gender equity – Baby Creysi

What do we celebrate on March 8?

Posted on 04/03/2022 - 09:50 by Astrid Rivera Reynoso

Imagine that just because you were a woman, you couldn’t study or work, that your only choice was to be at home. For many years it was like that. On March 8, we remember the fight for equal opportunities between women and men so that girls have a better future.

Today, women make their decisions and perform any activity. However, this date reminds us that the battle for equality is constant and that there are still many challenges to overcome, such as gender violence.

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Why March 8?

This day was chosen by the World Organization of the United Nations (UN). In 1977, it officially declared International Women’s Day to commemorate the history of women’s rights movements.

In 1979, the UN approved the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). All the countries that are part of the organization promised to take action to promote gender equality.

On March 8, the fight for women's rights was commemorated. Photo: Pixabay — On March 8, the fight for women’s rights was commemorated.

Photo: Pixabay

And in Mexico?

The struggle has been long, but women have made their way in school and at work in our country, showing that they have the same capacity as men. More than half of the female population belongs to the labor sector, and 39% have management positions in the social, private, or public sectors. They own a third of the small businesses in Mexico.

Even though they gain more space in sectors that were previously only considered for men little by little, things have not changed much when women get home. There is still inequality in the time that women dedicate to housework since, according to the National Institute of Geography and Statistics (Inegi), they spend 13.4 hours a week on these tasks.

In addition, violence against the female population continues. From January to May 2021, more than 106,000 cases of family violence were reported, while 13,631 women fled home with their children due to domestic violence, according to the National Public Security System (SNSP).

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More and more women are in management positions. Photo: Pixabay

Fight from home

This space is very important to promote equality between girls and boys without gender roles influencing their upbringing. The family tends to reinforce the difference between genders since the little girls are assigned tasks related to taking care of the house and others. At the same time, the boys are involved in activities that foster competition, which explains the Gender role and family functioning.

Marisol Pérez Ramos, a researcher at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM), recommends not limiting girls in their activities and tastes or limiting them to household chores in which all family members must participate.

“These types of limitations tell you about gender violence and the fact that girls are the ones who serve the food or do the chores. Nor should we tell them always to be nice or kind because it is a way of conditioning their behavior.”

Teach your daughters that they can practice any sport. Photo: Pixabay

She also advises not to compare daughters with boys, as this limits them and reproduces gender stereotypes and expectations of how they should act like women.

The fight for equality is every day; teach your little girl that she can achieve anything she sets her mind to and can make her decisions.

Translated by: Ligia M. Oliver Manrique de Lara

Spanish version

Breaking patterns of machismo in the family

Posted on 04/03/2021 - 13:52 by Ligia Oliver

Every day, 137 women are killed by members of their own family and less than 40 percent of women who experience violence seek help, according to figures from the United Nations Women (UN Women).

Feminism has not killed anyone, while machismo kills every day.

This is what Coral Herrera Gómez points out, in her book Men who no longer make people suffer for love. Transforming masculinities, from Catarata publishing house.

The Spanish feminist writer and blogger explains that machismo is an attitude towards life in which men consider themselves superior to women.

Feminism does not seek that women become superior to men, subjugate and dominate them, but rather, “It seeks to end the structures of exploitation that have us serving, caring and loving men”, she says.

She recognizes that feminism is increasing in some societies, but there is still a lot of work to be done because patriarchy is inside our entire political, social, economic, cultural and religious structure.

Feminism is to shift the patriarchy from science, religion, medicine, sports, parliaments, laws, our economy and also our emotions and feelings.

Coral Herrera Gómez, Spanish feminist writer and blogger

Women can be patriarchal too

Patriarchy is a sociocultural system that considers that men should have power and rule over women.

And despite the fact that the female sex suffers from machismo

“Women are also patriarchal because we were born in the patriarchy and have been educated in the patriarchy”, emphasizes PhD in Humanities and Audiovisual Communication Herrera Gómez, who has also been a consultant for gender and communication in organizations such as UNESCO.

The expert points out that…

“From the age of six, girls assume their own gender inferiority, so it is important to free ourselves from those beliefs, empower ourselves and believe that we are worthy of good treatment, and that we deserve all our rights because we are human beings.

We should avoid actions that promote machismo in the home, such as the unequal distribution of tasks.

“Women in the world have double and triple working hours. One outside the home and the other two at home as domestic workers and mothers. And also as caregivers for people with disabilities or dependent family members”.

Breaking those schemes

For the expert in gender theory, the epicenter of machismo is in relationships and in homes, where it is clear that men have twice as much free time as women, this allows men to have a better quality of life.

From childhood…

Girls and boys must be taught to build egalitarian relationships and, “Be able to make their own purple glasses to see the structural inequality of our society”.

Likewise, we must teach women to become aware that love is not suffering, that love must be enjoyed and that it can only be enjoyed in conditions of equality and freedom.

“A social political cultural revolution is needed to end patriarchy, sexism, machismo and above all misogyny”.

“A change in masculinities implies that men assume that they have to carry out the domestic tasks of upbringing and care in the same way as women, that they have to assume their responsibilities because they are members of a household and in this sense it is important to break down the masculine monarchy that makes all men live like kings in their own home”, she points out.

“Love in the couple can be built to achieve healthy, egalitarian and free relationships in which women do not see themselves dominated or subjugated, in which there is mutual care and all the tasks are shared 100 percent”.

Coral Herrera Gómez.

Whether you are a man or a woman, have you said any of these phrases?: