Introduction
Public policies with a gender perspective are highly heterogeneous and often face contradictions. Instead of addressing gender inequalities, they frequently reinforce and perpetuate gender biases. This is evident in certain conditional cash transfer policies and other social policies studied by economists in Latin America, such as Rodríguez Enríquez (Reference Rodríguez Enríquez2011), where these transfers reinforce women’s caregiving and reproductive roles, particularly in low-income sectors.
Generally, policies aimed at addressing inequality and promoting women’s empowerment in Latin American economies tend to rely on the ‘benefactor state’. These policies are designed to develop local industries, stimulate domestic demand, and finance growth with foreign capital. Even when the state implements redistributive policies to improve the lives of women and low-income populations, gender inequalities remain unresolved. Despite extensive analysis of the successes and failures of these models, the problems of inequality for women and large segments of the population persist.
This work proposes to explore a social policy that began as a strategy to address childhood hunger in certain neighbourhoods of Tucumán, located in northern Argentina. The policy, like many others, initially appeared to reinforce traditional gender roles, perpetuate the sexual division of labour, and maintain women and marginalised groups in unpaid and precarious work (Rodríguez Enríquez Reference Rodríguez Enríquez2011).
First, I propose a shift in methodological strategy from traditional impact policy evaluations: adopting an approach that focuses on women’s agency. This entails considering gender issues and the experiences of women involved in such public programmes. My main hypothesis is that if public policies enable women to access and take ownership of public spaces, the networks they establish can empower them and improve their individual circumstances. Moreover, if these policies endure over time (regardless of changes in government), they can start fostering feminist resistance forms.
The case study is about a local social policy established in 2008, which was active until last year (2024). Over time, the policy expanded and contracted, but its core objective remained the same: provided support and created communal spaces for cooking daily meals. I found that the opportunity for women to work together and share daily tasks fosters a sense of community. This community, in turn, independently created additional spaces for engagement.
The first section of the article discusses debates around gender policies and social policies in South America, focusing on Argentina. After that, it gives a historical overview of the case study. Although the programme was not initially designed with a gender lens, it had the effect of helping women from low-income sectors improve their circumstances and engage in gender reflection. The second section provides some methodological consideration for the research. This part discusses the use of agency as a methodological strategy in feminist research and then discusses the tool implemented to work with this approach. The framework is feminist epistemology. The results section analyses how women’s agency can be considered within the programme and its characteristics. Drawing on the works of Partenio (Reference Partenio2017) and Kaplan (Reference Kaplan, A Andujar, D’Antonio, Grammático and Ros2010), it examines how the agency fostered among women in the programme contributed to a certain degree of emancipation within their households and private spaces. Although the programme perpetuated gender roles, it also facilitated, not only time-saving but a kind of resistance, and the initiation of discussions on gender issues and grassroots organising among the women participants.
Finally, the article concludes by highlighting the main contribution of the study: the hypothesis that social policies can enable women to save time and, through shared activities and common spaces, foster a kind of resistance consciousness. The perspective and guidance provided within these processes were crucial. In the final ten years of the programme, it did indeed seek to incorporate a feminist perspective, thanks to the efforts of the feminist movement and the women from the programme.
Framework and previous work
Public policies with a gender perspective have evolved over time. Currently, all policies should be planned with gender lenses and take account of differential and unequal access, as every policy has a direct or indirect effect on social relations, precisely those of gender, race and class.
Taking the principal issues that most feminist economists identify, namely the complex matrix of inequality that constitutes intersectionality, the conception of the state as offering disputed spaces within which subordinate groups can gain ‘popular power’ (Mazzeo and Stratta Reference Mazzeo and Stratta2024) and autonomous feminism (Partenio Reference Partenio2023), we can use these key ideas for a better understanding of how to read some public policies. The purpose is not to develop a huge framework about public policies and social aid; rather the intention is to mention some key feminist approaches that led me to understand the complexity of a study case.
