The researcher and teacher Soledad Quereilhac - governor of Governor Axel Kicillof - and the anthropologist Irina Karamanos -wood of the Chilean president Gabriel Boric- question the role of First Lady to propose that there are new ways to assume it: the political scientist Carolina Barry, the historian Julia Rosembergand the doctor in Natalí Incamination letters analyze this figure with historical perspective and challenging the traditional reading that surrounds those who exert that protocol function.How to think about a role that has been occupied in such diverse ways over decades?Should we reformulate or suppress it?Should the couples of whom assume a position of being able to change their agenda to also assume formal tasks?

"I am not the first lady, that figure does not close me," said Quereilhac, a doctor in letters from the University of Buenos Aires and researcher at CONICET and said it is a role that "is perishing, it has nothing to do with the 21st century"And that "it had to do with moments when only men exercised political power" and that women were only "accompaniment figurines".

On the other side of the mountain range, the anthropologist and political scientist Irina Karamanos, couple and companion of militancy of the elected president of Chile, Gabriel Buric, said that "after several weeks of design", he decided "to assume the role traditionally called 'First Lady', with the commitment to reformulate it ".

For Carolina Barry, author of the brand new text “The Evita is made.The other first Peronist ladies ”(omnivorous editor), it is“ a role that by not having any legal or any kind of pattern is open to an amount of immeasurable possibilities, so we have so many women that throughout the worldThey have fulfilled very different functions.Perhaps one extreme would be Eva Perón that redefined the role of the first ladies and from their role it was necessary for the following to explain or clarify what theirs was going to be regarding Eva without naming it ".

As an example, the political scientist cites the president of the president (Arturo) Frondizi that when traveling to Washington clarified that "it had nothing to do with the figure of Evita": "It was immediately necessary to position himself with respect to a role as disruptive as the one who exercised Eva, which ends up putting itself as of the President of the Nation without occupying any position in the government structure ”, graphics.

Historian Julia Rosemberg argues that “although it is true that Peronism exists more than 70 years ago, you have to think about differences, that there are and many.Still it can be said that it was the political experience that allowed the greatest amount of advances for women and diversities.I refer to the political rights of women, the laws sanctioned during Kirchnerism as the equal marriage law, the gender identity but also to the women's presidents.Isabel Perón as the first president woman, Cristina Kirchner as the first woman elected president ".

The author of "Eva and women" argues that "it is no accident that this progress of women in territories exclusively of men has been enabled during Peronism, since beyond the differences of each situation it is the political experience in Argentinathat allowed and supported greater equity between men and women and diversities.This has to do with the inclusion of marginalized and excluded sectors by Argentine politics "and it is encouraged to assert that" there is some of that political identity that arises in 1945 that will be maintained with respect to women and diversities in these 70 years".

The doctor in Natalí Incamination letters, author of the book "Peronism for youth" (planet), coincides in the "transgressor that was the place of women in politics that she promoted with the women's Peronist party and the incorporation of women that thePeronism underwent "and points out that" that left a very large brand that has to do with heterosexual couples in Peronism ".

In that sense, he affirms that “Cristina was still called Lady of Kirchner but it is true that she often recovered the Fernández de Kirchner and there operates the importance of the couple, of the duo: that is one of the possible resignifications of the first ladythat it does not necessarily have to do with the importance of women beyond being under the shadow of man but with the couple linked to politics ”.

Thinking about Quereilhac and Karamanos, Barry says that "they are two interesting cases" and points out that "you have to depart from the traditional role in the facts, it is a debate that is being raised today in Chile by declarations of Irina, for its previous activity, itsstatements and because the press defined it as 'La Polola del Electo President' and a discussion was generated in which Boric himself intervened and different sectors of society who questioned that a woman with Irina's academic trajectory was treated only as'La Polola' ".

For the teacher and researcher at UNTREF, “it is a debate that in Argentina still did not give himself at all, there was a glimpse of thinking about the role of the first lady when the photos appeared in Olivos of Fabiola's birthday (Yañez) but it is adebate to be done ".

Barry insists that these are roles that are defined in fact.“It seemed striking that I said that he was finally going to assume his role as First Lady but that he was going to redefine him and deal with interministerial work, issues related to feminism.It is an interesting point: why would the president's wife have to take care of issues for which he was not elected? ”He says.

He also recovers what happened with President Emmanuel Macron in France when “he opened the debate about the role he had to occupy or not his wife because it seemed to her that just as she had accompanied him in her training years in politics, it was important that the roleHis wife was defined in a legal framework.That had no parliamentary consent and no role was approved, ”he recalls.The three agree that Eva Perón was disruptive when thinking about this function and each conjecture and analyzes those scope.

For unbeliever, "it was clearly a figure that broke the schemes of the first ladies, also had a ceremonial and protocol function but made it live together with an advanced policy function for the time".This is because, he explains, “it did not benefit the style of photos and ceremonial and protocol but raised a role of the State and the presence of the foundation that was much more organic.That gave him a very strong symbolic power ”.

