Susana Torrado, the scientist sent by Cavallo to wash the dishes, is dead | The sociologist has revealed the social consequences of neoliberal politics of manimism

“Let him go wash the dishes” The then Minister of Economy said, Sunday Horsein September 1994. The explosion of sexism—which has gone down in history as a synonym for economic accommodation and contempt for women—was directed at sociologist and demographer Susana Torrado, a Conicet scholar and university professor, who He warned that the increase in unemployment was a direct result of the neoliberal policies of the government of Carlos Menem. roasted One of the most important intellectual figures in the social sciences in Argentina and Latin Americadied in the same city in which he was born, a date he hid “from the coquetry,” as editor Daniel Devinsky tells us, who published in the Ediciones de la Flor that wonderful classic of the sociologist, Argentina’s Social Structure (1945-1983 .)), which is a mandatory reading text in all social science jobs in the country.

She graduated in Sociology from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) in 1963, and began her academic career as an assistant at the Institute of Sociology at UBA, then directed by the “founding father” of sociology in Argentina, Gino Germani, expelled Italian immigrant for Fascism, who He identified him as one of his teachers, along with José Luis Romero and the Panamanian sociologist Carmen Miro. His main theoretical connections were in historical materialism and the thought of Pierre Bourdieu. She traveled to Paris, where she obtained her Ph.D. in 1970 from the École Polytechnique des Hautes Etudes at the University of Paris, with a thesis on the demographic evolution in Argentina between 1870 and 1960. Then she lived in Montreal (Canada), where she worked as a professor of demography, living between 1971 and 1978 in Santiago de Chile, where she was responsible for the Demographic Center of Latin America (CILAD), and is prominent in the development of studies of social classes in Latin America.

Pinochet’s coup took her away from Chile and she decided to return to Buenos Aires in 1979. After the democratic recovery, Torrado Actively participated in the reopening of the sociology course at UBA, which was closed by the civil-military dictatorship. Sociologist started chair Social Demography at the College of Social Sciences, whose subject was an ordinary professor until 2006, when she was named professor emeritus; parallel eye Sociology course director During the administration of Francisco Delic at the head of the UBA. Long before she became famous as Cavallo, who angrily dubbed her “that woman,” Torado The protagonist has been in a shining moment of reorganizing and modernizing his sociology degree.

For Cavallo to send her to wash the dishes The before and after are marked in the public life of the sociologist. “It was a very private attitude, the scientist was encouraged to contradict what no one had discussed, and above that was a woman. The youth of the Cone considered it an insult to the scientists, after Susana Torrado. At the same time, it was Conicet who came to explain to Cavallo the consequences of his economic model. For him It was unbearable, which is why he looked for all possible ways to discredit us,” Torrado stated in Page / 12 interview. “I remember a very good deed we called ‘Minister’s Education,’ which worked as a public radio station in the Plaza de Mayo in front of his office window at the Ministry of Economy; I remember that Perez Esquivel and other people were there, and a lot of people came to the Plaza and talked about politics, science and academic freedom “.

Social world publication Family and social differentiation. Method issues (1998, Eudeba), in which he organized his methodological developments around the study of families, families, and the workforce; Family History in Modern Argentina (1870-2000 .)) (2003, flower editions); Population and Well-being in Argentina from the First to the Second Centuries. A social history of the twentieth century (2007, Edhasa), A Compendium, in two volumes, of the socio-demographic shifts of the country’s population through a collection of articles both on and off the field; Good inheritance. Changes in society and the family (2004, Intellectual Capital) and The social cost of adaptation (Argentina 1976-2002), published in two volumes (2010, Edhasa).

He trained several generations with his classes at UBA, at the Institute for Advanced Social Studies (IDAES) of the National University of General San Martin; in the Graduate Program of Social Sciences and Social Policy at Flacso; and at the Institute for Economic and Social Development (IDES), among others. Torrado has been distinguished with the “Recognition of Professions” award from the Legislature of the City of Buenos Aires and the Bernardo Houssay Award for work in scientific and technological research (SECYT, 2003). From the hand of a pioneer like Torrado, the study of demography has been central to the life of a community. The social sciences in mourning.