The disruptionist wing of feminism, represented by bodies in autonomous spaces, advocates for subverting the current economic system. Pérez Orozco (Reference Pérez Orozco2014) presents a vision of a web of life sustained collectively with care and in balance with our ecological world, and Falquet (Reference Falquet2020) calls for feminism to resist ‘NGO-isation’ reliance on advocacy and service delivery rather than systemic change. This wing argues that the fundamental problems of current economies lie in the internal logic of the system: productivity is prioritised over solidarity, profit over equality, and capital over life. The resulting continuous capital-life conflict (Perez Orozco Reference Pérez Orozco2014; Rodríguez Enríquez Reference Rodríguez Enríquez, Carrasco Bengoa and Díaz Coral2017) can explain the permanent crisis and the constant precariousness of life. I consider this perspective the strongest basis for structural change, because of the mutually sustaining nature of the relationship among capitalism, racialised and ethnicity discrimination and extractivism. The anxiety generated by the private sector’s pursuit of profit growth overlooks the destruction of nature and human life. This is why the disruptive feminist critique calls for the creation of subversive spaces – common spaces, public spaces, and community networks of work – along with new institutions that follow alternative growth logics. For some, this includes degrowth, while others advocate for a new configuration of social and ecological metabolism (Perez Orozco and Mason-Deese Reference Pérez Orozco and Mason-Deese2022; Herrero Reference Herrero2024).
From this perspective, the solution does not lie in mercantilist economic relations. Instead, these feminists seek autonomous movements that create spaces that transcend monetary logic. To do this, basic macroeconomics must be revisited to incorporate a sector ignored in mainstream economic analysis: the care and reproduction sector. According to Elson (Reference Elson2002), macroeconomic sectors should consist of three rather than two components: the private sector, the state, and the care and reproductive sector. Including this third sector is critical, as overlooking it leaves uncompensated the unpaid work associated with it – typically done by women – and restricts their participation in the labour market and in public and political life. Integrating this sector into economic analysis highlights how this sector sustains the economy.
Intersectionality also serves as a theoretical and methodological tool for understanding how power relations intersect to devalue, dispossess, and enact violence against diverse and female bodies (Segato Reference Segato2016, Reference Segato2019; Federici Reference Federici2004). It proposes that economic relationships in the market should be understood as multidimensional, shaped by class, gender, race, and other social categories. These relationships change by geography and may be influenced by history, culture, and religion. However, intersectionality must not be seen as a simple sum of these conditions. Feminists argue for moving beyond a methodological individualist approach to understand people as relational beings, with bodies and emotions (Pérez Orozco Reference Pérez Orozco2014, Reference Pérez Orozco2017). Within feminist movements and intellectual discourse, there is no consensus on all interpretations. For example, Viveros Vigoya (Reference Viveros Vigoya2016) provides a broad perspective through practical investigation, while French feminist Jules Falquet (Reference Falquet2020) emphasises the concept of imbrication. The French approach contrasts with the social reproduction theory developed by feminists such as Federici (Reference Federici2004, Reference Federici2018) and Arruzza and Bhattacharya (Reference Arruzza and Bhattacharya2023), a debate beyond the scope of this work.
Intersectionality does not prescribe a single methodological technique but rather serves as a guiding framework to enhance economic research. Acknowledging the heterogeneity of individuals and the intertwining systems of oppression – heteropatriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism – requires that these elements be incorporated into economic models. This task is ongoing, as every country and even sub-territories within them possess distinct histories, forms of patriarchy, and racialised bodies. This makes policy-making from an intersectional perspective particularly challenging, as it often seems to involve deciding which lives or bodies to prioritise for improvement and which to leave behind. This leads to the final concept I consider crucial: the popular economy and its relationship to the state.
In recent years, in Argentina, a sector comprising unemployed, impoverished, and autonomous workers has grown in organisation and demanded greater access to social rights. After years of struggle, they have secured concessions such as subsidies, programmes, and self-organised soup kitchens, financed partially by the state.
