Feminism

The feminist movement in the second largest country of South America has distinguished itself as being loud and proud. Massive demonstrations that filled the streets of Argentina’s biggest cities helped clinch huge victories, such as the 2020 legalization of abortion for cases up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.

But the landscape has changed under libertarian President Javier Milei, who has put the chainsaw he campaigned with into action, cutting roughly 30% of government spending in his first year in office. Along the way, he has deployed increasingly hostile rhetoric against the feminist movement, characterizing legal abortion as “aggravated murder” in public speeches, and denigrating so-called “woke” policies in an echo of his counterpart President Donald Trump in the United States. Milei’s government has used the power of funding to put that rhetoric into action, cutting financing for contraceptives and ceasing to provide abortion pills. Prior to his administration, the national government bought and delivered misoprostol and mifepristone to provinces that administered it free of cost through the public healthcare system. Now, that responsibility has shifted to provincial governments. The result, according to Amnesty International, has been shortages of medication in various provinces, hindering women’s ability to access a service that remains legal.

Away from the capital city, feminism in Argentina has always been a more complex undertaking, one that often exists in a conservative or religious environment where traditional gender norms hold firm. In more rural areas, women have found empowerment and support through small collective organizations that have planted seeds of activism in people like Ojeda.

Organizations like La Chicharra—the Cicada—a tiny community run radio station that is at the center of feminist organizing in Goya, the second largest city in Corrientes. The grassroots feminist project helped Ojeda find her voice, in part through workshops built to educate women on their rights, how to assert their worth in the home, and strengthening their financial autonomy.