Women In The 21st Century: Paper In The City And In The World

Women in the 21st century: paper in the city and in the world

The complex interconnection of the globalizing processes of the 21st century has resulted in two extremely relevant phenomena: the less and less noticeable distinction between state and global;and the accentuation of unequal social dynamics and exclusion. The gender gap is one of these dynamics because it is not only constituted in terms of limitation of access to professional opportunities in the workplace, but also in the reproduction of a discourse of biological superiority which is transported and materialized to any existing social behavior.

This complex reformulation has been transformed into transnational social structures responding to both national and global spheres. Both spatial spheres and their evolutionary social construction have also generated critical dynamics based on rethinking the functioning and constitution of these structures;Being in this case specifically, feminism.

In this sense, the thesis of this work is that feminism can be understood as an emerging doctrine reformulated, within the framework of neoliberal globalization, which seeks the struggle for the disintegration of previously mentioned systems of exclusivity, inequality and their sustainable development,responding to the needs and demands of both local and international processes.

Taking all these elements into account, the objective of this article is to analyze the scope, nature and behavior of the current feminist movement in Mexico, particularly in Mexico City, in this transformation of spaces and social structures within the framework of globalization, understood as global cities.

Global cities: what are and why are important?

Now, in order to start with this analysis it is pertinent to know two concepts that will be the basis of our analysis: globalization and the global city. The first, according to Cuervo González (2003) is “a planetary process of reconstitution of the rules of economic, political and cultural play”, and has trends to the universalization and particularization of emerging phenomena.

In this same sense, the concept of global city, according to sociologist Saskia Sassen, is "a complex articulating structure of cross -border processes that are reconstituted as partially urban conditions", that is, it is a space where new dynamics and dynamics are created and reformulatedcultural, political and economic relations.

The particularity of these spaces is that an interconnectivity of political and economic activities and the development of new technologies of global and local affairs is built. In this sense, both "public spheres" or "hierarchies" coexist, connect and feed on each other.

This feedback responds to the very nature of the global economy, hypermobility, market deregularization, the evolved communication capacity and neutralization of the territory and distance;And this same nature is then the basis to understand and study the consolidation and behavior of current social dynamics.

Another peculiarity of global cities is that, although socio -economic relations are diversified throughout the space transcending borders, there is also an important centralization of these same processes;That is, without the existence of a global city that is the epicenter of social dynamics, globalization cannot be managed efficiently since this city is the recipient of international processes and responsible for the production of new processes.

These tendencies to universalization and particularization, as well as centralization and decentralization are the basis for the creation of new criteria that seek to question and revalue existing social practices, and in other cases modify them. And this questioning is driven by the effects or consequences of these same trends.

Structural polarization and social displacement relocating the previously consolidated spaces are some of these trends. Its existence reinforces unequal and exclusion dynamics and creating new ones, including the gender gap;Economic and cultural inequality emphasizes gender hierarchies devaluing the biological and political condition of women, as we will see later.

Now, Mexico City is considered a global city due to its accelerated economic insertion in global dynamics

generating a transnational economy. In this same sense, it has also been part of the decentralizing and disintegrating trends, as well as exclusive and unequal, of economic activities and, therefore, of the social structures reflected in the impoverishment of society, the marginalization of classes and accentuationof gender gaps.

Gender gaps in employment, how do globalizing processes intensify and intensify?

According to immujeres, gender gaps can be understood as a measure that shows the distance between women and men with respect to the same indicator. In particular, the gender gap in employment has been a problem that reflects the dynamics of the inequality and exclusion systems proposed by Marx and Foucault.

It is important to note that women are part of the discriminated social groups through exclusion processes and were subject to many policies, all linked to anti -exferentialist universalism. The controlled management of exclusion includes different forms of substitution of segregation such as the return to the community and the extension of citizenship in the case of women with access to the labor market. 

Women were part of the exclusions that were subject to reintegration/ assimilation. As the rights of citizenship were being conferred on women and that they were entering the labor market, they went from an exclusion system to an inequality. That is, now they already have access to work spaces, but their salaries are still lower than those of men.

For the daily functioning of the highly specialized services complex, there is a large proportion of manual and poorly paid jobs that are largely occupied by women and immigrants. It happens that in the valuation of labor supplies: the overvaluation of specialized services and professional workers has assigned to the "other" economic activities and the "other" workers as unnecessary or irrelevant for advanced economies. 

The implementation of global processes in large cities has generated an important expansion of the internationalized sector of the urban economy, which in turn has imposed a set of new criteria for the valorization of activities and economic products. This phenomenon has brought with it a new process of elitizing society depending on purchasing power. 

The reconfiguration of economic spaces related to globalization in large cities has had differentiated effects on women, their work cultures and centralized forms of power and potentialization. However, these differentiated effects create "opportunities" for workers and low -income entrepreneurs. This in turn reconfigures some of the labor and domestic hierarchies in which these women are immersed, observing a greater participation of women in the public sphere.

The condition of women within global cities combines, to a large extent two different dynamics. On the one hand, they integrate a class of invisible workers and without power at the service of the strategic sectors of the global economy. On the other hand, access to wages (even if they are low), the growing proportion of women in the workforce and the feminization of commercial opportunities produced by informalization alters gender hierarchies in which these women are immersed.

8M as an important historical date

March 8 is considered the International Women’s Day. However, many people do not know the origin of this commemoration. Well, in 1975 the United Nations Organization declared this day as commemorative, according to the UN, this day refers to the roots of women’s struggle to participate in a society that has equality with the man with the man. 

