Administrative Response to Consequences of COVID-19 Emergency Responses: Observations and Implications From Gender-Based Violence in Argentina

Abstract

Many governments across the globe enacted mandatory stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the many consequences of these governmental protection orders is to confine potential perpetrators and victims of gender-based violence in close proximity thereby reducing the opportunity for survivors to report abuse and get assistance. In this essay, we describe the multilevel governmental response in Argentina to address gender-based violence during the first month of mandatory stay-at-home order amid the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. National and provincial governments enacted innovative and coordinated responses to gender-based violence that targeted systemic causes of gender-based violence, ensured continuity of existing services, and generated new communication strategies to allow nonverbal reporting during the pandemic. The Argentinean example suggests that governmental organizations should consider the gendered effects of government responses to emergencies and respond through a multilevel and cross-sectoral response to protect groups disproportionately affected by the crisis and resulting policy.

Keywords

gender violence COVID-19 emergency management implementation

Introduction

Gender-based violence is a ubiquitous policy issue worldwide. Evidence suggests that gender-based violence disproportionately affects women and girls and is most commonly exercised by intimate partners at gender-based violence survivors’ homes (Merry, 2011). Home isolation and confinement can therefore prove problematic for gender-based violence survivors in normal times, however, during a global pandemic, these effects are exacerbated. One of the most common measures across the globe to slow the spread of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic and reduce public health systems’ stress is the implementation of restrictions on citizens’ mobility and stay-at-home orders (Anderson et al., 2020). While these measures have proven effective in containing COVID-19 contagion, they have also placed a significant burden on gender-violence survivors. According to UN Women, gender-based violence, a persistent human rights violation, escalated during COVID-19 lockdowns evidenced by increased demand for services related to domestic violence shelters and helplines across the world, including the United States (Mlambo-Ngcuka, 2020). However, in some areas, domestic violence reports saw a sharp decrease, which advocates argue is a result of increased difficulty in reporting during quarantine (Southall, 2020).

Gender-based violence is intimately related to patriarchy, which creates dichotomic structural gender divisions that favor a dominant form of masculinity over women and nonhegemonic gender identities. The stereotypical social construction of hegemonic masculinity builds a narrow relationship with the use of violence against socially subordinated gender identities, including women assigned female at birth and transwomen (Lombardi et al., 2002). Hegemonic masculinity is also built on a gendered division of labor with a higher recognition of labor outside the home and the invisibilization and marginalization of the reproductive labor mainly carried out by women (Federici, 2004; Moser, 1993). COVID-19 measures of mandatory confinement have gendered implications because the home emerges not only as a place of safeguard to reduce COVID-19 transmission but also as a place of subordination, labor, and violence that disproportionately affects marginalized gender identities.

Despite the gendered consequences of COVID-19 policy decisions, women have not been well represented in government crisis management committees and a gender perspective in the early stages of governments’ pandemic responses has been largely overlooked (Farrar & Rao Gupta, 2020). Despite the fact that women are rarely represented in leadership positions and pandemic decision-making processes, they tend to make the majority of frontline jobs and are disproportionally affected by the socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic (Bali et al., 2020; Hutt, 2020). Research on policy decisions amid emergency situations shows that emergency management experts exhibit similar decision biases to the general public and that their decisions are influenced by neighbor jurisdictions’ actions (Roberts & Wernstedt, 2019). Widespread lack of diversity in COVID-19 emergency committees and decision-making processes may influence the framing of governments’ responses to the pandemic and result in data and cognitive gaps about gendered and intersectional consequences of crisis response measures that disproportionately affect marginalized groups (Harman, 2016; Smith, 2019). Addressing this gap in COVID-19 government management becomes even more critical considering that government responses to the pandemic may last through 2022 (Kissler et al., 2020).

