Musade management model in strengthening women as activists in social struggles
Summary
This article exposes the experience of the management model developed by Musade. A women’s organization with 34 years of work with women survivors of domestic and gender violence and also contributes to the strengthening of the leadership of those same women to be incorporated as activists of both the women’s movement and the popular sectors of Costa Rica. His birth is associated with a successful health experience called Hospital without walls. This organizational practice is positioned from the local development approach, with a work strategy for thematic axes for the impulse of human talent, articulated to five moments for the knowledge management of women survivors of gender violence to strengthen them as leaders in theirSocial Movement activist role. In the recovery of Musade’s experience, evidence of the contribution of the social work discipline was found, in the implementation of the management model of this organization, as well as the importance of its replicability at the time when violence against women continuesin growth and the neoliberal and patriarchal system, it is strengthened without a forceful and clear response from the organized communities.
Introduction
The Association Women united in Health and Development, (Musade), is a non -governmental organization of women, feminist and autonomous, which was founded in 1986 in the West region of Costa Rica. For approximately 20 years, it worked in the cantons of San Ramón, Palmares, Naranjo, Zarcero and Sarachí of the province of Alajuela, but in recent years it managed to extend to other regions of the country namely: central, Atlantic, Central Pacific, Brunca andNorth Huetar.
This organization stands out for the impulse of a local development model, self-sustainable, whose management is aimed at building support strategies to survivors of gender and intrafamily violence, with a political perspective to transcend the understanding of the problem that affects them,personal plane to social. Musade makes women who enter as users of their services, initiate a participation process until they are incorporated as activists to the social movement.
The indicated organization arises within the framework of the “Hospital without walls” health program, which was implemented in the 70s and was a recognized health practice in Costa Rica, Latin America and the world, because in 1999 it received the awardWorld Health Care World Cup granted by the World Health Organization, for its impact on the improvement of population health rates. On the other hand, the work methodology established at the time of this health program, such as participatory diagnosis, popular education, participatory research, typical of social work work, have a direct influence on the Musade methodology forThe integral approach to women’s historical problems.
It also created a strong social fabric organized in health, in the community, which became a platform for the impulse of subsequent organizational experiences such as Musade.
At the time of the “Hospital without walls” program, the Costa Rican social movement deploys a series of protest actions against the measures established from the structural adjustment programs (PAES). Serra, Ortiz. This represents for the population of the area of attraction of the “Hospital without walls” a space for the exercise of its leadership as a movement in defense of health, where some active women are incorporated as part of the social fabric in health, a process in whichrecords for the first time, the presence of women in public demonstrations;Some of them are initially summoned to the meetings that give rise to Musade.
The objective of this article is to expose the experience of the management model developed by Musade, as a social organization that contributes to the strengthening of the leadership of women survivors of gender and intrafamily violence and that are incorporated as activists to the social movement of the popular sectors of the popular sectors of the popular sectorsregion of. The substantive elements of the experience are explored, which with the support of the social work discipline, have transformed it into a replicable model.
There are broad documentary sources about Musade that support this article, which come from studies carried out by students in their academic practices, degree and mastery;Korea, or et al, Delgado, D et al, Araya, F et al, wolf, s, Cruz and Castro, Morera. Most of these studies are related to individual and group attention to women survivors of domestic violence, as well as other organizational processes implemented by the organization. A recent study on the organizational fabric of the West region, makes relevant contributions on the object of this article.
Other sources of information that supports this article, comes from documents such as: Proceedings of assemblies constituting Musade, work memories, three individual interviews with women’s collaborating activists of the organization: (Marcela Montanaro, Irené Barrantes, Esperanza Tasies), andThe contributions of a focal group that was convened to session on October 3, 2020, consisting of 10 leaders of the organization that currently participate in different projects of the same, which for the reasons of safeguarding their identity will be appointed with a pseudonym.
