-managed organizations and spaces from other economies shared instances of reflection and discussion around a central axis: Feminist economics and the networks that sustain us.

60 organizations from different locations in the province participated, including neighborhood organizations, enterprises, self-management spaces and women’s groups.

Pending debates, expected meetings

Friday the 16th in the afternoon was the first day that began with the opening of the Meeting. Then, organizations from the province of Córdoba linked to the Feminist, Social and Solidarity, Popular and Ecological Economy presented themselves and shared about their spaces and expectations of the Meeting.

The day closed with an open talk by Analía Ayala and members of the Córdoba Feminist Economy Space, where some guidelines and open debates on Feminist Economy were raised.

The next day, different instances of training, discussion and meeting were proposed through workshops designed by and for the organizations. Months before the Meeting, the members of self-managed organizations were consulted about their training needs and topics of debate in order to jointly create the agenda of workshops that the organizations themselves later dictated.

The day was organized in five workshops, built from the axes proposed by the organizations. The topics addressed were:

  • Introduction to the management of social networks by Aylen Corte and Agustina Ramos from Cortezas del Chañar. Workshop where a small theoretical – practical tour was seen to manage the Instagram of an enterprise. They talked about brand identity (logos, color palette, fonts) and tips to create content and not die trying. In addition, they shared planning tools, aesthetics, valuable content and ideas to upload the algorithms.
  • Self-management brings us together and cooperativism brings us together, energized by Guadalupe Fernández and Julieta Ferreyra from El Resaltador. Workshop that started from the premise “Self-managed spaces as fundamental actors to design and apply, together with the State, public policies that contain us.” and the question “How to generate networks that survive in this attempt?”
  • Transfeminisms and Inclusion: context and experiences of organizations in Córdoba. It was a conversation about the regional and national life context of transvestites, transgenders and transsexuals promoted by ATTTA – MundoSur. The “Diversxs y Segurxs” platform was presented and the actions carried out by ATTTA Córdoba in the framework of trans labor inclusion policies and the challenges still pending were shared.
  • Management tools and costing from a feminist perspective. Here, administrative tools were shared that allow ordering and promoting enterprises and organizations. It was energized by Meli Bossio and Estri Quijada.

Weave the nets that sustain us

Throughout the Meeting, the members of the different self-managed spaces were invited to reflect on cross-cutting questions such as: Why bet on alternative economies that put life at the center? What is an economy that puts life at the center? center? What practices in your space do you think are part of the Feminist Economy? These questions opened the doors to pending conversations and to weaving networks among those who bet day by day on fairer and more equitable ways of organizing work and production.

By way of closing and celebration, a fair was held in which the self-managed spaces that were sharing and building collectively during the two days of the Meeting participated. More than 70 vendors exhibited their products at the fair open to the general public on the UPC campus.

In parallel, Josefina Arroyuelo gave a self-defense workshop in the open air. Finally, the Naciente Candombe collective musicalized the space with drums, bass drums and dance.

 

Author

Irene Aguirre

Contact

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org

 

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STRENGTHENING OTHER ECONOMY(S): Guide for self-managing organizations

We launched a guide that offers steps and tools for self-managed organizations and enterprises to review their internal management processes and implement good practices with a view to achieving economic sustainability, from the sustainability of life approach.

Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic.

The Feminist Economy, together with the Ecological, Popular, Social and Solidarity Economy (the so-called Other economies) allow us to account for the unsustainability of the logics of inequality and looting that characterize the dominant capitalist and heterocis-patriarchal model. Also, it provides us with tools to identify, make visible and strengthen those that are committed to the sustainability of life.

Based on this position, during the year 2021, together with the Latin American Feminist Incubator and with the support of the Heinrich Böll Cono Sur Foundation, we carried out organizational and economic strengthening work aimed at 7 self-managed organizations and ventures from the Other economies of the province of Cordoba.

The goal was to help strengthen various self-managed experiences in our province through the design, implementation and collective evaluation of strategies and tools for economic sustainability. And thus promote the productive and reproductive processes and activities that they carry out and that aim, in a broader sense, at the sustainability of life.

In the different stages of this strengthening process, we used tools for the diagnosis, planning and management of resources (money, goods, services, time, contacts and networks, etc.) that could be adapted to the needs and forms of organization, and be useful for the evaluation and improvement of the management processes of self-managed organizations. Throughout this experience, we not only tested the proposed strategies and tools, but we were also able to identify interests and needs that require attention.

From this place we reaffirm our commitment to the transformation of situations of inequality through the strengthening of the various self-managed experiences made up mostly of femininity and dissidence and that are part of the Other Economies, in this case, providing resources for that purpose.

We have prepared this guide with tools aimed at self-managed spaces in Other Economies, so that they can review their forms of organization and internal management processes in order to achieve economic sustainability from the perspective of a Feminist Economy that is committed to the sustainability of life. . This material is proposed as a second booklet of resources that we have been making since 2020 in order to strengthen practices and reflections on the Other economies.

The guide is a proposal, a working hypothesis, not an imposition or a rigid structure. They are tools made available for each space to discuss, transform and adapt to their own needs.

An integral and sequenced process was thought of, although not necessarily linear. This allows each organization to choose where to start and what steps to follow, to advance in what they consider relevant or more adjusted to their needs.

We hope it will serve you.

