Group psycho-socio-educational devices for men where they put beliefs and power relations “in crisis”, a telephone line for listening and referral, and the training of security forces are some of the initiatives carried out in the country to eliminate sexist violence.
“You have to deconfigure masculinity; subjectivity, the ideas of beliefs, put the experiences of these men in crisis and tension and go over emotionality and corporality, because the power and beliefs of feeling superior to another have emotionality,” he told Télam Marcelo Romano, social workerwho supervises the area of men who exercise gender violence of the Álvarez Hospital, in the city of Buenos Aires.
In the hospital one works in the same way as in the NGO Decidir, founded by Romanoactive for 20 years when gender violence was not even named, as such, and at the same time, belongs to the Network of Work and Study Teams in Masculinities (RETEM)where a comprehensive approach to gender violence and training is carried out.
The dynamic for the approach is to set up working groups, separately, of men and women in situations of violence, which are coordinated by psychologists, anthropologists, social workers, educational psychologists. The participation of women is sought to “disrupt masculine logics,” explained the specialist.
As he specified, “someone who believes they are superior to what the violated woman livesbuilds ideas of superiority and in the groups the subjectivities of each one begin to circulate, where what I have built is being pierced with others, because the ideas of power of masculinity are a cultural and collective construct, not an individual one”.
For this reason, Romano coincided with Aníbal Muzzin, who works as coordinator of the Álvarez gender violence areaconsidering that the talks on masculinities “cannot be proposed as the only tool, because they remain at the level of the individual and an entire unequal power structure is not disarmed in a talk, which is something built for many years”.
“We aim to build subjects without the idea that they can be conceived as superior to others, or because of their sex, religion, race. We seek to deactivate that abusive masculinity.”
In this sense, Romano said that men in situations of violence, “they generally have a strong adherence to the patriarchal belief system, a lot of arrogance and low self-esteem, especially in the relationship with women; That’s why, after committing femicides, many commit suicide, because they don’t know what to do with their lives afterwards.”
In this sense, one of the objectives that the NGO Decidir and the Hospital work on are personal projects regardless of the bond with the couple: the idea is “that it not be elevated to a romantic, possessive love, where it is falsely postulated that we are two equals when the relationship is sustained in the domination of one”, explained the specialist.
Another characteristic of the stories shared by men is “minimizing their actions and maximizing what women do: “They say: `Mine was nonsense, a joke, a slap in the face; She is a daughter of a bitch with everything she did to me, “Romano exemplified. And he added that “they manipulate the information according to whom they talk to, they position themselves as victims and women as victimizers; but once they are aware, we start from the basis of responsibility and taking charge and not guilt.”
On the other hand, civil associations and Spotlight, a global initiative of the United Nations that advocates for the end of gender violence and received the support of the European Union, develop a variety of projects and campaigns on the subject in the country.
The main objective is to eliminate all forms of violence against women, girls and diversities, where the work with men has a very strong seal.
Spotlight coordinator in Argentina, Nuria Penasummarized in dialogue with Télam the work they have been carrying out since 2019. “We support the Buenos Aires Ministry of Women, Gender Policies and Sexual Diversity in the creation of the line “Let’s talk”, for men who exercise violence, to contribute to the strengthening of public policies oriented to work from a non-punitive perspective”, explained Pena.
This device was implemented in coordination with the service of attention to the community of the College of Psychologists of the XI district (La Plata), as a prevention strategy. According to the coordinator, The line has several ways to access demands: organizations involved in dealing with gender-based violencespontaneous calls from men who require comprehensive care and consultations from couples and relatives in search of guidance.
Another Spotlight initiative was to support work to strengthen training and provide tools to national and provincial police and security forces. “We seek to disarm the mandates of hegemonic masculinity and address new, freer, more respectful and diverse ways of being a man and we highlight the Trainer of Trainers cycle on masculinities, gender and sexual diversity, held in 2021, with men from the police forces, federal and provincial security from the provinces of Jump and Jujuy,” Pena said.
What’s more, social networks also became another powerful tool for change and multiplication of campaign content and talks. In 2015 they were created privileged social networksa space to rethink the role of men and try to disarm what has been learned, whose managers also organize workshops and talks.
Through videos where the privileges that men have in the patriarchal system are exposed, the aim is to make the problem visible and change established social behaviors.
After the gang rape against a young woman, on Monday, February 28, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo, for which six men have been detained, Privilegiados once again reinforced its messages with the “Let’s talk among friends” campaign.
“Did you try to kiss a girl who was very drunk? Do you always wear a lining when you go to have sex? Did it happen to you to insist on having sex and that they reluctantly accept you? Did you hear a friend say that the girl was ‘ hysterical’ or ‘crazy’ because she didn’t want to have sex? Why do we keep doing it? Do we think it’s okay? friends.