Much of the public administration scholarship examines gender through the lens of the bureaucratic employment outcomes (Alkadry & Tower, 2006; Bishu & Headley, 2020; Connell, 2006), representation (Park & Liang, 2019; Riccucci et al., 2016; Riccucci & Van Ryzin, 2017), or even organizational capacity (Brown, 2012). Despite the increased study of gender issues in public organizations, scholars have raised the need for developing more gender analysis in public administration, which, compared to other fields such as political science and sociology, has been less prolific in the discipline (Condit & Hutchinson, 1997; Hutchinson & Mann, 2004; Stivers, 2005). This essay reviews the Argentinean National and provincial governments’ policy responses within the first month of mandatory stay-at-home order in relation to gender-based violence policy decisions. Our goal in this Viewpoint essay is to describe how public organizations in Argentina responded to governmental protective orders that created new gender dynamics putting subordinated and marginalized gender identities at heightened risk of gender-based violence. Argentina is an interesting case of analysis because it has displayed practical and strategic policy measures to face the gendered consequences of mandatory confinement since the early stages of COVID-19 crisis management. Prior to the pandemic, Argentina has also enacted systematic policy changes to address gender bias in government and gender-based violence in the country broadly. The following section provides a brief contextualization of the case and its relevance. Then, the national strategy is described, followed by an outline of the provincial strategies before the concluding comments.

Context

On March 20, 2020, Argentina entered a mandatory nation-wide lockdown as part of the COVID-19 crisis management strategy. The measure was extended 6 times and at the time of this writing, the current policy maintains mandatory confinement with decreasing restrictions defined by the national and subnational governments. During the first month of mandatory lockdown, Argentina reported a rise in the calls to domestic violence helplines (39%) and a sustained femicide rate (23 femicides in 33 days). Similar to other countries in Latin America, gender-based violence persisted during the pandemic despite the sharp decrease of other crimes (Semple & Ahmed, 2020). The restrictions on individuals’ mobility imposed new obstacles to the already complex social problem of tackling gender-based violence and demanded innovative and collaborative strategies to reach individuals at their homes. The strategies were directed to provide support and resources not only for potential subjects of violence to access with their abuser in close proximity but also policies targeting potential offenders of gender-based violence directly. Various stakeholders in Argentina identified this need and coordinated innovative resources, services, and information campaigns to support those communities most at risk.

Argentina provides an interesting case in responding to gender-based violence during a national or global emergency because all levels of government and other organizations in Argentina have enacted numerous comprehensive measures to combat gender-based violence prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the approval of the National Law 26,485 for the Integral Protection of Women in 2009, all the Argentinean provinces enacted regulations to accommodate the new national standards which proposed a comprehensive conceptualization of gender violence including physical, psychological, economic, and symbolic violence and mandated the coordination of national and subnational jurisdictions to prevent, punish, and eradicate this type of violence. Despite the significant legislative progress, the implementation of National Law 26,485 has been challenging and there are great disparities in the capacities and resources offered by each subnational province (Equipo Latinoamericano de Justicia y Género [ELA], 2015).

To address the inequitable implementation framework, the Ministry of Women, Genders, and Diversity (hereafter The Ministry) began meeting with the gender-focused agencies of each province, community-based organizations, and the civil society to offer trainings and best practices for a national plan addressing gender-based violence. These meetings were resumed during the COVID-19 pandemic through virtual platforms as well as the mandatory training on gender for public administrations in government agencies (Ministry of Women, Genders, and Diversity [MWGD], n.d.a). Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the various institutions involved in this effort enacted long- and short-term plans and multiple approaches to address both symptoms and systematic causes of the gender-violence problem through multilayered collaboration between government and nongovernmental organizations (Moon, 2020; Weber & Khademian, 2008).

National Strategy: Innovative Communication Channels and Recommendations to Provinces and Municipalities

Mandatory stay-at-home orders in other parts of the world amid the COVID-19 outbreak were followed by a drastic rise in gender-based violence reports in early coronavirus hotspots such as China and Italy (Taub, 2020; The Guardian, 2020; UN News, 2020). Foreseeing a similar trend in Argentina, The Ministry launched a series of emergency measures and elaborated recommendations for provinces and municipalities to attend the differential gender impact of the pandemic response by the government.

