Eva Giberti, the psychologist who changed attitudes to family and violence, died aged 96

Before the Fourth wave feminist and the green scarves This has changed the lives of millions of women. Before the feminism becomes a non-stigmatizing word. Before the Not one less and dozens of them Books who look at the world from the reality of women, Psychologist and intellectual Eva Giberti was there. Graduated in Psychology from the University of Buenos Aires, creator of the first School for Argentine parents in 1957 and author of books that are now canon, He died yesterday at the age of 96.

For more than sixty years Giberti was committed to defending human rights, children and young people and women on all fronts. She was an academic and trainer of professionals, she was an analyst and therapist, and she was committed to public policy as a tool for effective interventions.

Far from the idea of ​​the family as a loving nest, Giberti understood early on that blood ties are not far from violence. In 1957, when she was 28, she founded the School for Parents of Argentina, a private institution aimed at disseminating information and support (then the word was “advice”) in psychology to women experiencing motherhood in the turbulent 1960s.

“I think one of the things he accomplished with the articles he wrote was a new family read; I have formed hundreds of groups for fathers and mothers, I have formed a group for grandmothers, but they taught obedience to parents and I taught exactly the opposite: the boy’s ability to question and object at the same time.” she recalled of these courses, which she interviewed in 2017.

The initiative was later followed by three volumes of the book of the same name 30 copies soldjoined medical school five years later and expanded these tools in the form of courses in the children’s hospital and then in several provinces. Only the violence of the 1970s could derail the project, which was eventually closed in 1973 while Giberti was persecuted.

Recently, the idea of ​​school for parents has been reinterpreted as a feminist action. But she had another idea: “In reality, it has a different DNA for me, namely my resistance to authoritarianism.. This book was a fight against paternalism and patriarchy, but I hadn’t yet called it feminism. Furthermore, at this time he was fully practicing psychoanalysis, which is clearly patriarchal; So I was one of the first revisionists when it came to gender relations. We were – and are – women trained in psychoanalysis, but we couldn’t digest a lot of Freud’s work; So we had to throw it through a sieve, do some research and say we’ve followed it to this point, but not to this point. Female masochism, no. Women’s moral conscience is also inferior to that of men. So we turned the theory on its head.“.

In the academic field Giberti was a reference, teacher and trainer for several generations of psychologists, social workers and social scientists.. She started in 1961 and 1962 and just two years later as an assistant professor of childhood and youth at the UBA’s Faculty of Psychology She was invited by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to attend the “The Role of Women for Peace” conference in Jerusalem in December 1964 as a speaker.

He taught courses in the postgraduate specialization in family violence at UBA, in the specialization in forensic psychology at UCES, was co-director of the master’s program in family sciences at Unsam and taught in the “Cultures of Violence” chair at UBA in the 1990s.

It was not only considered a pioneer and reference in Argentina. From 1993 to 1999 she was a consultant for Unicef and Vice President of the Permanent Commission on the Life of Children in Latin America and the Caribbean. She was invited by the Bolivian Ministry of Education and the University of Bolivia to establish the school for parents in the region and participated as a panelist at the 57th session of the Legal and Social Commission for Women (CSW). United Nations in New York Cityin 2013.

His presence in the media was permanent. He knew how to explain complex issues simply and trusted in the informative power of journalism. “The media is of utmost importance because it can give a boost to the victim who is at home and is constantly exposed to insults every day; he is the target of devaluation by his partner,” she said in 2014. “We must understand that there are different forms of violence. If they are victims or are harassed by boyfriends, husbands or ex-husbands, The media is society’s best link to victims to convey the message that they do not have to tolerate any form of violence or abuse.and even the one who attacks says before the children that he is of no use.”

On repeated occasions Various administrations called on them to participate using state resources in the protection of children, young people and women. Between 1985 and 1989, she served on the Advisory Board of the Women and Development Program of the Nation’s Under Secretary for Human Development and Family. Since 1997 she has been an advisor to the “Forum for Women’s Rights” and a member of the “Presidential Council of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights”.

At the end of the last century became the “parts expert” for Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo in several cases against state oppressors for psychological harm to children born in secret detention centers and victims of torture in the womb.

She was also the coordinator of the unified register of guardianship candidates of the city of Buenos Aires and the nation. and integrated the Council on the Rights of Boys, Girls and Adolescents. He also created the program Victims against violencewhich depends on the nation’s Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, and founded the Office for Rescue and Support for Victims of Human Traffickingin 2009.

These initiatives They completely changed the treatment of raped women who came to the police to report it: “The police cannot interrogate them,” explained Giberti in 2017. “That’s why our job is to be with the victim until all the verification processes are completed, thus preventing her from receiving more than one interrogation. The doctor on duty and the forensic pathologist question her at the same time in our presence.” And that was an achievement that we achieved with judge Carmen Argibay“.

The previous list This is just a possible selection. His career is overwhelming. As an author, the list of her books numbers dozens. He published with Florencio Escardó in 1964 Hospitalism (Eudeba); Four years later he focused on a universal theme, but one that has not been well analyzed: Argentinians and love (Ed. Merlin). In addition to the three volumes School for parents (ed. Roberto Antonio), published from 1961 to 1972, she was the author of Youth and sex education (Ed. Roberto Antonio), when ESI was not even a possible dream; The adoption (South American); And why? Women wonder (Alicia Moreau de Justo Foundation); Women’s times (Sudamericana) and from the newspaper Page/12where he was a frequent columnist, School for parents (the children of the third millennium), 20 weekly editions of the newspaper, which he has contributed to since its inception.

He received awards, recognition and honors. In 2003, she was declared a famous citizen of the city of Buenos Aires.. The newspaper was published in 2010 Look south interviewed her in an article that began: “Eva Giberti is perhaps the greatest authority on child adoption in Argentina.” The idea was precise, although incomplete. That was it too the greatest authority in childhood, child violence, motherhood and psychoanalysis, in the accompaniment of women rescued from the clutches of human trafficking, and in gender perspectives and psychology. And in other things.

In 2013, when She was 84 years old and still working as a coordinator for the Victims Against Violence program. the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. He went into the office and worked just a few meters away from the operators of route 137, which had received 65,856 family violence calls in just two months. “At this age I should actually be knitting at home, but I’m here because I believe things can be changed“, she said at the time in an interview for the website Infojus. This belief, which motivated her for almost a century, was not wrong: Eva Giberti changed millions of lives.