Feminist force grows in Argentina

March 8, 2024 in Buenos Aires. Photo: Susi Maresca.

Reportage • Valen Iricibar • March 15, 2024 • Leer en castellano

At just past four o’clock in Buenos Aires, the number of people in green and purple handkerchiefs and t-shirts gathering on Callao Avenue, several blocks from Congress, began to grow. These are the colors of Argentine feminism, representative of the right to choose and the struggle against gender violence. 

As the official communiqué—which was read later in the march—states, March 8 is the International Day of Women Workers. And this year, the context in Argentina is different. 

"Today is my day and you're not going to fuck it up!" shouted Ayelén Hernández de Armas, a warning to her partner to let her collect cans in peace. 

"Being a woman in Argentina today is sad. It's very sad," she said, as a stream of protesters walked past. "We’re subjugated and mistreated. And with the change of government things are even worse: before I didn't have to collect cans, I panhandled outside of a bank, but people can't help out anymore, they don't give their change. Before, when you went to restaurants people gave you the food that was left, but now they take their leftovers home.”

According to the Ni Una Menos collective, 400,000 people, including cis women, lesbians, bisexuals, transvestites, trans, non-binary and intersex people attended the 8M march in Buenos Aires, and one million marched across the country. 

This year, the annual march started with a "verdurazo", where the Women of the Earth Association gave away three thousand kilos of vegetables. One of the slogans in the official communiqué was: "We are protesting against hunger and [structural] adjustment." In its last report, released a few weeks ago, the Social Debt Observatory at the Catholic University of Buenos Aires projected the poverty rate would reach 60 percent in March.

Women hand out vegetables and produce at the beginning of the 8M march in Buenos Aires. Photo: Susi Maresca.

The text agreed upon by the convening organizations reflects a panorama of setbacks and challenges: the political terrain has become decidedly more hostile since the arrival of President Javier Milei. 

"Freedom is ours, it does not belong to markets or governments," reads the communiqué. After a harsh campaign against the Argentine feminist movement, President Milei officially designated feminists as enemies during his speech at the Davos Economic Forum in January. 

As soon as Milei took office he relegated the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity to a sub-secretariat within the new Ministry of Human Capital. Since then, a wave of cuts to gender programs has including slashing funding for the 144 hotline (which provided telephone assistance to victims of gender violence) and the prohibition of the use of inclusive language by public servants, among other rollbacks.

"This feels very different than other years. In past years we weren’t doing great, let's not fool ourselves, but the disdain on the part of the national government is terrible," said Gloria Bisio, a retiree protesting with the group Insurgent Retirees. They are part of a generation which is being impacted in a particularly brutal way by the new policies. "I feel like I am being treated like garbage, you know, denigrated and debased, and I can't allow that."

During his daily press conference on March 8, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni announced that women who attended the march would be docked a day’s pay. He also announced the women's lounge in the Casa Rosada [the equivalent to the White House] would be redecorated in homage to (male) national heroes. 

By order of the President's sister, Karina Milei, portraits of women including María Remedios del Valle (a captain of African descent recognized as the "Mother of the Nation") and Diana Sacayán (an activist and transvestite leader who was murdered in 2015), were covered up with those of Argentine historical figures. All of them men.

March 8 in Buenos Aires was also different this year, because of the heavy presence of federal police officers. 

They are there to implement the new government's security protocol, which is meant to prevent any kind of obstruction to traffic. Initially, the officers formed a dark line bordering the Plaza in front of congress, then they erected fences cutting off Rivadavia Avenue, an almost unprecedented occurrence in feminist marches. 

A crowd of demonstrators in the massive March 8 actions in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photo: Susi Maresca.

"I am not surprised that [the police] are there, I expected that—and worse—but this is completely different from other marches," said Alicia Rueco, a Uruguayan social worker who has lived in Argentina for 40 years and is co-author of the blog AfroDecires. "In previous marches we were more relaxed, calmer, it was a party. Now it's a struggle, a real struggle."

"Argentina is an example of human rights, of the women's movement, we are examples, aren't we?" said Rueco. "And now we are going to become an example of struggle too. We will set an example of struggle and we will resist all this."

A slogan repeated by the posters paid homage to the "green tide" that fought for legal abortion, which was also taken up in the feminist communiqué: "We were a rising tide, now we are a tsunami." 

To the usual palette of feminist colors were added the red, black, white and another shade of green: that of the Palestinian flag, which held a place of pride in the march not seen in previous years. The rainbow, trans, non-binary and colorful banners of LGBTQIA+ and TTNB+ organizations, according to the distinction made in Argentina, also flew high.

"We are struggling all of the time, and not just during marches. Being a woman or [sexual or gender] dissident, being non-binary, trans or a transvestite creates a feeling of vertigo. I don't want to lose the little we’ve gained," said Mic Di Lorenzo, who attended the march with a sign decorated with the trans flag and said "trans inclusive feminism or nothing" in felt pen.

Di Lorenzo says they are more afraid to be in the streets since the new government took office. "The people who love me say 'take care of yourself,' which makes me want to to stay home sometimes, but I feel I should be in the street I can and if I feel up to it," said Di Lorenzo.

As night began to fall, the demonstration started to die down little by little. But Callao and Rivadavia avenues remained full of people. 

A young girl whose butterfly wings read: "They sowed fear, we grew wings." Photo: Susi Maresca.

A girl with glasses and a French braid approached police officers who were closing an intersection diagonally. She stopped a few meters away, hesitating: she turned to look to one side at the women she was with, and then over to the black uniforms on the other side. Her hesitant swaying moved the purple cardboard butterfly wings she wears on her back, that read: "They sowed fear, we grew wings". 

New officers appeared, closing the gaps and advancing in a line together. The women gathered became emboldened, chanting “They are afraid, the caste is afraid," reversing the propagandistic slogan used by Milei. 

More demonstrators joined in behind, taking pictures. The youngster with butterfly wings shuffled back and forth, holding a pink camera around her neck, but standing firm. She stared defiantly for a few more minutes at the officers, and past them to the lit up Congress building, until she returned to the safety of a group hug. A teenage girl came forward, standing with her back to the police, her face obscured by an anti-fascist sign, a bottle of beer between her black sneakers.

Later on, around nine o'clock, the imposing fences were still preventing cars from entering Rivadavia Avenue, where demonstrators continued their dance into the night.