National policy responses addressed different aspects of gender-based violence that were the direct result of government intervention during the pandemic. As published in The Ministry website, the measures to assist gender-based violence situations in the context of the public health emergency included the declaration of the national 144 helpline¹ as an essential service and a series of measures aimed at reinforcing communication channels, such as hiring additional personnel and improving the technology of the national helpline 144 (MWGD, n.d.a). Attentive to the potential obstacles that individuals experiencing gender-based violence may encounter during the mandatory isolation to make a phone call to report violence because of the continuous close confinement with the perpetrator, The Ministry generated alternative technology for online reporting channels through the promotion of WhatsApp numbers, an email account, and the use of the Line 144 cellphone App. In addition, The Ministry published the list of domestic violence resources and services with addresses and contact numbers used by Line 144 on its official webpage. To promote these resources, The Ministry developed specific social marketing campaigns across media platforms to increase the scope of the information on television, radio, and social media.

The Ministry realized that the complex problem of increased gender-based violence as a consequence of pandemic response required a complex series of policy responses including a nuanced implementation of the stay-at-home order and collaboration between subnational governmental units and nongovernmental organizations both domestic and international. In addition to the increased alternative communication and reporting channels, the National Government allowed exemptions to the mandatory stay-at-home orders for individuals undergoing gender-based violence to remove the new hurdle to reporting. This exception was clarified by The Ministry through the Resolution 15/2020 and widely publicized through the press and government social media to inform survivors of gender-based violence that they would not be punished for violating the stay-at-home order to report (Infobae, 2020; La Nación, 2020; MWGD, 2020b, to mention some of them).

The Ministry also reinforced the interinstitutional and intersectoral coordination and communication to address gender-based violence in the pandemic through federal forums with subnational governments and international conversations with other countries, and international and domestic civil society and community-based organizations (MWGD, n.d.a). This all hands-on deck approach is similar to how other governments communicate during times of crisis (Garnett & Kouzmin, 2007). In addition, The Ministry developed specific content and campaigns appealing to the co-responsibility of care and redistribution of domestic tasks during home confinement, provided instructions to separated parents and caregivers with children, and reinforced the food plans and social security programs for the transgender community, which is more likely to be subjected to gender-based violence and experience homelessness and food insecurity (MWGD, n.d.a). The campaigns appealing to the co-responsibility of care are part of a comprehensive strategy of The Ministry’s policy agenda focused on recognizing emotional labor in the household as valuable, challenging, and often unrecognized by members in the traditional labor market. They also represent a keen understanding of the social dynamics associated with gender-based violence described above. Since women have historically performed the emotional labor role of family care, The Ministry aims to make that work visible and redistribute it to include males through the coordination of policies with other public agencies that directly or indirectly regulate caregiver roles in society (Página/12, 2020b). The campaigns promoted in The Ministry’s Facebook during the nation-wide mandatory isolation addressed the link between the unequal distribution of tasks related to care and gender-based violence:

La distribución de las tareas de cuidado y las violencias por motivos de género tienen más en común de lo que creemos. La forma inequitativa en que están repartidas limita la autonomía, la independencia económica y el desarrollo de las mujeres. Es decir, es la base de la desigualdad entre los géneros. Se trata de una fábrica invisible que reproduce las violencias por motivos de género y evidencia el menor valor que se les da a las mujeres y las personas LGBTI+ (The distribution of care tasks and gender-based violence have more in common than we usually think. The unequal way in which they are distributed limits the autonomy, economic independence, and the development of women. That is, it is the base of gender inequality. It is an invisible factory that reproduces gender-based violence and shows the least value given to women and LGBTI+ individuals). (MWGD, 2020c)

This emergency campaign addresses the historical and systemic causes of gender-based violence from a sociological perspective, rather than focusing on acute or temporary effects of the pandemic that may contribute to an increase in gender-based violence.

