Time for feminist transformative policies: Towards a National Care System in Argentina

CORINA RODRÍGUEZ ENRÍQUEZ

Spotlight Report on Sustainable Development 2021: Demanding Justice beyond Rethoric

Global Policy Forum

Año: 2021; p. 71 - 73

The COVID-19 pandemic haseloquentlyexposed the urgentneed for structural changes inorder to start to dismantle thebasic knots that reproduce inequality.It also has made it clearthat public policies are crucial,and that States have the capacityto implement them, as they did inthe recent emergency context.The current crisis also highlightedthe centrality of care insustaining life. From specializedhealthcare to unpaid care work athome, intensified to the maximumin contexts of confinement, thepandemic has made visible boththe systemic role of care and theunjust way in which the need forit is currently socially addressed.In this context and going forward,this situation may consolidate,with increased ?family-ization?as public provision weakens, or,on the contrary, the pandemicmay open up the opportunity todevelop integrated care systemscentered on public services thatpromote social co-responsibilityin care.1Argentina, with the advances thatare taking place there towards thebuilding of a national care system,offers an interesting examplein this regard. This process wasnot born out of the emergency,as it is the result of years of workon this agenda from academia,civil society, the women?s andfeminist movements, and publicpolicy spaces. However, it hasbeen boosted by the situation thatled, among other things, to thevisibility of the centrality andessentiality of care.