In the subtleties of helping women:
I’ve seen this elsewhere – in Argentina, the mothers and grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo were able successfully to defy a bloody military dictatorship and protest at the disappearance of their children and grandchildren because they were acting in their traditional roles. Accustomed to preaching the benefits of ‘family and fatherland’, the generals did not know how to respond, and the madres opened up the first cracks in the dictatorship.
In the OPTI case, although there has clearly been a strengthening of women’s role in public and political life, but the way they’ve achieved this has also relied on traditional gender divisions in the family. The sustainability of these new roles, and efforts to strengthen women’s economic independence, will also depend on whether there are accompanying shifts in power relations between women and men at household level, with men and boys taking on some of the unpaid care work. There are indications that this is happening but it definitely needs more research. Otherwise, women could end up with the debilitating ‘triple day’ of unpaid work in the home, paid work in the economy, and community activism.