Read resourcer

 

More information:

To access the first issue with administrative, tax and legal resources for self-managed organizations, read: Tools for self-management from a perspective of the sustainability of life.
Report “Other economies: self-management from a Life Sustainability perspective”.
Cycle Virtual meetings on Feminist Economy.
Audiovisual short films on Feminist Economy and Self-management.

Contact

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org

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Feminist economics as a tool for change: life at the center

On December 1, we presented the report “Other economies: self-management from a perspective of Sustainability of Life” together with the Feminist Economy Space of Córdoba and with the support of the Heinrich Böll Southern Cone Foundation. It was a year-end meeting in which we reflected on feminist economics and self-management together with various organizations.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

In the world in which we live, unjust logics of production, work organization and distribution of wealth predominate. They are founded on a neoliberal, colonial and hetero-patriarchal capitalism that legitimizes and sustains inequalities that benefit a few: a male, white, adult, bourgeois, Western, hetorosexual, cisgender around which the entire economy has been organized.Faced with this model that prioritizes markets and the unlimited accumulation of wealth in a few hands, the Other Economies arise. These are constituted, in different measure and form, in real alternatives, and are visible in self-managed organizations of the Feminist, Popular, Ecological, Social and Solidarity Economy. They are characterized by having practices based on mutual support; solidarity and sisterhood; collective support and cooperation; the valuation not only of productive work but also of the work of social reproduction and of life, the recognition of its indivisibility and of its historical feminization and invisibility; the inclusion and care of the life of its members and of nature, avoiding individualistic, selfish and competitive logics that threaten life.

With this north, as of 2020 we have carried out different activities together with organizations and spaces that are committed to a socioeconomic transformation.

2020 was a year of hard work, together with the Córdoba Feminist Economy Space, focused on the production of knowledge based on self-managed experiences and content aimed at making them visible. As a result, we produced the report “Other economies: self-management from a perspective of Sustainability of Life”. We also carry out a cycle of virtual meetings on Feminist Economics in which we reflect, together with organizations and specialists, on the obstacles and possibilities of carrying out and strengthening other logics of production, distribution, consumption and organization of work that are more equitable and focused on persons.

In addition, we built a resource with legal, administrative and tax tools for self-management and four audiovisual shorts. This year, together with the Latin American Feminist Incubator, we carried out a process of internal strengthening of 7 self-managed organizations of the Other Economies of the province of Córdoba, in order to build tools that serve them to advance towards their economic sustainability from a perspective of the Feminist Economics. This implies thinking, building and planning strategies so that, with the available resources, the spaces can carry out sustainable economic processes in the medium and long term, considering and respecting the times of nature as well as the times and needs of its members and of the communities in which they are found.

The event

On December 1, we met to present the aforementioned report “Other economies: self-management from a perspective of the sustainability of life.” This report is the product of a year of research carried out in the middle of the pandemic. Its objective is to begin to know and make visible a small part of the diverse universe of self-managed and community experiences of Córdoba, from the critical perspective that the Feminist Economy offers us, in dialogue with the Popular Economy, Ecological Economy and the Social and Solidarity Economy. That is, from a perspective that aims to subvert the economy and build another that guarantees the provision of everything that is needed for the sustainability of human and non-human life, through economic processes that preserve the planet and are respectful of dignity. human. This approach is that of the Sustainability of Life and we adopt it because it is multidimensional, holistic since it integrates all sustainability: economic, social, ecological, human and the complex and dynamic interrelationships that occur between all of them over time and in specific territories and experiences.

We believe that this perspective has transformative power by allowing us to identify, on the one hand, unequal relations, such as gender, class, racialization processes, among others, which are sustained from biocidal and androcentric logics. But on the other hand, it also helps us to recognize other types of experiences that carry out practices different from those of the dominant economy and that respond to logics typical of Other Economies.

From this place, we understand that the Feminist Economy appears to us as a necessary perspective to think, develop and strengthen alternatives in favor of the sustainability of life since:

  • It opens the debate around what are the limits of what we understand by economy, the role of gender in it and the consequent inequalities.
  • It broadens the concept of work and recognizes the importance of the works that make up the social and life reproduction, In this way it makes visible and puts at the center of the scene the care that makes life possible, proposes its fair distribution, at the same time that conceives us as interdependent people with each other.
  • It questions the foundations of the sexual division of labor.

The report that we present is a synthesis that includes our positioning and also the lines of action in relation to the Feminist Economy agenda that we are building. Agenda that we conceive as strategic and transversal to all of Fundeps since it touches and problematizes all aspects of our life; and from which we generate and strengthen alliances and joint work networks.

The sustainability of life as a path of transformation

We believe that this type of self-managed experiences can provide us with tools and practices to resolve in a more equitable way the inequalities that are sustained at the cost of the invisibility and exploitation of bodies and lives, mainly of feminized identities and sex-generic dissidences, which are deepened in this context of crisis that we are experiencing: climate, health, social, economic, civilizational and care crisis.

Its existence, strategies and forms of organization, production and consumption, have acquired essential importance in local economies, and are presented to a greater or lesser extent and in different ways, as a real alternative to a system based on violence, oppression , impoverishment and in gender, class, ethnic-racial, age, etc. inequalities.

This does not happen without tensions or nuances since there are different positions and actions taken by these spaces in relation to the State and the predominant capitalist logic. The universe of self-management is extremely broad and heterogeneous. These spaces, like any other, are not exempt from the logic of structural inequality that can even be reproduced inside. However, they have favorable conditions to carry out various practices oriented to the Sustainability of Life, by subverting these situations of looting and inequality.