The Ministry also launched a series of model policy recommendations for subnational governments to address an uptick in gender-based violence during the COVID-19 mandatory confinement, including publicizing the available resources and direct communication lines with gender-based violence survivors, the use of social media to promote the resources, and the development of specific campaigns such as the ones carried out by The Ministry. In addition, The Ministry suggested reinforcing the coordination and network relationships between subnational governments, security forces, the Justice, and community networks, and guarantee the mobility of gender-based violence survivors leaving their homes to report or seek help (MWGD, n.d.).

Following the critical evolution of gender-based violence situation and the extension of the mandatory self-isolation as the pandemic continued, more measures were taken to increase the resources available to vulnerable groups. On March 30, The Ministry launched the campaign “Red mask” in collaboration with the Argentine Pharmaceutical Confederation (MWGD, 2020a). The campaign was first implemented in Spain with the code Mascarilla-19 (mask-19), replicated in France and Chile with the same codeword, and in Argentina with the red mask code to indicate gender-based violence to health care workers (Confidencial Digital, 2020; Kottasová & Di Donato, 2020). Upon the request of a red mask in pharmacies, individuals in a gender-based violence situation would be connected with Line 144 to get assistance. This codeword activates a protocol that automatically connects gender-based violence survivors with helplines without further explaining the situation to the pharmaceutical personnel in a space exempted from the lockdown. Although Line 144 is the reference hotline, The Ministry reported that gender-violence survivors have also been connected to 911 and local helplines which were perceived as a positive response because this measure seeks to expand the scope of resources (Tessa, 2020). These innovative support channels are critical during times of forced isolation and confinement when activities are restricted, and individuals may not be able to access other safe spaces.

The Argentine government enacted changes not only to protect the reporting of new cases of gender-based violence but also changed policies to protect previous reporters of gender-based violence. Amid COVID-19 lockdown, the Gender Commission of the National Ombudsman’s Office requested the automatic extension of the protection measures (such as restraining orders) obtained in processes of gender-based violence reporting (Ministerio Público de Defensa, n.d.a; Ministerio Público de Defensa, n.d.b). This measure was followed by most of the provinces. On April 13, the Federal Chamber of Cassation recommended the evaluation of alternative measures, such as home arrests, to certain incarcerated individuals that could be at greater risk of complications due to COVID-19 in overpopulated prisons (Centro de Información Judicial, 2020). Given the antecedents of femicides executed by males who have been granted prison furlough despite a history of gender-based violence,² The Ministry and feminist organizations expressed their concern to the Judicial System about the furlough of individuals with gender-based violence offenses (Infobae, 2020).

By April 17, almost a month after the mandatory stay-at-home order began, around 20 women were killed in Argentina and police responses to individuals reporting gender-based violence or missing women were negligent (Peker, 2020). In this context, on April 17, a project was introduced by the incumbent senator and head of the permanent commission Banca de la Mujer (Woman Seat)—which gathers all the female national senators regarding issues that affect women—to declare the state of emergency regarding gender-based violence for 3 years (Telam, 2020). The initiative, which has not been adopted at the time of this writing, proposes the allocation of budgetary resources, the creation of a comprehensive refugee protections, the strengthening of the alert and geolocation systems, and the reinforcement of the coordination mechanisms with the judiciary system to address gender-based violence during and beyond the pandemic. Furthermore, on April 18, the National Executive Power declared that gender-based violence facilities were exempted from the compliance of compulsory isolation and could continue operations within the national and jurisdictional sanitary protocols (Administrative Decision 524/2020, 2020).