Its origins are in the United States, in New York City in the 19th century, with the industrial revolution and the origin of protests made by women due to poor working conditions and child labor, then demanding the guarantee of their human rights, specifically work.

In other parts of the world, women began to take value and demand what was fair: equality. All manifestations arose as a result of a world that was built for men, since women were considered only for home and to raise children. Although they were later allowed to participate in other activities, they remained unfair. Women had no right to vote, to handle their own bank accounts, to a decent educational training, and their life expectancy was less than that of men due to the risks of the births and pregnancies that had. 

In the year of 1910, the International Conference of Socialist Women was held, where the central theme mainly attended to universal suffrage for all women. In 2011, there was the premise of gender equality and the empowerment of women by UN Women.

Now, in recent years, the feminist struggle has made clear the objective: equality, but there is still much to do, since there is misinformation that discourages the movement, where a better life for women is expected in all aspects in all aspects, but mainly in human rights. 8M means a lot for women in all parts of the world, especially in Mexico, since in the country it is constantly fighting for justice for women.

The march of 2020 meant a lot, since many women dressed in purple and went out to fight against the patriarchy, which reproduces inequality. In addition to the March of 8M, women were urged to "disappear" during March 9 to be able to raise awareness of the society of the importance of women in everyday life. 

It is worth mentioning that the 8M march is carried out every year in different countries in Latin America and the rest of the world, however, that of 2020 was significant, since, in addition to attending many more women than other years, the greatInfluence that Latin America has had in Mexico on issues of feminism, and the great connectivity that exists between women, regardless of the geographical place where they are found.

This then shows how globalizing dynamics, not only from Mexico City, but also from other cities in the world, have created devaluation and criticism processes to pre -existing social structures. Decentralizing and universalizing tendencies can clearly be seen in the global feminist manifestation totally interconnected, responding together, to the particular interests of each national society but also to the international feminist movement as such.

For years the struggle has given thanks to feminist women who began raising their voice to express the disagreement and demand the right that corresponds to all women as human beings. In recent years there has been a misinformation regarding what it is and is not a feminist woman, so it is necessary that women interested in following feminism are informed in reliable sources as literary works of feminist women, and do not leaveCarry for what they believe is the struggle, all this in order for feminism to be understood as something necessary in Mexican society and the rest of the world to be able to provide global equality.

The fight for fair governance

The inequality and exclusion towards women is a systemic and structural problem that notes the violation of human rights and the fundamental freedoms of women, in addition to emphasizing power relations that permeate between genres. In order to counteract this system of inequality and exclusion, Santos establishes that effective equality policies are necessary and this refers to “those that allow the horizontal articulation between discrepant identities and among the differences that are based on them”.

These changes, although they can start at the local level, will charge more strength once they become transnational proposals. Through international organizations and social movements of women worldwide, this system of inequality and exclusion has been noted on the public and governmental agenda at international level.

In the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Action Program, the human rights of women and the girl (immujeres, s/f) are recognized for the first time). In 1995, with the fourth World Conference on Women’s Women’s. However, despite external participation in the feminist struggle, there are still many internal areas to be resolved. Because the demands from this community continue, we can observe that these programs have not had results.

Nationally, and more specifically local within the CDMX, the women’s struggle has been constant and over time has allowed small achievements in its favor. A clear example is found with the approval of the General Law for Equality in 2019. This must "promote the elimination of the wage gap between men and women who carry out the same work of equal value, as well as the gap in economic participation between women and men"

Another important result is found with the so -called Olympia Law at the end of 2019, which refers to a set of legislative reforms aimed at recognizing digital violence and sanctioning crimes that violate the sexual intimacy of people through digital means. It should not be set aside that to make this legislation possible, the search for justice by a victim, Olimpia Coral, supported by women from all over the Mexican State was necessary. This fight lasted just over 6 years with endless demonstrations throughout the country and different pressure groups with feminist ideology.

We know that this search for justice and equality has not ended, however, we can see that the mobilization by women has paid off. In small steps we are gaining struggles that have been tens of years and will probably cost another couple of years to achieve a true victory.

TO END

In social practices throughout history women have been part of the system of inequality and exclusion;They have been integrated in a subordinate and unequal way in all the activities of the social sphere, mainly in the workplace, due to this set of ideas associated with the biological superiority of man placing women in the background, devaluing their abilities,And of course, the important role of this in everyday activities that have to do with home, work, family, etc.

These social structures have been reproduced and reformulated throughout history, however, currently these models of inequality and exclusion are in crisis since recent transformations in world capitalism are altering and deconstructing the national production conditions of the production of thesociety making them more and more transnational, altering traditional hierarchies and with this, making modifications to the roles exercised by society for centuries.

It is possible to conceive cities as one of the spaces where the contradictions of economic globalization materialize, such was the case of women who have had a disadvantage and undervaluation situation. In these spaces women from different parts of the world have gained political presence and are making their demands heard with the authorities with the aim of transforming the system. In this way, despite the growing distance, its joint presence in global cities has further highlighted.

With this, it is demonstrated that the global world network of global cities, with its new political and economic potential, has been one of the most strategic spaces for the formation of new types of identities and communities, even transnational, since women managed to raise their voice inA march with the same purposes globally. This suggests a new political-economic alignment.

However, we consider that global cities and their subjects still have great challenges to be able to modify pre -existing social systems;among them, that social demands are resolved and attended in such a way that they perform a symbiosis with international needs;In this case, the insured guarantee of the protection of the political, economic and cultural rights of women.