The concept of the popular economy gained public attention with the mobilisation of the Confederación de Trabajadores de la Economía Popular (CTEP, Confederation of Workers of the Popular Economy). The popular economy includes productive projects, small family businesses, cooperatives, social and neighbourhood organisations, grassroots movements, autonomous workers, and even social enterprises. Many of these groups have long depended on the popular economy for their livelihoods. This sector is highly heterogeneous, with overrepresentation of female trades such as commerce and household cleaning (Fernández-Álvarez et al Reference Fernández-Álvarez, Sorroche and Balza2024), but one characteristic that defines the popular economy is the persistent precariousness of daily activities. Their struggle is for better living conditions and a critique of the productivity paradigm of the traditional economy.
Social policies and the role of the state: Gender bias
In public agendas, there is often a division between economic and social policies. For instance, development is typically framed as a strategy to reduce inequality and increase access to rights. However, this goal is seldom achieved, largely because the separation between these two spheres persists over time. When a country implements industrial promotion policies, for example, the sexual division of labour embedded in the economic structure exacerbates gender inequality. As a result, policies that initially appear successful may, in fact, reinforce oppressive relationships and deepen inequality.
In the last decades in Latin America, many progressive governments adopted traditional economic policies aimed at fostering market growth and employment, such as the governments of Lula (Brasil), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Correa (Ecuador) and Kichner (Argentina). These policies have been riddled with class, gender, and racial biases because they have failed to challenge the existing social structures of power; instead, they often reinforce them. After implementing traditional market economic growth policies (public investment in civil infrastructure, company subsidies, fiscal facilities for big investment, cheap credit to small companies), governments typically collect taxes and redistribute wealth through some monetary strategies (cheap credits for consuming and housing, income transfers), and other non-monetary approaches (health and educational public systems).
Influenced by the feminist movement, these policies started to take another chapter for gender and intersectional agendas, as well as seeking to uplift low-income workers, women and other marginalised groups. However, these new policy directions have created a new subordination. Now, vulnerable lives and bodies depend on the state budget and its shifting political priorities. At the end, the colonial and heteropatriarchy structure still remains in actual societies.
Before the advent of gender policies, the redistributive dynamic was particularly focused on conditional cash transfer policies. Rodríguez Enríquez (Reference Rodríguez Enríquez2011) studied the case of these policies for Latin America and describes how these transfers often perpetuate women’s caregiving and reproductive roles, particularly in low-income sectors.
Following the expansion of feminist ideas, a range of other policies have focused on specific demands related to women’s autonomy and diversity, including reproductive rights (such as access to abortion in public hospitals), sexual education, anti-violence gender policies, social security system benefits (such as pensions for women working in the informal sector and in their homes), and economic assistance programmes targeting women’s autonomy. Some governments implemented gender-responsive budgeting policies to analyse and address gender disparities in public spending. Furthermore, policies recognising gender and racial identities have been successfully introduced, though the challenge seemed to lie in translating symbolic recognition into material improvements for these social groups (Fraser Reference Fraser, Henderson and Waterstone2009). In Argentina, such policies began to emerge during the latter part of the Kirchner administration (2008–2014), alongside broader progressive and centre-left policies. The focus on gender in policy-making gained momentum particularly after 2014, propelled by the strength of the feminist movement. This culminated between 2020 and 2023 with the creation of the National Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversities. Unfortunately, however, this ministry was dismantled by the current government in early 2024.
This does not imply that there were no gender policies prior to 2014, but the approach to constructing and formulating these policies shifted. Before the inclusion of ‘gender’ in policy titles, the benefits that women received were often incidental – women were considered the ‘natural’ channels of social policies because of their caregiving roles and their overrepresentation among the poorest sectors of society. Women were primarily viewed as conduits for delivering food, care and education to children and sometimes they were responsible for sustaining life in their neighbourhoods and communities. Thereby, they receive several monetary and non-monetary transfers even though the policies were not explicitly designed to benefit women. The use of women as channels to implement social welfare and life-sustaining policies inadvertently reinforced their traditional caregiving roles and further entrenched the sexual division of labour. These policies often imposed additional unpaid work on women, limiting their ability to reflect on or change their situations.
This phenomenon can be traced back to the historical trajectories of welfare regimes, in which caregiving was viewed as the primary responsibility of households, essentially, an invisible and unpaid private sector (Perrot and Duby Reference Perrot and Duby2008). The state’s involvement was limited to specific areas like education or assistance programmes for families facing economic or social vulnerability, but its main role was to regulate markets and lead the economic growth. Therefore, the women must be at home attending their family (Fraser Reference Fraser2016, Federici Reference Federici2021).
