The Minister of Women, Gender and Diversity, Ayelén Mazzina, questioned this Wednesday the statements of the head of the Buenos Aires Government, Horario Rodríguez Larreta, about his intention to “close” that body if he is elected president and assured that “for a long time” the opposition insists with the closing of the portfolio that “was won in the heat of feminist struggles.”
“Larreta and that sector have been insisting on the closure of the Ministry (of Women, Gender and Diversity) for a long time. You have to understand the depth of where you want to go with this”assured Mazzina in dialogue with Futurock radio, where she also said that her portfolio “was won in the heat of feminist struggles.”
The minister pointed out that “since 2015 (with the first mobilization of Ni Una Menos), society took to the streets to massively say ‘enough’ to violence against women and demand public policies from the State with a budget to prevent and eradicate violence.” .
In this way, Mazzina responded to Larreta’s statements, who supported his intentions to “reduce the ministries by half” and eliminate the Women’s portfolio if he is elected president.
All JvC aligned
“I don’t think that the importance that one gives to an issue in the government depends on whether it has a ministry, secretary or undersecretary. The only thing the ministry puts is more bureaucracy,” assured the Buenos Aires head of government.
The declarations of the pre-candidate for president of the PRO caused strong rejection in the run-up to the International Day of Working Women that is commemorated this Wednesday.
This is the case of the president of the Water and Sanitation company (AySA), Malena Galmarini, who also repudiated Larreta’s intention.
“It is the response of the extreme right. They come for our rights, for the rights of women, children and adolescents, and older adults”said Galmarini in the framework of the presentation of the Parenting Index, in the Auditorium of the central headquarters of Banco Nación.
Along these lines, the head of AySA remarked that a sector of the opposition wants to promote a country model “where there are 25 million people who have to be left out.”
“That is the only way in which he closes his business model, not only his project for the country,” he stressed.
However, it is not the first time that an opposition leader has proposed eliminating the portfolio that defends the rights of women and the LGBTI+ community and directed by Ayelén Mazzina.
Currently, the City of Buenos Aires does not have a portfolio that defends women at the local level, since the proposal was rejected by JxC during the vote in the Buenos Aires Legislature in November last year.
The president of the PRO, Patricia Bullrich, called for the ministry to “close” in October 2022, considering that it has not managed to lower “femicides in Argentina nor has it had any type of specific objective.”
The statements of the former security minister were broadcast by the LN+ channel in an interview conducted after the resignation of the previous minister, Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta.
“You have to deal with the issues that matter, order and Justice have to be for all Argentines and here they tried to do something totally contrary to the objectives of a ministry of this type. So they can close it,” he said.
Recently, the member of the General Audit of the Nation Miguel Ángel Pichetto generated a strong controversy and the repudiation of various sectors after criticizing the ministry and especially the minister.
“The Ministry of Women is in the hands of a girl who is lesbian, they could have put a woman”, Pichetto had said in dialogue with the LN+ channel broadcast on February 17.
The JxC leader confirmed his criticism on his official Twitter account, although he corrected the statement by assuring that it was a “misrepresentation” and that his intention was “to denounce that the Ministry of Women did not repudiate the murder of Lucio Dupuy because it coincided with the sexual orientation of the minister, with those of the perpetrators of the crime”.
Days ago and after the scandal, Pichetto again criticized the Ministry during an interview with the El Cronista media outlet where he quoted the Italian political scientist, Jean Franco Pasquino, and assured: “Sexual identities are of absolute freedom, and they do psychologically well, but not in politics.”
“I think it is a ministry for minorities and it is never convenient to do minority politics. You have to defend the rights of minorities, but you have to do politics for the majorities,” he responded to a question in that regard.
For her part, the vice president of the Senate, Carolina Losada, expressed some criticism when asked in an interview published today on the El Cronista website about how she evaluates the performance of the Ministry for Women.
“I would have to get into it to see what it really does. But no one would pay attention to whether or not there is a new ministry if that ministry did things and if the results were seen. When people pay attention to a ministry it is because it has a budget that later it is used to drink coffee”, affirmed the referent of the UCR.
And he added that it does not seem “wrong or good that the Ministry for Women exists” but that “there must be an excellent management that justifies its existence.”
In addition, the deputy and president of the Radical Evolution Bloc, Rodrigo de Loredo, had written on his social networks that former minister Gómez Alcorta “was the symbol of a militant ministry, which acted according to its partisan and ideological interests and which was never up to the task. of the circumstances”.
“Wasted time and resources,” he opined in a tweet published by the legislator on October 7, 2022.
Meanwhile, the deputy of La Libertad Avanza, Javier Milei, promised in May 2022 to eliminate the Ministry for Women if he becomes president, when interviewed by the journalist Viviana Canosa at the Book Fair, during the presentation of his book “The path of the libertarian”.
“I am not going to apologize for having a penis,” he had stated, and assured that he does not “have to feel ashamed of being a white, blond, and blue-eyed man.”
“I am not going to concede anything to cultural Marxism. With this they know that the Ministry of Women loses track, because the only equality is before the law,” said the libertarian deputy.
