Women And Covid 19 In Argentina PDF Download

With COVID-19, governments had to implement different policies to ensure the protecction of the population. Women were one of the most affected groups in Argentina by the policies aimed to combat the virus as the pandemic brought many specific challenges to them. One of these was the "mandatory quarantine" that each one had to carry out at home, with the prohibition of going outside at any point except essential tasks. This situation left all those who suffered gender violence at a higher risk, especially women who were forced to live 24 hours a day with the aggressor. This situation was invisible because the world's focus was only on the COVID, which made getting help an impossible task. We will focus on how Argentina tried to make this situation visible through different campaigns and movements, especially the feminist movement.Additionally, motherhood, from pregnancy to puerperium, has been always a subject of stigmatization and discrimination towards women. This has increased during the pandemic and has left them in a situation of greater vulnerability, as health centers were in a critical situation due to COVID-19 and women continued their gestational process. We will base our analysis on the legal protection of maternity in Argentina and develop the particularities women have faced the most natural process of humanity at the same time that a viral disease occurred that attacked the whole world.On the other hand, the COVID-19 was an example of how women are mainly employed in care jobs and care responsibilities, a situation that put them at more risk of getting infected by the disease because women were in the frontline facing the virus at their workplaces and in public transports. We will explain this reality as a problem based on society's cultural norms relating to gender that assigned women the “caring role”, and we will show how this particular burden unfairly affects them not only because wages are lower or it limits the access to quality employment, but also due to health issues relating to the pandemic.Finally, and regarding the participation of women in the workforce, in 2020 the General Inspectorate of Justice (IGJ) established that companies based in Buenos Aires shall compose their management bodies in an equal number of men and women. This measure generated strong resistance from certain sectors who litigated in courts and obtained two sentences that declared the unconstitutionality of the measure. However, the IGJ ignored such a decision and ratified its validity. In this part, we will analyze such a policy as an affirmative action measure to combat gender inequality and we will contrast it with the experiences of other States in the matter, to identify the opportunities and obstacles in Argentina's case to effectively achieve gender parity.