Thus, the channelling of social policies has reinforced gender roles and the sexual division of labour. Nevertheless, this has not been the sole outcome because it has provided women with some possibilities for emancipation. In the following section, I will explore this argument through a case study.
Common kitchen programme in Tucumán: Past and focus
The programme studied originates from the severe food deficits caused by the neoliberal policies of the 1990s in Argentina. One of the strategies used by impoverished popular sectors to combat hunger was the establishment of soup kitchens and the creation of common dining halls (Ollas populares, merenderos), which later led to the institutionalisation of these dining halls within neighbourhoods as a strategy to address food insecurity (comedores populares, públicos and merenderos).
Tucumán reached the 2001 crisis with cases of acute malnutrition. The Permanent Household Survey (EPH in Spanish) by the National Statistic Institute (INDEC in Spanish) showed that over 60% of the population in northern provinces was living below the poverty line in that year. In this context, the provinces most affected by child malnutrition – according to anthropometric studies in the area – were Tucumán and Santiago del Estero (Mercer et al Reference Mercer, Bolzan, Ruiz, Brawerman, Marx and Adrogué2005).
Tucumán is a province in northern Argentina, characterised by an agricultural production structure and some development of the food industry. It is one of the regions with low income levels. Even though it currently does not leave people hungry it has high poverty rates. Its natural wealth allows for the exploitation of its resources through lemon exports; it also produces sugar, soybeans, and other fruits and legumes for the national market. There are also small-scale dairy farms and livestock farming. In addition to popular initiatives, once the government changed after the 2001 crisis, public strategies were promoted to address these difficulties, including the establishment of common dining halls in vulnerable neighbourhoods.
In Tucumán, children’s dining halls resolve the food needs of children aged 2 to 14, pregnant women, people with disabilities, and the elderly. They receive funding from the state, civil society organisations, and churches. Generally, they are managed by a local leader responsible for administering the resources they receive and reporting to the relevant authorities. Most children’s dining halls operate as community spaces where food is the central focus (Aráoz et al Reference Aráoz, Bonacina, Mena and Talassino2016).
Policymakers in the post-2001 crisis years recognised that, although the dining halls helped overcome hunger, they fostered a certain detachment between family members. Therefore, the local government decided to promote family meals (Paterlini Reference Paterlini2018). At the beginning of 2010, under the slogan comer en casa de nuevo (eating at home again) an alternative working model for meeting food needs was proposed. This was the programme Convertir Comedores en Cocinas Comunitarias (Conversion of Children’s Dining Halls into Common Kitchens)Footnote 1, giving rise to the emergence of Common Kitchens (Tucumán Reference Tucumán2017).
The origins of the kitchens stem from various causes. Some kitchens emerged from a reorganisational process, where they had previously been dining halls and gradually transitioned into common kitchens. There is also a group of kitchens formed due to demands from local governments, delegates, or mayors who had been supporting a group of families. Some kitchens were established spontaneously or through their own initiative, such as the Muñecas II kitchen, to which one interview participant belonged. She said that her kitchen was founded by a group of piqueteros (protesters)Footnote 2 who managed to set up a soup kitchen and later, with local state help, established one of the first common kitchens in Tucumán.
Another reported origin was when a member of a kitchen moved to a new location and, being already familiar with how the system works, she decided to start one in their new neighbourhood. This was the case of cooks Rosa and Eva, members of the Volver a Empezar (start over) kitchen, whose name holds symbolic meaning because they had to move and start everything over again.
Methodological consideration and gender epistemologies
Feminist epistemology has introduced new ways of constructing knowledge. These perspectives carefully acknowledge the researcher as a subject influenced by her own reality and subjectivities. Feminist approaches enable researchers to recognise their own history, culture, and social relations, and to frame knowledge as a situated practice that considers the point of view (Harding Reference Harding and Bartra1998, Reference Harding, Blazquez Graf, Flores Palacios and Ríos Everardo2012; Haraway Reference Haraway1995) and starting point (Korol Reference Korol2015).