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Rosemberg argues that "Eva Perón is explainable by its own characteristics but also by the political movement that crossed her in her own personal, political life" ".For one of those responsible for the "a little dirty" podcast, "it is usually said that Peronism extended rights and as one more chapter that extended the rights of women.And it is interesting to think that it was even what it also did with respect to the movement of women, in the transformation that produced in half of the population of Argentina ”."For what was the Argentine political scene, it generated an immense political breakup that for 70 years will generate changes over women and diversities," he says.“That it has been during Peronism that first ladies so rupturists have given regard to what should be the role of the first lady like Eva Perón, Cristina Kirchner but also Isabel Perón or Chiche Duhalde, who had a different role but was a leaderImportant policy, he speaks and much of how Peronism thought of women and gave them a different role, ”he remarks.

At that point, unknowns that “Cristina transcended the role of First Lady not only because of her policy survival after Nestor's death but also by her own weight, for her specificity, for the mode, better or worse, she has had to governand continue in the public sphere.Today is the female figure mentioned when talking about power in Argentina.That is very strange because power remains eminently masculinized ".“It is a role that has resonances with Evita's because it seems to be subsumed to a male domination by a heterosexual couple that gives him power but that actually escapes from that place and open a possibility of thinking about women in politics thatIt is very transgressive ”, complete.

Barry adds that “when Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is still called‘ Mrs. Kirchner ’is located as an appendix figure and it is a way to undermine the political role she has had in recent decades".In her book, in which it deals with some first ladies from different parts of the country, the Conicet researcher underlines that “in the 21st century, her role could be considered anachronistic, however, a first lady is likely to influence theGovernment decisions, generate strong support and also cause political crisis.The potential power of these women cannot be ignored "because" the political involvement of the first ladies complexes studies on democracy and representation ".

Carolina Barry, Julia Rosemberg y Natalí Incaminato y el diálogo primeras damas y feminismos

Feminisms shook concepts, mobilized new questions and contributed rates to the public conversation that Natalí Incamination, Julia Rosemberg and Carolina Barry are responsible for dialogue with a reading about the first ladies, their roles, functions and legacies.

For Barry, feminism of course helps generate new readings about the role that is expected of these figures and brings the look of “an Australian feminist that says that it must be suppressed, both for the population that does not have to bank a womanAnd to his family but also by the woman who does not have to be subjected to an agenda of activities from the moment that her partner or husband assumes an executive position ".

“It is to think why many women leave their previous activities to assume their role as First Lady,”.A case is that of Juliana Awada who had a previous activity as an entrepreneur and when she assumed the presidency Mauricio Macri left her aside and dealt fully to her role as First Lady in protocol activities ".

For the researcher, the same does not happen when they are men who occupy these roles: “In the case of Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel, Theresa May or the Prime Minister of New Zealand, her partners did not leave their previous activities, they were not opened by aparallel agenda ".

Incamination warns that the first ladies are read “to a large extent as somewhat residual figures and although it is true that we are in a moment of overlapping of different logics, because it cannot be said that the whole society is feminist or much less, much less,There are a number of publications and imaginary that continue to work the idea of the first lady in a more traditional way ”.

In that sense, “the idea of Juliana Awada's first lady and the nation's notes, magazines like Hello or Vogue that continue to work this figure linked to fashion, how they dress, how they behave, with the ceremonial and protocol thatPerhaps it is one of the dimensions but also - identifies - other updates that had nothing tolinked to the State but to functions of a certain public service ”.

Anyway, he recognizes in that role “a subordinate place in hierarchical terms, with certain functions in relation to the feminine as maternal, aesthetic.That comes into crisis and the reason why figures such as lonelinessThey have their own trajectories ".

Incamination recognizes “modifications that have to do with feminism but also with whom they are the first ladies because if a woman already has a certain profession and lives on that, neither can the time or desire to fulfill functions that are determined andThey have to do with the ceremonial, activities linked to the maternal, certain social services that we have seen in first recent ladies ”.

Those who look at the center of the public scene for being with someone who exercises a public office usually generate diverse speeches, about the differences in the treatment of these figures.Rosemberg believes that “the first ladies that have generated greater rejection have to do not only with the fact of being women, on which a certain hatred has been pointed out because they also generated an discomfort of another style.In the case of Eva Perón she was a woman and she was also a black head that came from the interior of the province of Buenos Aires, she was illegitimate daughter and represented and attacked certain interests.In the case of Cristina Kirchner the same: is the fact of being a woman and attacking and defending certain interests.In that sense, the gender perspective is not enough to analyze these women, but also has to do with what interests they represented and attacked ”.

"To the gender perspective, a class or political perspective must be added because it is in that network that where the place of these women and the loves and hatreds that have aroused can be better understood," he defines.

By Emilia Racciatti (Télam).-

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