Abstract

VORIA, María Andrea. Public policies faced with the dilemma of gender violence and care: program “ellas hacen” in Argentina paradoxes. La ventana [online]. 2019, vol.6, n.50, pp.205-230. ISSN 1405-9436.

This article approaches the dilemmas and paradoxes faced by a public policy destined to mother-women of vulnerable sectors, in front of the issue of gender violence and care. We refer to the “Ellas Hacen” Program of the Ministry of Social Development of Argentina, implemented between 2013 and 2018. Although it is a policy that pretended to incorporate the issues of autonomy and violence, it results paradigmatic when analyzing the gaps faced by women in relation to care strategies and devices, as well as the itineraries of those under a violence situation.

The approach is to enter and give voice to the micropolitics of the intermediate bureaucracy of the program, that while they start and hold the implementation of the policy, also generate cracks and resistances, which in many cases paradoxically guarantee its sustainability. It is key to consider violence against women in light of care, as it is at this point where meet many real posibilities and imposibilities of women to get out of the gender violence situation. Despite the program did not foresee any care device, paradoxically we observe a permanent search of solidarity but precarious responses between the recipients, that even become in group strategies of mutual care. Consequently, the centrality that care has in sustaining life conditions, as well as in the gender violence prevention, unfailingly points the necessity for the State to assume a radical commitment to overcome the sexual division of labor.

Keywords : public policies; gender violence; autonomy; care; state discourses.