A feminist analysis of Argentina’s swing to the right

Photo from the series “Today I’m not here for anyone” by Anabella Sarrias.

On Sunday, August 13, a tense electoral process began in Argentina. The primary process to choose candidates for key seats of public office, including for President, took place in the context of an unending economic crisis, as the peso fluctuates, is regularly devalued, and inflation pushes upward. This electoral process is called PASO, which stands for Open, Simultaneous and Obligatory Primaries. All eligible voters can participate, voting for candidates from every party, in contrast to what takes place elsewhere, where the selection of candidate is the prerogative of party structures. 

Sunday’s results showed voters, submerged in economic crisis, betting on the right wing. They also demonstrated widespread malaise with Kirchnerist Peronism, which emerged from the vote severely weakened.

Javier Milei, a businessperson without any previous political activity who campaigned on extreme right wing proposals to end the economic crisis, received 30 per cent of votes, making him the most voted candidate. A representative of the traditional right-wing came in second, and a leader from the right-wing of historic Peronism came in third. It’s worth noting that the level of abstention, blank ballots and spoiled ballots totaled over 30 per cent, higher than the vote for Milei.

General elections will take place on October 22, and if required, a second round will be held November 19th, opening a critical time for mobilization. In an article written following the primary elections, Verónica Gago and Luci Cavallero share their reaction to the political situation in Argentina, continuing the debate on the march of the right wing and fascism, and the role of feminism in confronting both. —Eds.

Opinion • Verónica Gago and Luci Cavallero • August 17, 2023 • Leer en español

We want to try to share some elements to encourage a debate, from the perspective of feminisms, on the results of the primary elections in Argentina on Sunday. 

The point of this reflection is not to propose a definitive reading, to say ‘I told you so,’ or to accuse those who voted for Milei of being fascists. That’s too easy, and too ineffective.

Rather, it is useful to understand the reasons behind this vote, so that we can think through an effective intervention from the popular feminist militancy, which we will participate in over coming months in order to prevent right and the ultra-right wing candidates from being elected to office. 

We consider those who voted for Milei to be participants in the everyday economy, a domain that is denigrated again and again due to its inexorable materiality and its political rationality. The feminist movement has positioned the everyday economy as an important lens through which to understand the economic violence suffered by those who sustain their household economies on a daily basis. 

Going into debt to live, constantly calculating changes in the price of the blue dollar [a non-official, parallel exchange market for US dollars that oscillates according to supply and demand], watching income disappear, is not a "narrative" (with which we may or may not agree). Not is it the purview of feminist economics, or merely a way of explaining how what happens in the upper echelons impacts those down below. 

The belief that those who are most affected by the economic dynamics of impoverishment do not understand it, or that it will not translate electorally, is a form of infantilization, and it is recurrent. This infantilization assumes the existence of a superior ideology or set of values that diminishes the importance of what is felt in the pocketbook. 

Infantilization, as feminists well know, is a way of degrading the household, devaluing what happens at the level of everyday life. It erases the household as a space where value is produced from economic discourse. It negates the household as a primary sphere in which the impact of devaluation is concretely experienced, and as the place where an economy of actions is organized, ranging from tirelessly searching for lower prices in the face of soaring inflation, to taking delay ridden public transport, to the fear that one could be the victim of a crime. The idea that these "feelings" cannot constitute a political dynamic or that they can be repaired by historical evocations of past and better times, is clearly insufficient.

The household is where cash is transformed into debt, where currency goes up in smoke, where one feels the arbitrary reduction social supports after having made a purchase in dollars. The feeling of injustice that connects effort and money is key. The upper "caste" [elites of whatever kind] are the only ones who are able to avoid this constant daily calculation. 

As feminists, we cannot rely on easy labels and condemn fascism in the abstract or point fingers at a sector that expresses the crisis of political representation in diffuse and contradictory ways. Rather, we must understand how Milei gives voice to the feelings shared by whoever thinks the peso is tanking; that debt is the most permanent presence at home; or whoever fantasizes about dynamiting the Central Bank. A radical fantasy. 

Here we must also understand a radicalized will for change that finds expression promises akin to what everyone already says: the dollar is the only thing that’s stable. In an economy that has dollarized fundamental goods and services (the price of housing, for example), Milei's dollarization proposal puts denialism on the other side (and makes the denial of state terrorism seem less important). 

Thus, we witness the paradox which makes activists feel suffocated: Milei is a member of the financial sector with close connections to investment funds and a defender of the global institutionality of concentrated capital, whose slate includes candidates like Ramiro Marra, a stock broker who speculates on the price of the dollar, is the one who articulates the daily experiences of those from below who oscillate between calculation, frustration and speculation.

Milei takes the proposal for the financial governance of our lives to the absolute maximum (the speculation which everyone who has to deal with precariousness is forced into), and combines it with reactionary, misogynist and patriarchal discourse. Insecurity in everyday life lubricates a discourse on the need to "arm ourselves", to seek security at all costs. 

It is well established—but rarely discussed—how the vote for Milei has a very important male component. Male and young. This is partly a reaction to feminist advances we have achieved in recent years. It connects to the frustration of those who are resentful of their future possibilities, and humiliated in the concrete materiality of the present. 

The best path forward is far from "hiding the agenda of feminism" (or trivializing it). Rather, it is to assume the humiliation—experienced through low wages, on public transportation, or in the real estate market—in which authority figures (the lion's roar) are desperately sought. Milei wears the garb of machismo, of authority achieved through shouting, though he is in fact not traditional. He calls his sister "boss" and speaks of his pets as "children with four legs," while his vice-presidential candidate applauds the military and military values. She is not the cut from the usual right wing cloth either, rather, she knew how put a new spin on it.

What is to be done? It is this question that interests us most. 

We must go out and organize ourselves according to the experience we already have: through assemblies, networks, and concrete actions.

Feminisms have been able to translate malaise into organization, there is no time for anything else. Feminisms have been able to build massive support and transversality, we cannot just talk among ourselves. Feminisms have politicized the crisis of the mandates of masculinity and invited young people to build other networks and other references. In the coming weeks, let us build a state of collective alert, forming broad alliances and militancy in our homes, in the squares and in the streets.