Theoretical Bases of the Management Model for the Participation of Women in Musade
To analyze the Musade Management Model, its theoretical approach is supported in the patriarchy as a system of powers that is based on the sex-gender system, through which situations of abuse and violence are legitimized, which limits among other aspectsSocial participation and leadership. In this context it is recognized that people assume differentiated roles that are not determined by biological sex, but the attributes that are assigned socially, by the fact of having experienced from birth the experiences, rites and customs attributed to each gender.
These roles are transmitted through gender socialization, from where mandates that build a gender identity and a sexual division of labor, organizing social relations between the public and the private are incorporated from. Likewise, by incorporating the category of community participation, as a tool that transforms the possibilities of participation of women, and questions the exercise of power as an obstacle in the full enjoyment of the right to participation and exercise of the leadership of the leadership of thewomen, it allows you to identify the interdependence between all these aspects in a dynamic relationship, from which possibilities or limitations for women’s leadership are forged.
The private sphere is considered the world of domestic, biological reproduction, childhood upbringing and education, unpaid and not recognized work as such, intimate relationships, kinship, affections and satisfaction ofbasic needs in particular and the species in general. It is the space identified as that of everyday life, reproduction. The public sphere is everything that happens outside the home, and where the work generating money and exchange value, collective action and power are developed
Patriarchy is a generic social order of power. Lagarde, justifies the domain of men over women, based on an alleged inferiority of it, with the mediation of different institutions and social representations such as those indicatedandrocentric, stolen history and male law. Thus, the presence of a system of powers reveals social relations, where the domination of the male gender over the female is established and consequently creates situations of violence against women with an impact on their integral development, access to thesocial participation, political power and leadership.
In this sense, there are multiple forms of domination within society, when a social group seizes the mechanisms that regulate power and put it at its service, a superstructure of domination is built. According to Lagarde’s approach in 1999, legitimate culture the presence of power as a strategy of control and social organization, which empowers the use and abuse of power which generates situations of violence.
Likewise, including the gender perspective, in this article, allows to assume a critical and reflective analysis about the position that men and women occupy in society and the reconstruction of social relations in search of equality and equity.
On the other hand, the sexual division of labor, is historically determined by unequal gender relationships that cover, thus marking two spheres: the private one that represents "the feminine" (feelings, weakness, etc.) and is subordinated to the public, a sphere that connotes "the masculine" (reason, force, etc);These divisions are social constructions and have their own characteristics in each historical moment, as mentioned by Sánchez-Mejorada in 1996. Therefore, it is observed that the women of the 21st century, have been adding responsibilities in the workplace and community without disregarding domestic ones, which causes them overload at the physical and social level.
Some elements for the understanding and analysis of work models in the impulse of women’s leadership are that of the community as a local participation space, where the relationships established can be conflictive or harmonic, competitive or collaborative, as it is inThe community where the experiences that make up the specific characteristics of the communities in which. According to Alfama, the incorporation of women in community organizations is related to the sexual division of labor and therefore with the social cast of tasks or activities according to sex-gender. In this way the dynamic of social relations that generate participation in the community, is crossed by stereotypes and power positions that generate inequality.
Indeed, the different organizational spaces are an opportunity to put in exercise the political action of people in different fields of social life. According to Alfama (2008), feminist activism introduces changes in the dynamics of women’s organizations, since due to the way traditional organizations (associations of communal development, cooperatives, or specific committees) are structured reproduce the sexual division)of the work of the patriarchal society.
Given the already difficult reconciliation between working and domestic life, the dedication of time to political-organizational work requires changes and reorganizations in the family sphere, which tends to generate conflicts in family dynamics, for not responding to the traditional role of duty to beas a woman. Due to the promotion of social movements and achievements in the country commitments with conventions, laws, policies and programs to demand greater justice and equity, changes in these organizational dynamics have been observed.
Management in an organization can be seen from different paradigms. It can be reviewed from management by: processes, talents, knowledge or competencies. Tejada. "From the management approach for" talents ", it is part that these are human, individual and collective constructions, susceptible to modifying, strengthening and maintaining, as well as fading and extinguishing. From the organizational perspective, talent management is based on the legitimation that human potential can be related to efficient, effective and effective productive processes ”.