If we want a democratic and more equitable solution, a transformation, a paradigm shift and a system change that recognizes and strengthens self-managed spaces with the logic of Other Economies that undertake feminized identities and dissidents is urgent and necessary, so that their lives and of their communities are dignified and sustainable. This implies a commitment to profoundly transformative proposals that commit all social actors.

For this, the articulation of local and regional initiatives that aim to this end, and that allow the generation of data, information gathering, visibility, organization, articulation and enhancement of their activities is relevant. We know that what sustains us are networks, so let’s expand, enhance and strengthen them.

Contact

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org

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Equity in the media: why and for what?

In the early morning of June 11, the Law of Equity in the Representation of Genders in the Communication Services of the Argentine Republic was enacted. A Lley product of the feminist struggles in favor of a democratization in the media organizations in both labor spheres and as producers of meaning.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

The media have a fundamental role in the construction and reproduction of meanings and representations about social and subjective reality. As such, they can contribute to the support and justification of inequalities or they can question them, both from their speeches through the content they produce and disseminate as well as within themselves, being understood as work spaces with a specific labor organization.
Investigating how media content is produced, who produces it, what is their training and trajectory, and what place each one occupies within the media allows us to have a map of the situation to address the violence and structural gender inequalities that they reproduce within these spaces.
The media companies, specifically the large commercial media, are characterized by their work structure founded from an androcentric approach. What has conditioned the income, permanence, development and work performance of women and, of course, has excluded transvestite, trans, intersex and non-binary people.
This is visible in the labor trajectories differentiated by gender:

Source: Chaher and Pedraza (2018). Media and gender organizations. Córdoba: Fundeps, Communicate Equality.

To make this graph, only binary data were obtained in terms of gender, that is why it has not been possible to reconstruct work trajectories taking into account the diversity of identities, such as transvestites, trans, intersex and non-binary people. At the time the investigation was carried out, there was only a single trans person working in one of the Córdoba media. Currently there is some progress in this regard, although it remains insufficient. It is possible to recognize the structural gender inequalities that make it difficult, even more than for cisgender women, to access employment, particularly in these types of companies with diverse and dissident identities.

Now, when observing the graph, it is possible to notice that although most of the people who graduate from careers related to communication in the city of Córdoba and Buenos Aires are women, less than half of them go to work in the media commercial. Even fewer are promoted to higher positions, a situation that is reproduced again, although with a deeper inequality, in union spaces.
These career paths are traversed by personal paths. Unpaid domestic and care work falls mainly on women and femininity, affecting their autonomy. As a result, they are the majority among part-time workers and hired under precarious regimes in order to reconcile their working life with unequally distributed care responsibilities. To this must be added micro-chauvinisms and all types of violence that are combined with masculinity pacts, which perpetuate these unequal and exclusive structures.

The lack of gender and care policies, as well as the lack of gender awareness and training in a transversal manner, or the delegation of this responsibility to feminist communicators and gender editors, are some of the obstacles that many of the media companies most important in the country have not been able to overcome. Even in a context of profound changes in favor of gender equality and the demands of the audiences.

What does the law say?

The recently enacted Law of Equity in the Representation of Genders in Communication Services of the Argentine Republic is inserted in a national and international legal framework and of historical claims of various social and feminist movements, of which it is the result. Claims that were previously reflected in national legislation, such as Law 26,485 on Comprehensive Protection to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women in the areas in which they develop their interpersonal relationships, Law 26,743 on Gender Identity and the Law 26,522 of Audiovisual Communication Services, among others. As well as public policies, such as the creation of the Public Defender’s Office and the AFSCA, were the result of the commitments assumed by the State in the fight against gender violence.

Its purpose is “to promote equity in the representation of genders from a perspective of sexual diversity in communication services, whatever the platform used” in all the country’s communication media, although it is only mandatory for those of management state. This law does not seek parity, but goes further: it is based on the principle of equity and the inclusion of all gender gender identities in all positions of the media labor structures, breaking with binarism. the promotion of democratization and diversity of voices and their labor structures.

This democratization process from a gender and diversity perspective is understood as gradual, gradual and only mandatory for state-run media, while privately managed media will be encouraged through the preference in assigning official guidelines in cases to carry out measures in the sense proposed by this law.

These positive action measures move away from the punitive paradigm to establish proactive policies that encourage transformations respecting the times and processes of each privately managed media.

In turn, the corresponding authority will be created for the implementation of the law in order to guarantee its compliance.

We celebrate these legal advances that are the result of the insistent struggle of feminist movements, especially feminist communicators and journalists who in their daily practices sustained, and still do, transformations inside and outside their work spaces. We are aware that the struggle does not end with the enactment of a law, but requires a comprehensive and intersectional implementation plan to achieve real equality and make the rights formally sanctioned tangible.

We will keep our attention on the implementation of the law and the public policies designed and carried out to achieve it.

Más información:

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Domestic workers: a fight for their recognition

In Argentina, legislation and public policies on care have made progress but also obstacles. Within the framework of the International Day of Domestic Workers and the 8th anniversary of the enactment of Law 26,844 on the Special Regime of Work Contract for Personnel of Private Houses, we highlight the importance of the legislation and regulation of the work of those who they take care of it in a remunerated way, although we recognize that there is still a lot of hard work in pursuit of its effectiveness and expansion.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”

In the 1950s, the first laws related to domestic work appeared, in order to define labor relations and their rights as workers.