Two days later, The Ministry participated in the national daily COVID-19 crisis management report (Casa Rosada, 2020) and organized a virtual meeting with the authorities of the subnational organizations focused on gender and diversity to address common and local challenges and strengthen collaborations (MWGD, 2020e). Research on agencies’ capacity to adapt to turbulent times shows that public agencies under stressful operational environments and higher demand for services are more likely to adapt when they display open communication structures with counterpart agencies within and across jurisdictions (Comfort et al., 2019). On April 20, The Ministry also announced that it has partnered with Facebook for the first time to facilitate communication with citizens experiencing gender-based violence (MWGD, 2020d). WhatsApp, the most used mobile communication app in Argentina, is owned by Facebook (Clarín, 2019). The company provided a single number that connects gender-based violence survivors with multiple service providers simultaneously. Survivors can ask for support just by typing hola (hello). It is also free, available 24 hr, and again provides another resource for survivors to report gender-based violence nonverbally.

According to the observatory Ahora que sí nos ven (Now that they see us), 64% of femicides are executed by intimate partners (Ahora que sí nos ven, 2020). To palliate the challenges related to reaching individuals confined in their homes with their abusers, public and private campaigns incorporated a mute mode to avoid putting women at greater risk while offering resources and support. WhatsApp numbers and emails sought to provide alternative resources to individuals unable to make a phone call. The new strategy of a centralized number simplifies the contact information while expanding the capacity to provide support through multiple simultaneous communications with government and community partners. Again, this demonstrates the multifaceted approach across sectors that Argentina adopted to address the unintended consequence of government protective orders.

Gender-based violence is a multispatial and multidimensional phenomenon (Chant & McIlwaine, 2016) that requires comprehensive as well as targeted policies involving a wide range of stakeholders (Whitzman et al., 2014) to break through the private and public divisions (Sweet & Escalante, 2010) and work in the deconstruction of hegemonic masculinities (Pain, 1997). As described above, within the first month of mandatory confinement, The Ministry worked both on practical and strategic actions (Molyneux, 1984) and articulated with multiple actors within the policy subsystem to develop innovative responses.

Policies Promoted at the Provinces

The Argentinean’s subnational provinces varied greatly in their policy responses to gender-based violence during the mandatory stay-at-home order. Given that cellphones are used at greater rates than computers and the popularity of Facebook (Secretaría de Cultura de la Nación, 2017), Argentinean provinces made wide use of the governments’ Facebook accounts to broadcast live conferences and report daily progresses and measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, provincial governments’ Facebook accounts and women’s policy agencies’ Facebook accounts differed dramatically in terms of the frequency and intensity of the promotion of resources to address gender-based violence during the first month of mandatory stay-at-home order. In fact, 4 out of 24 provinces did not publish any resource related to gender-based violence in their official Facebook accounts between March 19 and April 20.³ By contrast, all women’s policy agencies at the provincial level promoted resources aimed at addressing gender-based violence during this period. The unequal communication of the services may indicate that the attention to this issue remains fragmented and contained within women’s interest groups which challenge integral and comprehensive approaches to end gender-based violence (True & Mintrom, 2001). Although provinces differed in their policy response to combating gender-based violence during the pandemic, subnational governments generally focused on: contact channels to report and receive support for gender-based violence, information campaigns targeting male perpetrators, publicizing statistics and demand for services and resources, co-responsibility of care and redistribution of domestic tasks information campaigns, and provincial level “Red Mask” code campaigns.

Contact Channels to Report and Receive Support for Gender-Based Violence Survivors

All provinces advertised the 144 helpline at least once during the first month of the stay-at-home order,⁴ making it the most widely promoted gender-based violence resource. In addition, in the majority of jurisdictions, women’s policy agencies published at least one alternative nonverbal resource to report violence, such as WhatsApp numbers or emails, to facilitate the communication with gender-based violence survivors unable to make a phone call. However, these alternatives were not publicized in 3 of the 24 jurisdictions between March 19 and April 20.⁵ These jurisdictions reported Line 144 call rates for March 2019 above the national average rate of 8 per 1,000 female inhabitants based on the reports provided by the ex-National Institute for Women recently upgraded to The Ministry (Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres, 2019). One province, Neuquén, developed an alternative mobile communication application to 144 and it advertised both resources.