A decolonial perspective further emphasises that power and submission dynamics emerge throughout the research process (Grosfoguel Reference Grosfoguel2016), highlighting the importance of a critical reflection about the methods that guide fieldwork. The research process must acknowledge these dynamics and take certain precautions – not to entirely overcome them, as this may seem utopian, but to recognise them as inherent to the process of knowledge construction.
In this vein, various authors have contributed to questioning how scientific knowledge is produced (Dagnino Contini et al Reference Dagnino Contini, Voscoboinik and Voscoboinik2021), proposing non-extractive approaches to engaging with society (Grosfoguel Reference Grosfoguel2016) that are sensitive to the needs and social issues of the communities involved in the research. This implies design methodologies that allow researchers and society to recognise the subjectivities behind the processes and admit the point of view of the author and create a feedback between the subjects and researcher during the fieldwork.
In this study, I have tried to follow the feminist epistemology critique and accept that my research was looking to understand the women and diverse realities. At the same time, the class position may be an important bias. This difference is difficult to resolve, and the final strategy was to try the use of pedagogy as a non-extractive approach at the moment of exchange with subjects (Korol Reference Korol2015). This implied complementing traditional semi-structured interviews with previous workshops and lectures with the group. Finally, we organised an afternoon activity using a board game that helped with other research objectives that I will present in other works. In the next paragraph, I will go deeper in this methodology and the agency concept.
Care and feminist economy: Between autonomy and agency
The disrupted feminist economics approach critiques the social construction of binary genders. However, this subsequently determines a sexual division of labour in accordance with cisgender binary stereotypes. Then this is reflected in public policies through conditional requirements for receiving benefits; in general, it calls for the assignment of caregiving and life reproduction work.
The social organisation of care is unjust and serves as a vector for the reproduction of inequality (Rodriguez Enriquez and Marzonetto Reference Rodríguez Enríquez and Marzonetto2016), because these duties do not allow women to participate in mercantilism and public spaces (markets, state). The term ‘care’ refers to activities essential for the existence and reproduction of individuals, providing both physical and symbolic elements that enable living in society. It includes self-care, direct care for others, household cleaning, shopping and food preparation, as well as managing schedules and transportation to educational and health centres, among other things (Rodriguez Enriquez and Marzonetto Reference Rodríguez Enríquez and Marzonetto2016). Care encompasses everything that allows for the reproduction of life, both one’s own and that of those who cannot care for themselves. A more complete understanding of distinctions within the term and varying lines of interpretation can be gained by consulting Batthyany (Reference Batthyány2020, Reference Batthyány, Baisotti and Vommaro2022).
Part of the unjust distribution of caregiving tasks is linked to the social construction of women’s capacity to care due to their ability to give birth. Supported by heteropatriarchal gender relations, it is sustained by cultural valuations reproduced through various mechanisms such as education, culture, advertising, religion, and institutions (Rodriguez Enriquez and Marzonetto Reference Rodríguez Enríquez and Marzonetto2016). Therefore, strategies aimed at achieving feminist emancipation or overcoming the obstacles of gender relations’ subordination should consider these subtle constructions, within the complex social matrix.
As a counter-proposal to this subordination, part of the feminist literature suggests considering public policies that aim to achieve gender autonomy and rights (Pautassi Reference Pautassi2016). Benavente and Valdés (Reference Benavente and Valdés2014) define autonomy as the degree of freedom a woman has to act according to her choice rather than of others. They emphasise a close relationship between women’s autonomy and the power spaces they can establish, both individually and collectively. It is important to highlight that the autonomy of a social group does not solely depend on the personal will of its members; rather the degree of autonomy of an individual is inseparable from the degree of autonomy of the social group to which they belong and their ‘assigned’ role or position in society (Benavente and Valdés Reference Benavente and Valdés2014).
On the other hand, I also highlight the works of Partenio (Reference Partenio2017) and Kaplan (Reference Kaplan, A Andujar, D’Antonio, Grammático and Ros2010), whose methodological proposals seek to find a politically aware and active subject while acknowledging their subordinate situation. Partenio develops a set of theoretical and methodological reflections aimed at demonstrating the revaluation of the notion of experience from gender and feminist studies, considering its connection to agency and biographical narratives. Kaplan studied the historical and militant memory of women during the dictatorial years in Latin America.