But it was not until 2013 when Law 26,844 was enacted, which established a special work contract regime for paid workers in private homes. This law regulates the labor relations that are established within private homes or in the sphere of family life and that do not generate a direct profit or economic benefit for the employer. It defines this work as any provision of cleaning, maintenance or other typical household activities services, personal assistance and accompaniment to family members or those who live in the same home with the employer, and the non-therapeutic care of sick or disabled people.

In this process, activism and later the union organization of private house workers, has been key in the fight for their rights. The Union of Auxiliary Personnel of Private Houses (UPACP), which encompasses the workers of private houses, “carries out its tasks of defense and representation of the workers in the sector since the beginning of the last century. Today the workers have a law that regulates the activity, No. 26,844, which equates, as appropriate, the work of domestic service to that of workers from other unions. Now the workers of private homes have the right to vacations, maternity leave, among all labor rights. ”

This law tries to put the rights of private house workers on an equal footing with those of any other worker in a formal and dependent relationship. However, the characteristics of domestic work, related to the private sphere, the invisible, with the duty assigned to women to care for and give love in a disinterested, selfless way and without any type or with little remuneration and recognition, It makes it difficult for these activities to be considered as work and those who perform it, as workers.

Labor market of private house workers

Law 26844 not only establishes the regime of private house workers but also different categories according to the type of work that was developed in the domestic sphere. These categories translate into salary scales:

www.upacp.org.ar

 

However, this recognition is far from meaning the realization of their labor rights.

According to a report by the National Directorate of Economy, Equality and Gender, in Argentina, the main occupation of women is paid domestic service: it represents 16.5% of the total employment of employed women and 21.5% of wage earners. It is the most feminized activity in the market (96.5% are women), the one with the highest informality rate (72.4%) and the one with the lowest average income in the market, constituting the poorest workers of the entire economy. This means that a domestic worker earns 46 pesos for every 100 that a private sector employee receives and 30 pesos for every 100 that a formal worker receives. Compared to men, they earn 26 pesos for every 100 pesos that one of them earns. According to the ILO, this informality and precariousness generates the breach of rights and a space for labor exploitation, even of girls and adolescents.

For Candelaria Botto: “In our country, where the State does not satisfy these needs, the role of domestic workers becomes essential for a large number of households. However, this work takes place mostly in precarious conditions and with low remuneration, which shows the little social value that is given to reproductive work. ”

Even with all these limitations on access to rights, it is likely that a registered employee, whose labor relations are regulated by a legal framework, is in better working conditions.

That the autonomy of some does not take it away from others

Now, who are the women that make up this group of domestic workers?

Mercedes D´Alessandro, in her book “Economía Femini (s) ta”, affirms that the “fairy godmothers” who sustain the lives of those who inhabit the households with the highest income are women in situations of vulnerability and poverty. Many of them have dependent children and most have not been able to complete secondary school (only 2% of them completed a tertiary degree or university). As a result, 40% of poor mothers are private house workers.

They are women who need to work but are not qualified to access other types of employment. In addition, it is usually one of the first job options for women from other countries, although the percentage of internal migrants among these workers is more remarkable. Many young women see this job as a way out of poverty, but end up living in a utility room of a wealthy family that does not pay them a Christmas bonus, vacation or sick days.

At this point, it is important to think about the tense link between paid and unpaid forms of care. Given the unjust social organization that distributes care, paid and unpaid care work falls mainly on women. That is why it is always necessary for a woman to take care of, to “free” another of these tasks. And here, it is not only the stubborn persistence of the sexual division of labor that undermines advances in favor of a more just and equitable society, but it is also other factors of inequality and oppression that overlap with gender. The class and powerful processes of racialization that still persist go through caregiving.

As domestic work is, to a great extent, carried out by poor women, peasants, migrants, representatives of various ethnic groups, with low education and little education, who find in this activity a means of subsistence, it is one of the most devalued jobs not only in economic terms but also in social terms. Thus, families with higher incomes can turn to the market to free up time, which implies hiring another, poorer woman to do domestic and care work.

As D’Alessandro says: “behind every great woman, there is another great woman.”

This invites us to think about care in a feminist and intersectional way, which puts care work at the center of the scene and de-romanticizes it. Because the lack of decent wages and real access to labor rights is not compensated with gratitude and love.

As Sol Minoldo says: “How feminist can a process be in which some women emancipate themselves at the expense of others, leaving the sexual distribution of domestic work intact?

If there is exploitation, it does not stop there because the worker is treated with affection and the trust of our intimate life is opened to her, although it may be noticed a little less. It is time to question the way in which “love” has been used to make it invisible that domestic work is work, whoever does it. That love is not an excuse to deny workers their rights. ”

Although the importance of care and of those who care – especially during the pandemic – has become increasingly visible, this has not yet translated into salary improvements in the case of paid domestic and care work. We still owe a debt to the people they care for. With domestic workers, there are still huge social, cultural and economic gaps to fill. They perform essential work but in precarious and irregular conditions, with miserable wages that are barely enough for them to access the basic food basket.The gaps and obstacles that these workers face every day are an impediment to real access to their rights as workers, as women and as people.