Information Campaigns Targeting Male Perpetrators

Four out of 24 provinces followed the strategy of appealing and providing resources directly to male perpetrators of gender-based violence. The first two provinces in promoting this strategy were Córdoba and Mendoza, both 6 days after the mandatory stay-at-home order, and the other two, Catamarca and Salta, launched similar campaigns 2 weeks later. Centers and workshops to re-educate men about the ills of gender-based violence emerged in the 1990s (Carbajal, 2014) and are mostly concentrated in the most populated province Provincia de Buenos Aires. While there are similar programs in the other provinces, such as in Neuquén and Mendoza, there is no national registry of the resources that address the re-education of males that exercise gender-based violence—the Instituto Masculinidades y Cambio Social (Institute of Masculinities and Social Change) is currently compilating this information (Gordillo, 2020). Since these approaches are fragmented and there is no comprehensive policy in this area, strategies promoting males’ voluntary search for help to prevent violent behavior are rare. As revealed by the Director of Córdoba’s center, within the first 10 days of mandatory stay-at-home order, around 1,077 males called this center for help (Cadena 3, 2020). With an increased take-up rate of men voluntarily seeking out this resource amid the quarantine, the center adds additional protections to survivors living with potential perpetrators.

Publicizing Statistics and Demand for Services and Resources

As stated by ELA (2015), there is a lack of public, systematic, and reliable information about the actions carried out by provinces and the national reports do not cover the total of governmental actions. While public data related to gender-based violence policies are challenging in normal times,⁶ during health crises it becomes even more critical to assess hidden consequences of emergency responses and carry out policy measures accordingly. Publicizing data not only allows policymakers to enact evidence-based policies but also allows the citizenry to assess government performance in this critical area. Two provinces published data about this issue, Provincia de Buenos Aires and Córdoba, two of the four most populated jurisdictions and the only two provinces with areas exclusively responsible for gender policies with ministerial rank.⁷

For example, on April 4, 2 weeks after the stay-at-home order, Córdoba’s Ministry of the Woman posted that gender violence and protective measures had been the main criminal reports during the quarantine, with an average of 300 daily interventions to assist women and 84 police detentions related to gender-based violence. Córdoba’s Ministry went further to disaggregate the calls received—consultations (39%), reports (35%), and advice and assistance (26%)—by either the type of service consulted, the type of violence reported, or the type of assistance and guidance sought (Ministerio de la Mujer Córdoba, 2020). On April 21, the Ministry of the Provincia de Buenos Aires published the data for March of the calls received by the helpline 144: 33% (1,862) of the calls received were related to gender violence, 9% of the calls were concentrated in 9 municipalities, in 99.8% the gender-violence survivor was identified as a woman, in 8 out of 10 cases the aggressor was the partner or ex-partner, in 98% of the cases the individuals exercising violence was a male, among other data (Ministerio de las Mujeres, Políticas de Género y Diversidad, 2020). This information can not only help the citizens of the particular jurisdiction but also inform policymakers in nearby jurisdictions about the extent of gender-based violence during the pandemic and appropriate governmental response to the issue.

Co-responsibility of Care and Redistribution of Domestic Tasks Information Campaigns

Eight out of 24 provinces implemented some type of information campaign aimed at promoting the distribution of domestic and caregiving tasks, including locally developed initiatives and sharing national campaigns.⁸ One of the most active provinces in the development and promotion of resources advertised the benefits of sharing domestic tasks under the slogan repartir las tareas del hogar es el primer paso hacia la igualdad (distributing domestic tasks is the first step toward equality) and invited individuals to share pictures of members of the family performing domestic tasks (Government of Catamarca, 2020). Catamarca even appealed to men by inviting them to rethink taken-for-granted assumptions about males’ expected roles and behavior under the title Desaprendiendo acciones culturales, masculinidades igualitarias (unlearning cultural actions, egalitarian masculinities) (Dirección Provincial de Mujer, Género y Diversidad, 2020). Again, these campaigns address the root causes of gender-based violence by targeting the gendered division of labor in the household.

