“Knowing that a group of activists in the US read our literature and believe in it makes us proud,” Florencia Alcaraz, a journalist, added. Here in Argentina, it’s hardly radical to be anti capitalist, it’s something we feel all the time.” “The fact that the American girls want to oppose capitalism is a triumph,” Agustina Paz Frontera, a poet and essayist, told me. On the other side of the globe-el culo del mundo, as Argentines endearingly call their homeland-Minici, an academic, and the dozen other founders of Ni Una Menos, were thrilled, if slightly bemused. In it, they pointed to Argentina’s Ni Una Menos (Not One Less) collective-the face of Argentina’s feminist movement-as their inspiration for embracing a feminism for the 99%. The women behind Ni Una Menos are a cross between Gloria Steinem, Joan Jett and guerilla fighter Juana Azurduy. In the US, the measure was spearheaded by the leaders of the January 21 Women’s March on Washington, including civil rights and women’s liberation titan Angela Davis, who penned their call to arms in a letter in The Guardian. This article was amended on 16 February 2021 to correct a quote that had Yesenia Zamudio appealing for a political party to represent her.On March 8, women from over 30 countries went on strike to protest the economic forces that put them at a disadvantage around the globe. “In general, the killer acts when a woman says: ‘enough’.” “Femicides are still happening because it’s a form of disciplining,” she says. Zamudio’s frustration is echoed by Montero, the mother in Argentina. “If we had achieved a change in the past five years, we wouldn’t have to keep fighting for one less death,” she says.ĭillion, one of the Ni Una Menos founders, agrees there is still a lot of work to do. The problem was highlighted earlier this year in a sobering viral video, showing a woman named Yesenia Zamudio seeking justice and defending direction action over her daughter’s murder, which had been dismissed by authorities as suicide four years earlier: “I am not a collective, I don’t need a tambourine, nor a fucking political party to represent me.” She goes on to say, “I have every right to burn and break.” “Blaming the victim is no longer possible,” she says.įemicide laws exist in Mexico, yet impunity rates of over 90% point to their ineffectuality. Marta Dillion, a founder of the Ni Una Menos movement, sees important progress in these past five years. “It’s not that there is more violence, it’s that now you’re seeing it and naming it,” says Lescano. Universities and other places of work are developing protocols to deal with gender violence in their spheres. Her death prompted Argentina to pass a law requiring all government workers to undergo gender sensitivity training. “You can see the changes,” said Andrea Lescano, whose daughter Micaela Garcia was murdered in 2017. He established a new Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity, which runs a helpline for victims of violence and works to shift attitudes through education campaigns. “There’s just much more violence against women.”Īt his inaugural address, Argentina’s president Alberto Fernández praised Ni Una Menos as a flag that everyone should be waving. “I try not to be a pessimist, but unfortunately things have gotten much worse,” she laments, speaking from her home in the coastal city of Mar del Plata. Today, a woman is killed every 30 hours in Argentina, and Montero said she often thinks of all the others who have died since Lucia was killed. Two of them were convicted of selling drugs to a minor. Outrage over that crime prompted the country’s first national women’s strike, but the three men accused of assaulting Lucia were eventually acquitted of murder. Marta Montero is still fighting for justice for her 16-year-old daughter Lucia Pérez, who was drugged, gang-raped and murdered in 2016. Activists protest against gender violence in Plaza de Mayo, overlooking the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires, to mark the fifth anniversary of the Ni Una Menos movement in Argentina.
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