Author

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Other‌ ‌economies: the‌ ‌self-management‌ ‌from‌ a‌ ‌perspective of‌ ‌la‌ Sustainability‌ ‌of‌ la‌ ‌Life

After a year of research and collective work together with the Espacio de Economía Feminista de Córdoba, we published a report that reveals the self-managed experiences of the city of Córdoba and Valle de Punilla related to Feminist Economy, Ecological Economy, Popular Economy and Social Economy and Solidarity.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”

In Córdoba, self-management, cooperative and entrepreneurial spaces made up of dissident feminities and identities have developed in recent years, starting from the visibility of the feminist struggle, and with their collective organization. Its existence, strategies and forms of organization, production and consumption, have gained essential importance in local economies, and are presented as a real alternative to the hegemonic capitalist model.

This research makes a reading from the Feminist Economy of these experiences, which allows (de) constructing practices that reproduce inequalities and violence against women and dissident sex-generic identities within the spaces in which they develop, and expand the horizon towards a socioeconomic equity that is nothing more than gender equity.

In this line, it is intended to explore, learn about and analyze various self-managed and community experiences of the City of Córdoba and the Punilla Valley, and make visible their contributions to the construction of an alternative to the neoliberal model and investigate the actions of the State in development of public policies that contribute to this alternative. The place from which this report is intended to be narrated is from the perspective of the territorialized experiences themselves in dialogue with the perspective built from a diverse interdisciplinary field full of nuances and a dynamic construction generated in the exchange of Feminist Economy with the Popular Economy, the Ecological Economy and the Social and Solidarity Economy.

To this end, together with the Feminist Economy Space and with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, we interviewed 16 community organizations, cooperatives and self-managed spaces in the area. The visibility of these practices enriches the dialogue between the theoretical proposals about them and will collaborate in the construction of new knowledge. At the same time, it offers first-hand information, necessary to promote public debate on the needs, views and contributions of these organizations to economies founded from paradigms that put life at the center, instead of profit and exclusion. Knowing these experiences allows us to identify their concrete contributions to the construction and maintenance of other economies, which propose alternatives to neoliberal capitalism and hetero-patriarchy, and seek to sustain human and non-human lives.

Questions that open up others: Do community organizations and self-managed enterprises constitute an alternative to the neoliberal capitalist model?

This first approach, achieved through this research, leads us to conclude that most of the community organizations, cooperatives and self-managed enterprises interviewed constitute, or at least try to establish themselves, as an alternative to the neoliberal and heterocispatriarchal model, putting in the center the lives and care that make them possible.

On the other hand, it is shown that, in practice, and from the perspective of the organizations analyzed, the contribution of the State to the development of these alternatives is insufficient, characterized by ineffective public policies and in some cases nonexistent, in line with the role that the State is expected to occupy in a neoliberal economic model.

Se espera que el presente trabajo, aporte a la visibilización, reconocimiento y fortalecimiento de espacios autogestivos cuyas prácticas apunten a poner a la vida en el centro, desde una necesaria mirada local y a la vez crítica. Se sostiene —y en el contexto actual está evidenciado— que la sostenibilidad de la vida debe estar en el centro del debate. Se debe seguir pensando y construyendo colectivamente la economía que se desea y necesita para que todas las vidas que habitan este planeta lo hagan de una manera digna. Por esto queremos aportar a la visibilización de las organizaciones que apuestan cada día a otro mundo posible.

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Other‌ ‌economies: the‌ ‌self-management‌ ‌from‌ a‌ ‌perspective of‌ ‌la‌ Sustainability‌ ‌of‌ la‌ ‌Life

Together with the Córdoba Feminist Economy Space, we present a report that rereads the self-managed experiences of the city of Córdoba and Valle de Punilla related to Feminist Economy, Ecological Economy, Popular Economy and Social and Solidarity Economy.

Descargar Documento / Download File
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Debates around the Feminist Economy from the sustainability of life

Together with the Córdoba Feminist Economy Space and with the support of the Heinrich Boll Foundation, we carried out a cycle of 5 virtual meetings to make visible and debate the existence of other economies that put human and non-human life at the center and the care that make them possible.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

The Feminist Economics (FE) webinar series began on September 30 and lasted for two months. Specialists in Feminist Economy, Popular Economy, Ecological Economy and Social and Solidarity Economy participated, members of various self-managed spaces and activists who bet and work towards other economies, which replace the profit motive for the care and sustainability of human lives and not human.

The panel of the first webinar was made up of Ariana Cervantes and Vanessa Ullua (members of the Virginia Bolten Accounting Firm) and Shams Selouma from the Latin American Feminist Incubator. In that meeting, legal, tax and administrative tools were offered for self-managed and community organizations. At the same time, the Resource person Tools for self-management was presented from a perspective of sustainability of life.

The second webinar, called “Towards the sustainability of life. Dialogues between the experiences of Latin America and Spain ”, laid the foundations and theoretical guidelines of the Feminist Economy from a perspective of the sustainability of life, in order to reflect and discuss new ways of thinking and organizing work, producing, distributing and consume, that subvert the capitalist and hetero-patriarchal logic. The space sought to establish a conversation between theoretical views and experiences from Latin America and Spain. Specialists on the subject participated in this meeting: Astrid Agenjo Calderón, Patricia Laterra and Natalia Quiroga Díaz.

This meeting was followed by another that addressed the issue of care as a condition for sustaining life. In the webinar “The essential is invisible to the market. Co-responsibility, community and care ”, participated Corina Rodriguez Enriquez, Gabriela Marzonetto and Paola Bonavita, who spoke about current care policies and community care in Argentina and specifically Córdoba.

