Mayan Journey | Ulysses Carrillo Cabrera

opinion

How far should gender equality policies go? Should they go so far as to demand alternating ownership of the local and federal executive, i.e. governor and president alternately?

To answer these questions, one must understand that gender quotas, gender equality, and even gender rotation policies are general policies that are framed within policies affirmative action. Public policies that actively intervene to promote a socially desirable goal of racial, cultural, and gender inclusiveness.

It is these affirmative action policies that have opened the college doors to millions of African Americans and Latinos in the United States or the feminist societies of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The first gender quotas in the incorporation of administrative bodies and popular representation are Scandinavian quotas, as in the appointment of public servants.

Affirmative action means that once society has set itself a higher goal, it must work towards it, regardless of the fact that some in the short term may claim some unfairness in actions to achieve that goal. If by giving room to a Latino in a university a person of a historically privileged ethnic group should be denied, even if they have the same or superior abilities, it is understood that it is done to achieve an important collective purpose.

Affirmative action may seem unfair or undemocratic to many, but the truth is that they are transitional measures (which by definition cannot be permanent), whereby two or more groups in society achieve a minimum level of equality that allows for the abolition of historical social and economic injustices. . In this sense, it is clearly desirable to have strong affirmative action to pave the way for real equality between the sexes.

If someone finds it distasteful to have by force of law a chief or ruler in fixed turns, since there are men who can be more capable and action can be classed as exclusive, it should suffice to remind them of the centuries and millennia in which women have not been taken in Consideration to rule, inherit her family’s assets, live her own life or make decisions about her own body.

It would be absurd not to support measures that, through quotas and changes, open up real spaces and opportunities for women and lay the foundations for true equality. Of course there are other ways of doing this, more gradual measures for those who think equality can wait a few more centuries. If the commitment to gender equality is serious, there should be no objection to the fact that, for decades to come, it will be obligatory for women and men to govern alternately and to incorporate collective decision-making bodies on an equal footing. It’s worth it, it’s even urgent.

In addition, at least in Mexico and in much of the world, the restriction of the spaces of power of men – by law or by simple inertia – has not shown any convincing results for considering that the government of men was a wonderful eighth. (We are very far from that.) So if we really want there to be equality, let’s dig deeper and legally guarantee spaces for women, so that one day social reality becomes so fair that we don’t have to put legal crutches on it. Let’s move into this future without fear and without simulation, it may not be perfect, but it will definitely lead us to something much better.

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Read, from the same author: mm

Editing: Estefania Cardina