In both works, the narrative experiences are not merely empirical evidence or rhetorical constructions; rather, they become a matter of thinking critically about the contradictions that arise at the moment of conducting and analysing social studies. Overcoming essentialism, the subordinate positions do not preclude the possibility of agency; quite the opposite, they could be an important aspect at the time in evaluating the forward steps of certain movements and political actors.
Kaplan (Reference Kaplan, A Andujar, D’Antonio, Grammático and Ros2010) reflects this possibility clearly when women were not just victims of the terrorism of the State in Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s, rather they were part of different resistances in clandestine centres of torture. Also, Andújar et al (Reference Andújar, d’Antonio, Gil Lozano, Grammático and Rosa2009) use this approach to recompile different cases of the period referred to. Therefore, narrative experiences would express a complex participation in the social process, which the researcher must interpret not just as a voice from subordinate bodies, but also as expressions of their strength to struggle against their situation.
Furthermore, Mora (Reference Mora2008) describes agency as the dynamic and potentially transformative dimensions of practices. It considers some room for manoeuvre, potentially generating slow or even abrupt changes. Thereby, embodiment is another way to consider agency, because it is a way to corporalise our practices, and it allows us to stop thinking about mind and body or action and structure as separate categories. Mora states:
In poststructuralism, the capacity for agency contemplated takes the form of resistance, subversion, or resignification, understood in opposition to repression, domination, and subordination. Criticising this, Mahmood describes agency, in a broader sense, as a ‘modality of action’ that encompasses one’s sense of self, aspirations, projects, and the capacity to realise personal interests, desires, emotions, and bodily experiences (2008, 14; translation by the author)
This approach is used for analysing the interviews and focus group discussions, understanding that the agency of women is a performative and embodied practice, a unique element with their narratives and biographical history. I highlight this because policies could easily be dismissed for not achieving a revolutionary change. Nevertheless, this perspective will try to discuss the importance of resolving some material and time needs for subordinate bodies, and how this helps to create a progressive autonomy, even if it was not formulated by the social policy and does not achieve a complete gender emancipation. During this work emancipation is not strongly defined, but would be considered as the question that looks for the ways to break subordination relationships.
Fieldwork strategies
Within this methodological framework, I considered gender issues and the experiences of the women involved in the public programmes. I will refer to women because no other gender arises in the fieldwork. As indicated above, I conducted a case study of a local social policy established in 2008, which was operational until 2024. Its primary objective was focused on providing support and creating communal spaces for cooking daily meals for families. I employed a qualitative fieldwork analysis, conducting a documentary review of secondary resources and papers related to this policy. Grounded theory was used to analyse a set of interviews, selected based on expert criteria, as well as a focus group conducted through a workshop-based, playful strategy.Footnote 3
The programme had in 2020 around 109 kitchens serving approximately 1,950 families, totalling around 10,112 individuals. The primary data for this study were collected in 2022. There is no age limit for participation in the programme, and the ages of the interviewed women ranged from 22 to 63 years. Most of the women participating in common kitchens had not completed their secondary education and were either unemployed or not formally employed. Additionally, the majority of them had children.
Results and analysis
In the programme, there was no male presence. Like most social programmes, it was predominantly composed of women. During the interviews, participants justified this by stating ‘it is easier if men do not cook or just help in purchasing food’.
Throughout the interviews and the workshop activities, the women expressed great satisfaction with the programme. While they agreed that it was not perfect and that there were often discussions inside the kitchen, they mostly recognised that they were in a better situation now.
Part of the inquiry focused on how they entered the kitchen, why they continue in the programme, and what they had learned from this experience. The organisation within the kitchens was fairly consistent across all units: they received basic supplies from the state, such as fuel and non-perishable food, while the women collected money to purchase vegetables and meat. In some cases, the state constructed the kitchen, while in others, it was repurposed from an old meal centre. After cooking, they distributed the food to each family involved in the kitchen. Although not all families had a member who cooked, they made an effort to participate. They provided some food to families that could not afford the minimal fee for meat and vegetables. The women viewed themselves as active caregivers within their kitchen group.