“Red Mask” Code Campaign

The national “Red Mask” campaign discussed above was also adopted by subnational levels. The campaign was announced in some provinces’ social media and in one province, Tierra del Fuego, the government provided a list of pharmacies in which individuals could report gender-based violence using the “Red Mask” framework (Ministerio de Desarrollo Humano, 2020). However, in some districts such as Neuquén, Misiones, San Juan, and the city of Santa Fe it was not promoted because the Argentine Pharmaceutical Confederation has no representation in the jurisdiction and the provinces prioritized other mechanisms to address gender-based violence (Carbajal, 2020). Concerns about the effectiveness of the “Red Mask” campaign included the limited knowledge about the protocols for the pharmacies—although there were published in the Pharmaceutical Confederation website (Argentinean Pharmaceutical Confederation, 2020)—critiques about the logic behind asking for a red mask code at the pharmacies instead of directly calling hotlines (Tessa, 2020), and the impact on communities in which small businesses have increasingly been displaced by pharmaceutical branches thereby limiting the availability of nearby pharmacies to certain communities (Carbajal, 2020). The Ministry pointed out that the intention was to extend the campaign to supermarkets, but it was not possible due to logistic challenges (Tessa, 2020). Despite the concerns, the campaign was endorsed as another tool that immediately activates a protocol for action to provide support for gender-based violence survivors (Página/12, 2020a). This example highlights the challenges of implementing a policy that requires many different institutional partners to be effective during a national emergency.

The unequal implementation of innovative strategies and approaches to addressing gender-based violence within the first month of mandatory confinement signals the challenges of vertical and horizontal policy coordination. As mentioned in Peters (2018), incentives for collaboration are stronger in challenging times and when addressing wicked problems, but policymakers’ understanding of the issue at stake (Keiser & Meier, 1996), diverse collaboration strategies within the issue network (Agranoff & McGuire, 2004), and unequal institutional capacities of the agencies responsible for diversity and gender issues (McBride & Mazur, 2010), could have influenced governments’ responses to gender-based violence amid the pandemic. Future analysis could explore the underlying causes of the different policy response patterns to gender-based violence during the COVID-19 emergency.

Concluding Comments

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light many of the structural inequities across many societies in terms of race, class, health care access, and gender. The intensification of gender structural inequalities amid the pandemic is escalating gender-based violence. A multilayered and coordinated response is needed to address not only the immediate consequences of gender violence but also its cultural and social roots. Four points can be highlighted from the observations of the Argentinean case: (a) Government information campaigns must highlight the structural causes of gender-based violence such as the unequal distribution of nonpaid labor and the extra burden placed on women in the home, (b) communications should directly target the male audience to change harmful learned behavior and domestic roles, (c) the need for a transverse gender perspective throughout public organizations in response to protective orders that may disproportionately affect marginalized and subordinated groups, and (d) the value of incorporating a gender lens in crisis management and response teams at early stages.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Luciana Polischuk is a PhD student in the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at The Florida State University. Her research interests are gendered organizations, representative bureaucracy, and policy implementation. Previously, she worked in a think tank and in a political consultancy firm in Argentina doing research and providing technical support to national and subnational governments on policy design and implementation, and public governance.

Daniel L. Fay is an associate professor in the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at The Florida State University. His research interests include organizational theory, diversity issues in public management, veterans’ policy, policy diffusion and higher education policy and management. His work appears in Research in Higher Education, Social Science Quarterly, and The Journal of Technology Transfer, American Review of Public Administration, Policy Studies Journal International Journal of Organizational Theory & Behavior, and Public Administration Review.

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