GENDER EQUALITY IN ARGENTINA. A study of women in rural and urban areas of province Salta and their understandings and experiences of gender equality

Abstract: The aim of this thesis is to investigate how Argentinean women understand and experience gender (in)equality in their homes, societies and other arenas. The purpose is also to create knowledge about whether conventions and legislations stating gender equality have had any consequence in Argentinean women´s everyday life. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews conducted with women in rural and urban areas of province Salta, Argentina. In the study power, resistance, theory of culture of silence and feminist theory of violence are used in the analysis of the empirical data. The results indicate that women are aware and critical about unequal power relation where women are subordinate of men. The findings show how gender inequalities take the form of gender-based violence, limited physical and economical direction and women trapped in the private sphere. Results also indicate how women rather blame the machismo culture than individual men`s actions for causing the oppression against women.