Beyond this dynamic, some women recognised how the programme had changed their lives. The older participants noted that as their children had grown up, they now assisted the younger women with cooking. In some instances, the programme opened an internal school in which women receive political, economic and social training. In other kitchen experiences, women created radio programmes to share important information about gender violence, women’s rights, and local news. In more established kitchens, some productive food cooperatives were formed with cooking and selling food as their primary activities. Additionally, some women tried to return to their primary or secondary education, as they had gained time for this, thanks to the efficiency of cooking for large groups and the division of duties among participants.
The concept of agency emerged when some participants discussed their roles as heads of households. They asserted that they were the heads of their families, regardless of whether they worked outside the home. They described themselves as
the one who is dedicated to being at home, taking care of everything, keeping the accounts
the one who manages the income and purchases and organises the expenses. It’s not that one has power over the other, but rather that the man manages the household (translation by the author). Footnote 4
Within each family, it appeared that gender roles largely adhered to traditional norms. In addition to their work in the kitchen, the women were asked about their domestic responsibilities at home. Most reported that other household members also helped, but the primary responsibility for these tasks falls to woman, mothers and daughters. It is important to note that they did not receive remuneration for this work. According to the interviews, the time reported spent on domestic tasks at home varied between 3 to 6 hours per day.
The women were also asked about their caregiving responsibilities for minor children, elderly individuals, people with disabilities, or other household members. One interviewee, Eva, mentioned that she is the primary caregiver for her children, dedicating 24 hours a day to them. She emphasised that her youngest son had autism, and she could not neglect him for even a moment, a situation which consumed a significant amount of her time. Eva also expressed her discomfort in leaving her son with strangers, so when she went to the kitchen, she delegated his care to her daughters, for which she did not compensate them. It is important to note this sharing of the burden of caregiving with her daughters, which effectively transmitted the burden to other women.
Conversely, many of the women interviewed exhibited significant autonomy in decision-making within their households in relation to men. This autonomy was further underscored by analysing the interviewees’ responses to the statement, ‘women take care of household chores, and men go out to work’. In this context, Frida from the kitchen Volver a Empezar stated:
I think that women should not be enslaved in the kitchen. Women must work and not let men impose their will. In the past, men provided the money while women were enslaved at home with the children and endured all the humiliations that men inflicted on them. I believe that both women and men have the right to work and earn money (translation by the author)
Another interviewee, Alicia, affirmed:
Just because women are at home doesn’t mean they have to do all the cleaning and cooking. Also, women shouldn’t be restricted from going out to work simply because they are women (translation by the author)
Continuing with the exploration of perceptions regarding some well-known popular phrases, the interviewees were asked for their opinions on the phrase, ‘eso que llaman amor es trabajo no pago‘ (what you call love is unwaged work).Footnote 5
Most of the interviewees had never heard this phrase before but interpreted it as follows:
In reality, there should be payment for housework, because now my husband is not here, but when he was, the work he did outside, I did inside without being paid, and I also have my needs, my things, my expenses. To me, it is not love; love would be a kiss or a caress, but not a job.
Do you think that love will pay for things? I think that is wrong because love is one thing, but the economic situation cannot be resolved with love. If you have children, you do not feed them with love; you have to work and make an effort, both the man and the woman. I believe that in a couple, both should be equal.
If women had to be paid for everything they do at home, their wages would be very high.
These comments suggest that many women sought economic recognition for their roles in the home – recognition that society and the market often fail to provide.
Another interesting finding was the potential for savings expressed by some interviewees. They saved time and some money, but most women confessed that they used this extra time for their children and to purchase items for the household, such as bricks to build another room or to improve home infrastructure. They do not use this time or money for their personal interests. In the afternoon board game fieldwork, many women expressed interest in learning about economics and politics, by expressing things as ‘deciding when to take on debt’.