Finally, the last two webinars set out to propose and debate, from a theoretical approach first and an empirical one later, the possibilities of building and sustaining other economies that articulate the proposals of the Social and Solidarity Economy, the Popular Economy, the Ecological Economy with the Economy Feminist.

Theoretical reflections were raised in the webinar “Another (s) economy (s). Dialogues between the Feminist Economy and the Popular, Solidarity and Ecological economies ”, thanks to the contributions of Ariana Ortega and Magalí Magnani from the Ecofeminism Area of ​​the Ecologist Workshop of Rosario, Florencia Partenio, Karina Tomatis. The tensions and dilemmas, as well as the theoretical proposals raised in this meeting, were put into dialogue with self-managed experiences of the city of Córdoba, who participated in the last webinar “The other economy exists and sustains life. Conversation with self-managed and community organizations of Córdoba ”.

In this last meeting, members of the Corteza del Chañar cooperative, Wallmarx cooperative, the Textile of the Meeting of Organizations and the Cordoba Agroecological Fair participated, who shared concrete experiences that make the existence of other economies visible, glimpsing a real horizon in which these possible.

We believe, and the particular current context is showing it every day, that the sustainability of life must be at the center of the debate, that we must continue to think and collectively build what economy we want and need to sustain our lives and all the lives that inhabit this planet in a way worth living.

We know that there is still a long way to go to deconstruct and transform an economy based on a productivist logic, capital accumulation, and deterioration of the environment. That is why it becomes urgent and necessary to make visible and strengthen theories and experiences of other economies, built from self-management and from feminist debates, putting good living in focus and betting every day on another possible world.

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Equal Pay Day: Equal pay for equal work? Same task?

On April 9, the equal pay day between men and women was established in our country. As of today, we have large gender gaps that are far from closing.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

Women charge less than their male peers. That is a fact. What’s more, transgender people also get even less, or are directly excluded from the labor market. On March 16, the National Directorate of Economy, Equality and Gender of the Ministry of Economy of the Nation presented the report “Gender gaps in Argentina: State of situation and challenges“. There, it is evident that the total income gap between men and women (calculated as the relative variation between the average income of men and the average income of women) is 29.0%, and it widens for female employees. informal, reaching 35.6%.

So, we can say that the same is not charged for the same tasks. But we can also ask: do we perform the same tasks as men and women? The tasks that women mainly perform within the home, and that correspond to reproductive work, have historically not been considered as such and, therefore, have not been remunerated. The incorporation of women into the labor market has not generated a fairer distribution of domestic and care tasks within the home. Women are still responsible for most of these tasks and spend almost twice as much time as men, even when they work outside their homes. Situation that deepens if they study or if they participate in spaces of activism and / or militancy. In other words, they work double and triple days, but they earn less than their male counterparts. And there the inequality appears before our eyes.

Feminisms and women’s movements and sex-gender diversities and dissidents have been thinking about these gaps for a long time. The sexual division of labor, glass ceilings and walls are some analysis tools that have been developed to understand this unequal reality. To understand and transform it.

Today, the idea persists that women have a natural instinct to care. Jobs that involve care and are mostly performed by women are the worst paid. Gender stereotypes are in order in job interviews, tenders, and promotion and responsibility decisions. Men are not obliged to reconcile their life at home with work outside of it, women are. Women see their possibility of training, improvement and job promotion diminished (a phenomenon called the “glass ceiling”) in the years they have children in their care. Boys don’t. The law grants women longer work licenses to care for sons and daughters. But far from being a privilege, the latter not only results in discrimination when hiring or considering a woman for promotion. It also reinforces the stereotypes of a mother woman and a father only as a provider for a typical family, which should not take care of children under their responsibility.

Women not only earn less, but are forced to spend more. There is what is known as the “tax pink”. The market offers products that are directed towards women and that are ostensibly more expensive. These products range from a deodorant, a razor to a medicine, such as ibuprofen “fem”. However, they fulfill the same functions as for men. There is no factual difference to support a different price. Only stereotypes that oppress and harm women culturally and economically are reinforced. Likewise, the sexual and (non) reproductive health of cis women, trans people and any menstruating body is affected with the absence of public policies that transform free access to elements for menstrual management into a right.

Particularly, within the current conjuncture of the Covid-19 pandemic, it can be considered a hinge, break moment in global society. Not only in the ways of functioning of the economy and the way of executing the different interpersonal relationships, but, in turn, the veil is drawn on the multiple tasks of care performed by women. These are unpaid work. Thanks to this, it is that the man can enjoy a great wealth of time that allows him to train, get better jobs and have time for leisure.

All this reinforces the inequality that doubly affects women. First, because they work for their families for free, given the naturalization of this work due to the requirement of gender stereotypes. And second, they are subtracted from the time to access, like the men, spaces for training, leisure and self-care.

Along these same lines, we must not forget that the World Health Organization considers gender violence as a social epidemic. The Observatory “Women, Dissidence and Rights” of the Women of the Latin American Matria-MuMaLá reported that since March 12, the day the first measures of social isolation began, as of April 3, 15 femicides were registered.

Lastly, we celebrate the preparation of the report on gaps by the National Directorate of Economy, Equality and Gender of the Ministry of Economy and we urge the State and the private sector to produce and put into action, together with civil society, public policies tending to close gender gaps. This can only be achieved with the elimination of gender stereotypes, inclusion in the measurements of LGBTIQ + people, analysis of the economy with a gender perspective, democratization of care and the participation of women, gender and diverse and dissident sexes in the elaboration and decision making on those policies.

