I felt like my last entry on women and education didn’t cover everything. There was one vital part missing: how do women themselves feel about the opportunities they have in Argentina?

In reading Emmy’s entry, I decided to take the question further: what is the role of women in society and why is it important that they get an education? I am convinced that societies should give free access to education to everyone in an equal way. However, I found that I struggled in justifying why – and I’m not the only one.

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Last Saturday morning, during a break from German class, my classmates and I started discussing how some professions that used to be mostly male are now mostly pursued by women. That causes some tension, and it brings about the need for cultural change, as I described in my last entry.

This subtle antipathy can surface unexpectedly in day-to-day life. For instance, my classmate Mariana is studying biology. She told me that once, in a physics class, she and the other students had to make a circuit. The male teacher, after communicating the task, said: “Let’s see how women can manage this one,” clearly assuming electronics was totally a “guy thing.”

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I had dinner with my boyfriend’s parents last Sunday. It’s always just the four of us. I have to admit that sometimes I lead the conversation into his mother, Carolina, telling me the story of how she started dating Horacio, Diego’s father. It’s not because of the love and romance involved, though. The story of how she met her husband touches on issues of how she secured some independence and got her first job.

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I was having breakfast with my parents on Sunday. My mom is an English teacher, and she was grading papers. She asked me to take a look at some writing by her students.

“Do you think I’m being too demanding? This is for CAE [Cambridge English: Advanced] level,” she asked.

I pondered several things and exchanged ideas with her. It was during this conversation that I recalled how exactly I came to write in English as I do today.

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I read Hellgurd’s entry, and many things sound familiar.

Hellgurd implies in his entry that education in his country hasn’t been developed to its fullest due to a lack of continuity in policy. I believe it could also have something to do with the set of values that is chosen by the ruling party. There is also the fact that a lot of people in positions of power see education as a threat.

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