Agency in the common kitchen programme
From the results, several clues emerged regarding the potential for women’s autonomy in constructing common kitchen networks. First, many of the women interviewed considered themselves heads of households, which contrasts with statistics regularly collected by INDEC. Second, through various channels, they managed to improve their time management and budgeting thanks to the development of community spaces and sustained activity over time. In fact, in some kitchens, several women had launched gastronomic ventures and fairs.
This is an apparent unexpected result for a policy that just reproduces gender roles. I suggest that this result would be explained for the community organisation component. Thereby, cooks are creating new projects with clear feminist horizons though they do not necessarily identify as feminists.
If we consider the responses and comments of women, setting aside the sexual division of labour for a moment, we can attempt the exercise proposed by Partenio: ‘…unravelling the links between ways of living, ways of producing, and ways of narrating them’ (2017, 93; translation by the author).
These findings indicate small advances toward women’s autonomy. While it may not be possible to speak of complete emancipation, there was a discernible agency emerging in some women as they experienced unexpected benefits from the policy.
However, compared to the studies by Kaplan (Reference Kaplan, A Andujar, D’Antonio, Grammático and Ros2010), it becomes clear that situations might differ significantly. Notably, there was a lack of high levels of explicit violence against women’s bodies, as seen in the contexts analysed by the author. Additionally, many of the women involved in the kitchens did not have a very active political life. Nevertheless, the invitation to step out of the private sphere – even if it meant continuing to perform reproductive tasks – shifted their initial positions dramatically.
Reflecting on the experiences these women expressed regarding gender roles and subordination to household tasks, I observed a certain degree of agency emerging, allowing them to cultivate autonomy within their private spheres after they had been able to inhabit and appropriate other public spaces. In these spaces, women built new networks, connected with each other, and gained resources they previously lacked. The confidence that came from not feeling alone, along with the opportunity to grow through productive or cultural projects, was invaluable for personal and community development.
Final reflections
One of the principal aspects of this type of policy is its sustainability over time due to cost-effectiveness. While some initial investment is required – either to build new kitchens or to upgrade existing soup kitchens – these policies can be sustained and replicated across different territories.
Women in the programme mentioned several goals, including the opportunity to save time and reduce their workload. In some instances, this had enabled them to initiate group productive ventures. Although these small cooperatives remain precarious, the policy has yielded gender-related outcomes that contribute to an ongoing process of emancipation. This is an important finding to consider in the design of gender policies and should be included in quantitative impact assessments, such as analysing reductions in time poverty, material improvement and women networking.
I want to highlight that the opportunity for women to work together and share daily tasks fosters a sense of community. This community has autonomously created additional spaces, such as a radio station and cooperative initiatives.
Indeed, the objectives of the programme had changed over the final year, thanks in part to the actions of the feminist movement. While these changes may not be fully reflected in official documentation, the programme aimed to offer women more options for education, the formation of working groups, and initiatives to combat gender violence, as well as support for completing their productive projects.
From a broader macroeconomic perspective, this type of policy evidences the benefits of collaborative institutions. Public education and health systems have successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of state policies. A national health and care system, complemented by neighbourhood infrastructure and community workers, could be a vital next step in improving living conditions in Argentina. Instead of merely expanding job markets, community projects may serve as a better option, as they benefit any adult responsible for children, formalise informal caregiving roles, and create new opportunities. Therefore, strategic policies like these should be integrated into development programmes, as they generate employment, reduce biases, free women from unpaid labour, and enhance child education.
Another critical debate among feminist movements centres on the issue of relying solely on markets or expecting the state to resolve all problems. Can markets and states genuinely alleviate oppressive systems? These structures often appear to perpetuate and concentrate power within society. Discussions also lead to the possibility of new states that challenge colonialism and heteropatriarchal relationships.
Emilia Millón is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (University of Buenos Aires). She teaches at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán (National University of Tucumán,) and Universidad Nacional de Lanús (National University of Lanús. She is involved in the ‘Historical materialism in the Agrarian South’ Study Group (ASN), the ‘Feminisms, bodies and territories’ group of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, (CLACSO), the Fiscal Workspace for Equity and ANDHES (Lawyers in the Argentine Northwest in Human Rights and Social Studies).
