There is no greater proof that gender violence is a public issue than what is happening in these hours: those who denied the problem have come out to expose it publicly. They call for the head of the perpetrator while accusing the State, which should protect the victim, of inaction. But let opportunism not take away what we have danced. Weeks ago, violence and inequality had no gender, as if the number of femicides could be denied. Today the issue is on everyone’s lips.
We want to start with an important argument: it does not surprise us and does not create contradictions because gender violence is always reprehensible, no matter who exercises it. Feminisms have been warning for many years that inequalities and gender violence are structural. As such, they are transversal to all political spaces, social classes, and all areas of daily life. That a first lady can feel empowered to denounce a figure such as a former president is a product of the insistence of the women’s and diversity movement that these are not private or personal matters. Today we see red plaques on all television channels. gender violence and that wasn’t magic.
Welcome to all those who now see the blows not as a bedroom altercation, but as a reprehensible scene that deserves urgent intervention by all the mechanisms that the State has to sanction it. From 144 to the Judiciary, this entire chain of approach was evoked and disseminated in the tweets of President Milei, his spokesperson and the Minister of Justice in the last 24 hours.
Now that we have your attention, let’s review a few things:
Gender policies are not the property of any party: they are transversal. The State has created specialized agencies to address inequalities and violence since 1987. The Ministry created at the end of 2019 is part of a much longer history. In the 1980s, Alfonsín created the first undersecretary for women and in 1991 during the government of Carlos Menem, the National Council for Women was created, which pushed the Female Quota Law through the legislative branch. In 2017, the Council was replaced by Mauricio Macri with the National Institute for Women and only in 2019 did that structure take the form of a ministry.
But this last agency responsible for addressing gender inequalities was charged more than any other and is now more necessary than ever. And not only because of the denunciation of Fabiola Yanez, but for all the women who will feel empowered to denounce now that the first lady did it. The Ministry of Economy, which existed long before the Ministry of Women and which has still not managed to solve inflation or make the country grow, was not eliminated due to its lack of efficiency. They can change its heads as they change the technical director of a football team, but the need for its existence is hardly debatable.
And no, the judiciary and harsher sentences are not enough. The president’s tweet showed a punitive turn, which is always the easiest answer and does not address the depth of the problem in any case. If we want to do nothing, we can rely on the judiciary to educate potential perpetrators. It attacks the tip of the iceberg and, on top of that, it does not know how violence works in our society. The latest prevalence survey carried out thanks to the advice of the UNDP shows that 77% of women who suffer violence do not report it and that 42% of the cases that are reported constitute psychological violence. Not all cases involve a crime and, if they do, their sentences are very low. If the former president were convicted for minor injuries aggravated in a context of gender violence, the sentence could range from 6 months to 2 years in prison.
Between recognizing that gender violence exists and the punitive drift, we need a stopover. How will cases reach justice if the Access to Justice Centers in the country are closed and the specialized agencies to assist those who suffer gender violence are dismantled? The next stop: understanding the mechanisms that reproduce inequalities and that sustain this violence in order to work on prevention, which cannot be achieved overnight. In a better way than has been done until now? There is no doubt, but we have to focus on how we do it better. Sweeping everything under a rug where nothing else fits is not the solution.
The discussion cannot be about whether or not he has the nerve to commit violence against his partner, whether or not we expected it from him. That is not the discussion for the future, because gender violence cannot be tackled with facial recognition AI, but with policies and a State that intervenes to dismantle the inequalities that enable it.
Source: Ambito
David William is a talented author who has made a name for himself in the world of writing. He is a professional author who writes on a wide range of topics, from general interest to opinion news. David is currently working as a writer at 24 hours worlds where he brings his unique perspective and in-depth research to his articles, making them both informative and engaging.
