Argentinian feminists face misogynist backlash

Argentina has historically been a leader in women’s rights in Latin America. In 2015, activists organised the first Ni Una Menos, a grassroots feminist movement denouncing the rise of the femicide figures that quickly spread all over the continent. With its signature purple and green flags, it also fuelled the fight for safe, legal and free abortion in the region. In December 2020, the movement succeeded in legalising abortion up to the 14th week.

But three years on, all of these achievements are threatened.

The new government of the far-right libertarian Javier Milei has condemned abortion and attacked feminism as its enemy. One of his first measures was to close the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity. With the excuse of making adjustments to balance fiscal accounts, he discontinued a series of public policies working against gender violence as well as social plans that ensured an income for marginalised people. Argentina’s poverty rate rose from 44.7% to 57.4% in just his first three months in office, according to private estimates.

“The government is applying a terrible adjustment policy,” says feminist economist Luci Cavallero. A member of the Ni Una Menos collective, she is concerned about how the president’s economic measures are mainly affecting women, lesbians, travestis¹ and transgender people, where the highest rates of labour informality are concentrated. “Salaries have been frozen but prices have been liberalised, especially for basic goods and service, so the drop in salaries for them is much more pronounced,” she explains.

The setback that women and gender-diverse people are experiencing in Argentina is not only economic. In February, Rocio Bonacci, a member of the ruling party La Libertad Avanza, presented a bill to ban abortion without any exceptions. Although the deputy allegedly acted on her own, Cavallero warns that the government can effectively undermine access to abortion, either by trying to repeal it in the future or by defunding public health: “These authorities are clearly not respecting the institutional order”.

Also in February, the government prohibited the use of gender neutral language in official documents, and dismantled a programme to prevent unintended teenage pregnancies, despite its success: the rate of young women having children when they were between the ages of 10 and 19 dropped from 49.2% to 27% between 2018 and 2021.

“Our rights are in danger”

A few years ago, the Argentine feminist journalist Luciana Peker wrote: “The women’s revolution has as a collateral effect a macho reaction that is not simply the permanence of classic machismo, but the virulent reaction of a crueller and angrier machismo against women’s desire”.

This certainly rings true in today’s context of women’s rights being rolled back. Peker, who has been covering feminist fights and gender issues in Argentina and Latin America since 1998,decided this year to go into self-imposed exile in Europe after receiving death threats. “I was intimidated by an orchestrated organisation” says Peker, clarifying that the backlash against feminist journalists predates Milei’s arrival and partly explains his electoral success.

“I feel that we are being punished for having positively transformed society, for giving young women more rights, for denouncing sexual abuse, for making it possible for women to have sex without thinking they’ll die from clandestine abortions,” she says. “So, yes, our rights are in danger”.

“The government is legitimising gender-based violence”

Activist Florencia Guimarães has promoted the trans labour quota in the public administration, which, since its
introduction in 2021, has allowed hundreds of travestis and transgender people to have their first formal job and, therefore, the possibility of having health insurance and a pension for the first time in their lives. The trans population is extremely vulnerable in Argentina, with a life expectancy of under 40 years. Since June 2021, 700 people have started to work thanks to this initiative, while another 10,000 are on the waiting list.

With Milei’s economic adjustment plan and his decision to reduce state functions, they face an uncertain future. Contracts are not being renewed, employees are being dismissed, and hiring has stopped: “They will be in conditions of total impoverishment,” criticises Guimarães.

“This is devastating, with trans people having a shorter life expectancy and being pushed into prostitution and the danger of the night streets”, she says. But she is not surprised. Those in power “campaigned with hate speeches and are destroying gender policies just as they promised. The threat has always existed, but now it is transforming into public policies, which is extremely dangerous. As a result, the government is practising institutional violence and legitimising gender-based violence”.

“Take the chainsaw out of our rights”

During his election campaign, Milei travelled around the country in an open van with a chainsaw to visually hammer home his plan: extreme cuts. In response, the feminist movement organised a massive demonstration on International Women’s Day under the slogan “Take the chainsaw out of our rights”.

The streets are a pivotal battleground of feminist resistance. “The Ni Una Menos collective has been occupying the streets with force measures at different times of the year, especially on March 8 and June 3. We are organising to stop the authoritarian and neoliberal policies of this government”, says Cavallero.

Self-care networks will also be essential to surviving the four years ahead of this government. « Last year, we created a national and provincial space for travestis and trans workers, in order to get to know each other and provide support, defence and self-care,” says Guimarães.

Yet this is difficult and often thankless work. Peker would like to see the whole of society taking to the streets to defend the rights won by the feminist movement. “It’s hard for women to be responsible for stopping a government that exercises violence, that has closed down all women’s support organisations, that has impoverished us. It’s asking us to be heroines. We have changed history; this time, we need support”.

 ¹ In Argentina, the term ‘travesti ’refers to people who were assigned male at birth but identify and live as women, while claiming a specific gender identity distinct from trans women, playing a key role in the fight for trans and gender non-conforming people rights.

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