Authors

  • Ivana Sanchez
  • Constance Attwood

Contact

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Gender training: a growing demand for our rights

During the month of March, we carried out two trainings for important social actors: health professionals and the public administration of the Province of Córdoba.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

Gender at work: the gaps we inhabit and don’t see

On Thursday, March 12, we trained the personnel of the Property Registry of Córdoba, on gender and work. It had the objective of identifying the gender inequalities that exist in the formal and informal labor market, and in the paid as well as in the unpaid, to begin to reflect on the possible ways to combat them.

In a room made up mostly of women, the presence of a few men was significant and valuable in the sense of being a clear proof of the cultural change that is taking place in our society.

With comments, data contributions and questions, the people who participated in the training showed their amazement at the gender inequalities that exist in the different work environments and their interest in thinking about new strategies and lines of action to advance in gender equality. in these spaces.

Conscientious objection: the Trojan horse in the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy laws

On Friday, March 13, we carried out a training aimed at the Network of Health Professionals for the Right to Decide. The objective was to learn about the uses and abuses of conscientious objection in the health field, and fundamentally, in sexual, reproductive and non-reproductive health services.

Conscientious objection is a legal institute that allows exemption from a certain obligation when it contradicts a person’s moral, ethical or religious convictions. However, it is often used in an abusive way, and it becomes an obstacle when it comes to guaranteeing fundamental rights, such as access to termination of pregnancy in cases where it is legal.

In a scenario in which the discussion on the law of Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy is looming, it is important to know the fundamentals behind this type of institutions, and the experiences existing so far in its practice and regulation.

Training as a guarantee of human rights

We celebrate these instances of training aimed at State agents, accompanying and legitimizing the provisions of the Micaela Law.

We understand that the gender training of these actors is essential to guarantee the rights of all people, and translates achievements achieved after years of struggles by social movements, women and LGBTIQ + people.

Contact

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org

Gender policies in journalism and advertising. The debates we owed

We held the National Forum on Gender Policies in Journalism and Advertising on September 12 and 13 at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the UBA. We have the presence of interns from the interior of the country dedicated to advertising, journalism and communication, representatives of journalistic and advertising organizations and we obtained the signature of 44 institutions to the Commitment Agreement.

Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic.

There were two days of reflection and discussion around a central axis: the gender policies that exist (and are missing) in the two most important sectors dedicated to communication: advertising and journalism.

On Thursday 12, the day began in the afternoon with the opening of the Forum by the organizations that made this event possible: The Civil Association Communication for Equality, The Heinrich Boll Foundation, UNESCO and Fundeps.

Then, organizations from all over the country linked to journalism and advertising signed the Commitment Agreement on Gender Policies in Journalism and Advertising. They expressed their interest and desire to transform the labor structures of these industries and create democratic, inclusive and diverse spaces, with equal real opportunities to access decision-making positions and more valued areas.

They joined 44 organizations of which 16 are from within the country. They signed 9 media companies, 15 advertising agencies, 7 academic institutions, 6 professional associations and networks, 3 press unions, 3 business chambers and 1 state agency. Those who want to adhere and sign the Commitment Agreement can do so through this form.

The day ended with Luciana Peker’s talk-debate «The feminist tide in journalism and publicity: another way of telling, another way of working.»

Start from questions to find answers

Friday was raised as a meeting place between the various actors that are part of both industries: educational institutions, unions, business chambers, advertising agencies, media companies, civil society organizations, state agencies and workers / is from both industries.

The day was organized in four panels, designed from the critical axes found in both industries. During the morning the following were presented:

  • Care policies, in which Paula Rey and Victoria Gallo (ELA), Georgina Sticco (Gender and Work-Grow), Mariángeles Camusso (Inter-American Open University), Silvia Martínez Cassina (channel 13) and Cecilia Bustos Moreschi (Fundeps) participated as moderator.
  • Labor rights and unionization, whose panelists were Cynthia Benzion (vice president of the Association of Lawyers and Labor Lawyers of CABA), Verónica Baracat (UN Women), Diego Pietrafesa (Telefe-SiPreBA), Luciano Calió (FBC & Fire) and Melanie Tobal (Advertising. org) in moderation.

In the afternoon were the panels «Journalism and Gender» and «Advertising and Gender»:

  • The first, moderated by Pate Palero (PAR Network), was composed of Viviana Mariño (Argentine Time), Nicole Insignares (Clarín Group), Silvia Hernández (UBA) and Gabriela Toledo (Subprogram of Strategies for Training and Communication of San Luis ).
  • The last one was formed by Mariana Iesulauro (Y&R Agency), Agustina Militerno (Havas), Tomás Balduzzi (Higher School of Advertising Creatives) and Rocío Restaino (Women in Advertising) as moderator.

In these spaces, the various actors in the advertising and journalism industries were invited to ask themselves: What is the relationship between care policies and actions and the participation of women in the advertising and journalism industries? Why are there so few women in hierarchical positions and in the most valued areas? What are the most serious problems of both industries in relation to unionization and the construction of labor rights? What strategies can be designed, implemented and evaluated to generate more democratic and diverse work environments?

These questions put into question the labor practices of both industries, the production of content and promoted discussions postponed by some of these actors.

