On Saturday, the Federal Table of the Uruguayan Federation of Teachers-Workers of Public Education (FUM-TEP) decided, with the opposite vote of two subsidiaries, not to make a 24-hour strike today. The two branches that voted to make the strike were Salto and Canelones, and finally only the Canarian teachers will stop. Despite the decision of the FUM-TEP, on Monday the teachers collective for 8M was meeting discussing, planning and painting the banner that will lead today to the march that begins at 18.00. The encounter, with some children in the return, was in the House of the Master, and after the deliberation the women got down to work: "Without women there is no public school. For a feminist education, "the teachers will say this afternoon.

Still persists among them the bitter taste for not having managed to approve unemployment, but all claim that increased the number of teachers who did vote the measure. The subsidiaries resolved the situation in different ways, and the teachers point out that few groups did so in assembly; In Montevideo and in several departments, a consultation was conducted by schools, in which the teachers voted (there were approximately 1,377 votes against stopping and 609 in favor, about 400 more than in 2017). "As a union, it's a topic that has just begun to be put on the table. We did not have, neither throughout the teaching career nor once we received, union or academic instances that allowed us to see ourselves as women teachers. It is very new, and we were very isolated until this arose; we are just starting ",

They say that it is important that the union level reflects on the gender issue, particularly in a profession in which the vast majority who exercise it are women (92%). "All women, like all people, are matrices of a macho logic, we grow up in a patriarchal and macho society, and the same goes for our union. Being women does not mean that we are feminists or that we have certain principles. and values ​​", answers one of the teachers. But the reasons are added: the hierarchical structure of the primary system, how it works, and a desire to "generate another form of relationship to begin to see ourselves as equals" and not as the teacher, the director or the inspector, is another the reasons; the need to question the place that is historically given to the teacher, "As the continuity of the role of care, as the second mother. That maternal vocation and that no matter what happens, you have to be there; self-denial "

It is also necessary for teachers to question their role from a gender perspective, they say, because the school "is the great reproducer of sexist practices and of micromachisms that circulate daily", from those communicated to "master fathers" when the Most of the referring adults of the children are female figures - mother or grandmother -, to charge the girls the distribution of icing paper in the class, the tunics for the girls - who need to ask for help to wear it, by the buttons on the back - , the ranks differentiated by sex and, behind those behaviors, the stereotypes of boys and girls that, in one way or another, are transmitted in school.

With the little ones
Teachers can do a lot in deconstructing gender stereotypes. "A basic is the invitation to think. Part of what conception of boy or girl we have, what concept of education and what conception of teacher. Today to a fifth year I proposed a form for the start of classes. One of the questions was how many teachers had they had at school, and among 25 children they had not had a classroom teacher. There, the subject began to be treated; was to generate a little seed to start thinking, "said one of the teachers.

They mention other examples "that seem like a dunce but are not," such as doing mixed lines or using inclusive language, and an interest in questioning the children's daily actions: "Take this to how they live this question, because if It does not seem that the question of gender is something of the adult world and that the differences between men and women start in the adult world, and it is good to approach the children with this problem ". An example put by a teacher was a work, with a group of second year, of analysis of the text "Vidrieras", by Eduardo Galeano, from the book Patas arriba, which describes the "toys for them" that are seen in stores ("rambos, robocops, ninjas ...") and "toys for them" ("barbies, heidis, ironing boards, kitchens ...") . "We were reflecting on that and had to take it home and comment on what we had worked on. One child brought three opinions: that of the father, who said he would never buy a kitchenette; that of the mother, who wanted everyone to be satisfied, and that of the child, super concrete, was: 'that each one plays with what he enjoys'. " "Let's see that kids can see, in first person, that gender is a construction whose most important matrix is ​​in childhood," they propose.

The members of the collective point out that during the race there is only one seminar on sex education. "It depends on each teacher if it touches the gender issue or not, and it is semester, unlike other subjects with greater weight." There is also a seminar on the history of teacher training - "which focuses very little on the founding of the Normal Internationale de Señoritas, which is very quick in the Institute of Artigas Teachers" - although it has several peculiarities.

In the educational community, the teachers assure that the fact of rethinking as women puts them on an equal footing with the mothers of the children with whom they work: "If you made the journey of each one, 'I had this situation of violence', ' my income is the only one in my home ',' I do not have anyone to take care of my children '; in relation to the mothers of the chiquilines with whom we work, we are equal, "they say.

The flags
The discussion generates many contradictions in the union context, recognize: "The strikes for assault to a teacher are those that have greater compliance; a strike on March 8, on International Women's Day, with a number of questions that are new, that begin to emerge, does not come out, "says one of the teachers, who asks" how to see that subjective violence it affects us, when we hit a partner we are affected, but we can also see a little further, because if we vote a strike for aggression to a partner this stoppage should have come almost naturally; we can not do that correlate. " "When a teacher is beaten we all feel touched, but we are also women and we have to feel like they kill six women so far this year; those things are related, "adds another of the teachers, which says, in addition, that something similar happens with the stoppages for salary: "They are supported enough, and this has to do with that historically it is a feminized profession; when they started working, the teachers could not charge much, because they would see if they were going to be self-sustaining ... It was impossible. All these relationships must be made. In that sense we are happy to have met, because there is something that is beginning to be thought collectively. "

The group, which brings together teachers, assistants, workshops, teachers of physical education and English of Montevideo, Canelones and Maldonado, has few meetings. Its members know that they will keep coming together, although they do not know what form it will take. "There are a lot of unions that have their gender secretariat, and neither the FUM nor the Montevideo branch [Ademu] has it. One of the proposals that are circulating is to be able to generate that space ". They mark, as an anecdote, that although the vast majority of the teachers and affiliates of the FUM and Ademu are women, their headquarters is called Casa del Maestro.