National officials who are members of the Mujeres Gobernando collective highlighted the “important expansion” of areas that focus on gender and diversity throughout the national public administration, in the first two years of Alberto Fernández’s administration, but they agreed that there is still “work to guarantee gender equity, above all, in management positions”.
The Secretary for International Economic Relations of the Foreign Ministry, Cecilia Todesca; the national director of Economy, Equality and Gender of the Ministry of Economy, Mercedes D´Alessandro and the secretary of Management and Public Employment of the Nation, Ana Castellani, spoke with Télam about gender parity in the Executive Power, a few days after a new commemoration of International Women’s Day.
“Although the base of public administration is perfectly equitable, 50 and 50 male and female workers, when you move up the level of positions you begin to see the gaps”warned Castellani in the dialogue with this agency and explained that they “are shrinking over time” and “there is a trend that crosses various government efforts.”
“During the first two years of Alberto (Fernández), what there was was an important increase in participation, with a balance of more than 12 points, of women in secretarial and undersecretary positions,” the official said.
Along the same lines, Todesca -although he regretted the departure of “two ministers in the successive changes” of cabinet- highlighted that in “the rest of the positions a stable situation is observed but in a percentage of participation” of women ” below what it should be”.
The officials consulted highlighted the “political commitment” of the President in this situation and highlighted as an example of it the instructions sent to all the directorates of the national cabinet on February 11, which indicate that, Before each appointment of superior authorities, a report must be submitted in which gender participation is accounted for and how it will be affected by the proposed appointment.
? From the entry into force of the instructions, they must be adopted, as a guiding criterion for the designation proposal
higher authorities of their jurisdictions, the principle of gender equity.#WomenRuling#Parity– WomenGoverning (@MGobernando) February 11, 2022
“I think it’s a good sign that there is a political commitment and honest work now has to be done, put into practice so that it doesn’t just remain on paper as a dead letter,” said D’Alessandro.
This week, by participating in the CCK of the opening of the third edition of ‘We move the world’Fernandez himself recalled that he should have issued that instruction so that his ministers “understand that they have to appoint women in the cabinet” and assured that his government “will continue working to expand rights.”
“I agree with the instructions because when there is gender discrimination, or of any other type, active policies are needed to counteract that inequality, gap or discrimination,” Todesca said about the importance of “actions or instructions” to be able to “change a status quo “.
As for the advances in gender in the field of public administration, Castellani highlighted that during this management “a base was achieved on which to continue growing and a visibility that we did not have before”; while D’Alessandro highlighted the “great expansion of areas that focus on gender and diversity throughout the national public administration.”
In this regard, the Minister for Women, Gender and Diversity, Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta, reported last Thursday that “96% of the Cabinet agencies have gender-specific areas, of which 83% were created during this administration”during her presentation at the meeting of the National Cabinet for the Mainstreaming of Gender Policies.
Regarding the participation of women in provincial public administrations, Castellani explained that the situation is “more heterogeneous” and that a “great job was done in the Equality and Gender Commission of the Federal Council of Public Management” so that “each of the provinces surveyed their structures and regulations in this regard in terms of diversity and gender”.
“There are very equal cabinets, the one in Chaco, for example, is one where that is quite respected, and others where that is not happening yet,” pointed out the official who is confident that it is “an inexorable situation” because in these spaces of power women are opening paths”.
“I always say that it is not only to hold the position but to be able to show that today it can be exercised in another way, different from how power is exercised from masculinity,” he reaffirmed.
D’Alessandro, for his part, pointed out that “a great job was done to set up a Federal Economic Policy Board with a gender perspective” because they had “a rather discouraging diagnosis.”
“We summoned officials, representatives of the provinces, including the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, and there we were doing an analysis of the composition of the cabinets and we found that only two provinces have more than parity in their cabinets, which are Tierra del Fuego and Entre Ríos. , which have 50% or more than 50% of women in the cabinet of ministers and there are provinces like La Rioja that do not have any women in hierarchical positions,” he explained.
On the other hand, the official explained that “More gender areas are also beginning to appear in the provinces” or “with a hierarchy of others, such as in Santa Fe, which had a Gender Secretariat and became a Ministry.”
He also highlighted the creation of the Economy and Gender unit of the province of Buenos Aires within the Ministry of Finance and the direction of Economy, Equality and Gender within the Ministry of Planning and Infrastructure of Chaco.
Todesca, Castellani and D’Alessnadro highlighted the group they make up -Mujeres Gobernando- as a “horizontal space” that brings together more than 250 national officials who hold positions in the Executive Power, which they defined as a “great support network” and a key place to “think and work in each of the areas how to mainstream gender issues”.
“Thanks to this space we managed to enrich from the articulation the mainstreaming of gender policies, because mainstreaming is the challenge of all management,” said the national director of Economy, Equality and Gender of the Ministry of Economy.
Today we are on the third day of #WeMoveTheWorld to continue building tools for the social transformation that we dream of every day: with social, feminist and popular justice.
#WeMoveEquality ??That was the second day! ?? pic.twitter.com/5fnJjlBzU0
— Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity (@MinGenerosAR) March 5, 2022