On the other hand, the development of human talent is closely related to that of knowledge and four characteristics are pointed out to achieve a successful management process from these two perspectives: 1. The recognition of himself and, from this, to become an autotransformer of change. two. The recognition of the other and, from this, to become a facilitator of the change of the other. 3. Recognition of the environment or context and constituting an agent of its transformation. 4. The development of high quality and current competencies. These characteristics put in perspective when reviewing a management model contribute to the understanding of its dynamics.
Musade’s experience
The organizational basis that gives rise to the Musade Association, has an important roots in the community and a social fabric articulated to health, especially from rural areas. This origin is generated from the level of social consciousness, derived from collective mobilization actions in defense of the “Hospital without walls” health program, which had an important component of community participation. Although their "organizational interests" lacked a gender approach, managed to place in the imaginary of the population the thought of participation as a strategy to achieve the development of the community;from the motto that appropriated;"Our participation is a right but also a duty".
From the call made by the Social Work Office of the “Hospital without Walls” program to the women of the West region, to participate in the workshops: “Analysis of the participation of women in the family and the community”, in JulyAnd September 1986, the first act of resistance of women in the West region before a patriarchal society is established. In those first working days and that were provided by the social worker who participated in the health team of the program in question, women manage to dimension from the review of their own experiences, marginal, unequal, sexist and neoliberal participation thatThey had in the eighties in the region.
The foregoing, despite the fact that in that period of time, in the country it was lacked a public policy on violence against women, which is specified according to Law N. 7801 published on April 30, 1998, with the transformation of the National Center for the Development of Women and the Family into the National Women’s Institute (INAMU). Likewise, Aquarius in the collective interview conducted on October 3, 2020, women deployed an important signature collection activity, along with other organizations in the country, for the creation of INAMU. This was an opportunity that the organization took the opportunity to make debate and mobilization of women for the incidence in public policy
Certainly, the germination of Musade, is from the theoretical methodological approach of the social work discipline and from the needs of women, the absence of a public policy that protects their rights;But also in the face of the possibility of approaching as women and building their strength from my own verb: "… is that now I think that things are going to start changing for me and my family, already as I can’t stand and here they have taught menot shut up "
In the initial contact that dozens of women had in 1986, as part of the first meeting, Aquarius in the collective interview held on October 3, 2020 “could look straight ahead and think as a collective, from a reality that is usual to them, their own,and they managed to share their subjectivity, to appropriate and build a space that would represent them. Understand those equivalences between them as women, nurtured the roots of a feminist organization duepopular sectors;identity that remains in memory to legitimize her work for 34 years. In the voice of the same women
Before Musade, I felt that I let my life handle for my partner, but after being participating in Musade, I learned that I am an individual being, that that other person does not have to decide for my life, for my things, for my tastes evenFor my needs.
According to the Musade website, the organization starts with a group of 114 women members. In 2020 it has approximately 600 members. From territoriality, in its beginnings 89.7% of the women who participated in Musade, lived in the rural area and the remaining 10.3% of semi -urban areas, while in 2020, 70% are from rural areas, 15% is coastal areas (lemon and puntarenas) and 15% of urban areas;Therefore the emphasis of the work area of this organization, in the beginning as in the present is predominantly rural, specifically to the popular social sector/peasant, hence the self-domination of being a community -based organization.
According to the minutes of the Assembly of February 29, 2003, the mission stated by Musade was reviewed and adjusted and describes it as follows:
Being a basic women’s organization, with an alternative development political project for women, oriented to the transformation of women’s living conditions and the general population, joining forces against injustice, inequality and patriarchy.
In addition, as a general objective, it states “to promote the union and organization of women of peasant and popular sectors that allows them to overcome their condition of discrimination and subordination and achieve their full participation in the development of society”. From both texts, the different social and organizational components that align the actions of said organization are extracted and they give political coherence to the construction of women as a social subject.
Also, it is recorded that another of the constituent elements of the identity of Musade is connected with its ability to influence the attention of the needs of women, who point it as a significant reference for them and an ally that represents them and also defendsYour rights.
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