There were two days of intense debate, which allowed us to observe and realize that the advertising and journalism industries are not excluded from many sexist practices, and that, like most of the different items, gender-based inequalities suffer, such as, the wage gap between men and women and the glass ceiling, both produced mainly by the overload in women of unpaid household chores and by maternity. That in order to transform this, it is necessary to defend and transform trade union spaces, to continue with the internal demand for violence-free, equitable and egalitarian spaces. As Luciana Peker said «without union rights, but also gender-specific, there is no possibility of reaching or staying, or reaching places of hierarchy.»

We believe that the Forum was an enriching space as it sat on the same discussion table to workers, companies, unions, educational institutions, civil society organizations and the same State, in order to generate commitments that translate into policies of Formal, concrete and sustainable gender that promote real equality of opportunities, inclusion and diversity within.

Authors

Valentina Montero

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi

Contact

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org

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Pride is political. A review of the 11th March of dissident pride

On Saturday, November 9, the 11th March of the Dissenting Pride was held in the city of Córdoba, which was lived as a party but also as a space for struggle, for vindication and for denunciation.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

From emotional content to what advertising doesn’t show

The 11th March of the Dissenting Pride, the most massive to date, sought to show that, under the glitter, colors and music, there is a history of struggles and denunciations that are far from being what some speeches show us as a (maybe desirable) reality.
The violence of genders that affect the LGBTTTIQ + community is almost impossible to imagine for those who live and conceive of reality from the cisheteronorma. Camila Sosa Villada, renowned playwright, actress, writer and trans activist, tells how her childhood was one of the saddest stages of her life:

“It was very hard, they chased me with stones. (…) I was walking down the street and people spit on me. They wouldn’t let me in the places, I couldn’t go to work at my classmates’ homes because their parents wouldn’t let me in. I could not go to the alumni party because the parents had decided that if I was dressed as a woman I could not enter the party. That is the story of trans people right now in Argentina. Not being able to go out during the day, not being able to go to the river, going to sit in a square, not being able to go to the supermarket … ”

These violence have its highest point in hate crimes by sexual orientation, identity and / or gender expression that, by 2018, reached 147, and 68 by the first half of 2019, in Argentina. Most of these crimes affect younger people (between 30 and 39 years old), which coincides with the average life expectancy of trans people who have a minimum of 35.5 and a maximum of 41.25 years , while for cis people in Latin America it is 75 years.

The day and the street as a territory of dispute: the claims

Again, as for 11 years, pride took to the streets. Like the carnivals that enable “out” the repressed, denied, the invisible by monstrous and dissident. They do it in broad daylight, showing everything.
Here, evidencing that the private is political and public, the motto of the March is raised: “We are driven by urgency to dissent, we win the streets until pride expires,” and the following claims were raised:

  • Labor, health, educational and social security inclusion law for women, men, non-binaries, transvestites and transgender.
    Labor rights for sex workers.
  • New adoption law.
  • Effective implementation of Comprehensive Sex Education, so that there are free and happy childhoods.
  • New law on HIV, viral hepatitis, STIs and denouncing the lack of medications for the HIV-positive community.
  • End the institutional violence towards the tortillero collective, claiming the acquittal of Higui and Marian Gomez.
  • Finally, it was demanded by legal, safe and free abortion for all persons capable of gestating and the separation of the Church and the State.

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FLYER OFICIAL 11’ MARCHA DEL ORGULLO DISIDENTE CBA????️‍???????? . . “A la disidencia la atraviesa la emergencia, ganemos las calles hasta que el orgullo venza” . . . El sábado 9 de Noviembre se llevará a cabo la 11° Marcha del Orgullo Disidente por las calles de la Ciudad de Córdoba. Desde las 16 hs. nos encontramos en la “Plaza de los presidentes Argentinos Cordobeses” (las cuatro plazas), ubicada en Gral. Paz y La Tablada, para comenzar a marchar a las 18hs hasta el Buen pastor, finalizando con un festival disidente. . . Exigimos: . . – Ley de inclusión laboral, sanitaria, educativa y de seguridad social para mujeres, varones y no binaries trans y travestis – Por infancias libres y felices, implementación real de la ESI. Por una nueva ley de adopción. – Por una nueva ley de VIH, hepatitis virales, ITSs. Basta de faltantes de medicamentos para la comunidad seropositiva. – Terminemos con la violencia institucional hacia el colectivo tortillero. Absolución para Higui y Marian Gómez. – Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito para todas las personas gestantes. Separación iglesia y Estado. – Derechos laborales para les trabajadores sexuales. . . Mesa coordinadora de la Marcha del Orgullo Disidente????️‍????

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Pride and fight

This year’s march was the most summoning since its inception, 11 years ago. And it was lived as a great party, with the axis set to express ourselves freely in the streets and in the light of day, as we are. But it is very difficult to be happy in a context not only of lack of recognition of rights, but of systematic violence and harassment. Without going any further, the recent attack by Monsignor Aguer towards the identities, orientations and expressions of sexual diversity, which he describes as perverse, unnatural and impure, realizes how much we need to continue fighting.

Pride is not just glitter. It goes hand in hand with the courage of those who, through their own existence, resist and fight.

“In a world of worms, you have to have a lot of courage to be butterflies,” said Lohana Berkins.

… and it is that courage that was seen in this march.

Authors

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, Mayca Balaguer y Mila Francovich

Contact

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org