CUZCO, Peru, Oct 06 (IPS) – “My father was very ‘machista’, he used to beat my mom… It was a really unhappy life,” stated Dionisio Ticuña, a resident of the agricultural group of Canincunca, on the outskirts of the city of Huaro, within the southern Peruvian highlands area of Cuzco greater than 3,000 meters above sea stage.
As we speak, at 66 years of age, he’s comfortable that he managed to not copy the mannequin of masculinity that his father confirmed him, wherein being a person was demonstrated by exercising energy and violence over girls and kids.
“Now I’m an enemy of the ‘spouse beaters’, I do not hang around with those who have been raised that method and I do not take note of the taunts or ugly issues they may say to me,” he stated in an interview with IPS in his new adobe home, which he in-built 2020 and the place he lives together with his spouse and their youngest daughter, 20. Their three different youngsters, two boys and a woman, have already develop into unbiased.
On this South American nation of 33 million individuals, tolerance of violence, significantly gender-based violence, is excessive, and there’s a robust division of roles inside {couples}.
A nationwide survey on social relationships, carried out in 2019 by the governmental Nationwide Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI), confirmed that 52 % of ladies believed they need to first fulfill their function as moms and wives earlier than pursuing their goals, 33 % believed that in the event that they have been untrue they need to be punished by their husband, and 27 % stated they deserved to be punished in the event that they disrespected their husband.
The survey additionally discovered {that a} excessive proportion of Peruvians agreed with the bodily punishment of kids. Of these interviewed, 46 % thought it was a parental proper and 34 % believed it helped self-discipline youngsters so they’d not develop into lazy.
Katherine Pozo, a Cuzco lawyer with the agricultural improvement program of the Flora Tristán Peruvian Girls’s Heart, instructed IPS that masculinity in Peru, significantly in rural areas, remains to be very machista or sexist.
“The concepts acquired in childhood and transmitted from technology to technology are that males have energy over girls, that ladies owe them obedience, and that ladies’s function is to deal with their males and deal with the house and the household. This considering is an impediment to the integral expertise of their masculinities and to the popularity of ladies’s rights,” she stated in an interview at her house in Cuzco, the regional capital.
Based mostly on that evaluation the Heart determined to contain males within the work they do in rural communities in Cuzco to assist girls train their rights and have larger autonomy in making selections about their lives, selling the strategy to a brand new type of masculinity amongst males.
In 2018 the Heart launched this course of, satisfied that it was crucial to boost consciousness amongst males about gender equality so that ladies’s efforts to interrupt down discrimination may flourish. The undertaking will proceed till subsequent 12 months and is supported by two Spanish establishments: the Basque Company for Improvement Cooperation and Muguen Gainetik.
IPS visited totally different Quechua indigenous villages in Cuzco´s Andes highlands to speak to farmers who’re working to shed gender prejudices and beliefs that, they acknowledge, have introduced them unhappiness. Now, they’re step by step taking important steps with the assist of the Heart, which is working to generate a brand new view of masculinity in these communities.
“I’ve been married to my spouse Delia for 35 years, we’ve got raised our youngsters and I can say that you simply really feel nice peace whenever you study to respect your accomplice and to point out your innermost feelings,” stated Ticuña, a participant within the initiative.
“Being head of family is difficult, however it would not give me the proper to mistreat. I made a decision to not be like my father and to be a special type of particular person as a way to lead a cheerful life together with her and our youngsters,” he stated, sitting on the entrance to his house in Canincunca.
Recognizing that ladies do work
Hilario Quispe, a 49-year-old farmer from the Secsencalla group within the city of Andahuaylillas, instructed IPS that in his space there’s an excessive amount of machismo.
In his house, at 3100 meters above sea stage, he stated that he has been capable of perceive that ladies additionally work when they’re at house.
“Truly, they do greater than males, we’ve got just one job, however they wash, cook dinner, weave, deal with the kids, take care of the animals, exit to the fields…And I used to say: my spouse would not work,” he mirrored.
Due to the distribution of duties based mostly on stereotyped gender roles, girls spend extra time than males on unremunerated care duties within the family.
INEI reported in 2021 that within the totally different areas of the nation, Peruvian girls have a larger general workload than males as a result of the household duties fall on their shoulders.
In rural areas, girls work a median of 76 hours per week, 47 of that are in unpaid actions involving work within the house, each caring for his or her households and their crops.
Within the case of males, their general workload is 64 hours per week, most of which, 44 hours, are dedicated to paid work.
Breaking down stereotypes
Pozo, with the Flora Tristán Heart, cited information from the official report that discovered that within the countryside, married girls spend 17 hours per week in kitchen actions and males solely 4; in housekeeping seven and their companions three; and in childcare 11 and their husbands seven.
Quispe, who together with his spouse, Hilaria Mena, has 4 youngsters between the ages of six and 17, stated it was a revelation to know that the totally different actions his spouse performs at house are work.
“If she wasn’t there, every part would disintegrate. However I’m not going to attend for that to occur, I’m dedicated to cease being machista. These concepts which were put in our minds as youngsters don’t assist us have a great life,” he remarked.
The division of Cuzco is a Peruvian vacationer space, the place the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu is the primary attraction. It has greater than 1.3 million inhabitants, of which 40 % reside in rural areas the place agriculture is likely one of the major actions. A lot of it’s subsistence farming, which requires the participation of the totally different family members.
That is exactly the case of the Secsencalla farming group, the place, though the brand new generations have made it to larger schooling, they’re nonetheless tied to the land.
Rolando Tito, 25, is in his third 12 months of programs engineering on the Nationwide College of Cuzco, and helps his mom, Faustina Ocsa, 64, with the agricultural work.
“I need to higher myself and proceed serving to my mom, she is a widow and though she was unable to review, she at all times inspired me to take action. Instances are not like hers when girls did not have alternatives, however there are nonetheless males who assume they need to keep within the kitchen,” he instructed IPS, together with his Quechua-speaking mom at his aspect.
Sitting by the doorway to the group’s bodega, which is usually used as a middle for conferences and gatherings, with the assistance of a translator, his mom recalled that she skilled a whole lot of violence, that fathers weren’t supportive of their daughters and that they mistreated their wives. And he or she stated she hoped that her son could be a great man who wouldn’t observe within the footsteps of the boys who got here earlier than him.
“I’ve realized about equality between women and men,” her son stated. “For instance, I’m serving to in the home, I’m cooking and washing, that doesn’t make me much less of a person, and when I’ve a accomplice I can’t have the concept she has to serve me. Collectively we are going to work in the home and on the farm.”
The identical sentiment was expressed by Saúl Huamán, 35, who has develop into a father for the primary time together with his child Luas, six months previous.
“Now I’ve to fret about three mouths to feed. I was a machine operator however now I solely work within the fields and I’ve to work arduous to make it worthwhile. With my spouse Sonia we share the chores, whereas she cooks I watch the child, and I’m additionally studying to organize meals,” he says as his smiling spouse listens.
Pozo the lawyer acknowledged that it’s not straightforward to vary cultural patterns so strongly rooted within the communities, however stated that it’s not unattainable.
“It’s like sowing the seed of equality, you need to water and nurture it, after which harvest the fruits, which is a greater life for ladies and men,” she stated.
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