By Emilse Saavedra
It has been ten years since the first Ni Una Menos (Not One Less) in Argentina. To understand how this date came about, we need to delve into the history of the feminist movement in general. Because beyond the specific case that sparked the anger—the femicide of Chiara Páez—in truth, there has been a trajectory of struggle in which many of us women have previously taken part throughout the country. And in turn, we now face a great task if we are to stand up to the global far right and defend our achievements. Ten years and more of our struggle.
A bit of history: the first wave
Indeed, the fight did not begin 10 years ago. The history of the women’s movement worldwide and in Argentina has gone through various processes or what we might call “waves” that have ignited and mobilized thousands in the streets. A first wave relates to the fight for civil rights—in other words, winning women’s right to vote, which in Argentina was achieved in 1947 with the enactment of Law 13,010. Although there is a tendency in this country to attribute the passing of laws to “concessions” made by certain politicians, the reality is that this was part of the broader women’s struggle around the world. Thanks to that global fight, Argentina became one of the first Latin American countries to secure women’s suffrage.
1992, the first LGBT march in Argentina
A second wave is more tied to the pursuit of sexual freedoms, approximately in the ’70s, at a time when even talking about women’s sexuality was taboo, and it was even more difficult to conceive of rights and sovereignty over our bodies. In Argentina, this movement was led primarily by the LGBTTIQ+ community—particularly by gay men. The CHA (Comunidad Homosexual Argentina) and the MST, the only political party that supported it, called for the first LGBT march in Buenos Aires in 1992 (one of whose participants was Pablo Vasco, a highly valued comrade from our MST, who recently passed away and was widely known by all organizations). At that time, we took to the streets in the name of sexual freedoms, laying the foundations that would later earn us several relatively progressive laws, placing the country at the forefront of legislation in this area. Although having good laws never guarantees they will always be enforced: discrimination against trans women, lesbians, and the whole community persists to this day—tragically illustrated by transfemicides, lesbicides, and femicides.
1986, the first Women’s Gathering
Parallel to the LGBT movement, just a few years earlier—and triggered by the same concerns—the first Encuentro de Mujeres (Women’s Gathering) was held in 1986 in Buenos Aires. This Encuentro saw women from different backgrounds come together to discuss a variety of topics, primarily those affecting women’s rights. These Encuentros have continued throughout all these years, rotating venues across different provinces and elevating each region’s specific demands. Our MST, with Juntas y a la Izquierda, has persistently fought to ensure these Encuentros take place in the capital city, so that the demands are heard at the Casa Rosada, thus ensuring this powerful movement can fully confront the ultrarightist Milei administration today, just as we did earlier with Alberto Fernández (2019–2023), Mauricio Macri (2015–2019), and Cristina Kirchner (2007–2015). None of these governments ever effectively fought gender violence. Today, after many debates, this Encuentro is called the Women’s and Dissidents’ Plurinational Encuentro.
Global developments—such as the rise of globalization, environmental problems, global warming, increased awareness of animal rights, and respect for nature—shaped feminist thinking beginning in the ’90s. It started to be enriched by new contributions from environmental, pro–human rights, and LGBT rights movements, along with rising social awareness of gender violence. This shaped what we consider the third feminist wave.
The latest, fourth wave
We can associate it with the emergence of different “types” of feminisms and their assorted strategies (where “strategies” are understood as ultimate objectives) that challenge specific paradigms in particular and/or all paradigms generally. But it is also associated with a deeper questioning of sexual-affective relationships and relational dynamics. While each feminist wave made specific advancements in dismantling the general concept of patriarchy—bringing what had been “private” into the public eye, unifying our struggles, and making explicit our double exploitation and assigned roles—the fourth wave is the one that has gone the furthest with the concept of consent and its non-static nature, even in long-term relationships. On another note, the #MeToo movement took aim at people who had previously been untouchable figures. That is why this last wave is profoundly political and sharply questions—like no other—the patriarchal values of the capitalist system.
In our country, this wave manifested itself through the Green Tide: thousands in the streets demanding legal abortion as a right, with the resonant, heavily political theme, “My body, my choice.” Clearly, it represented a huge leap forward in our struggle and brought about the achievement of the right to legal abortion.
2005, emergence of the Campaign for Legalizing Abortion
In this latest period, we find the birth of the Campaign for the Legalization of Abortion in 2005, conceived during one of the Encuentros de Mujeres. It sprang up as an organization comprising various political groups that shared a genuine concern over the right to choose. This Campaign championed numerous measures, especially in the legislative realm, trying to get abortion on the congressional docket. In 2007, it would introduce its first bill, a turning point that signaled a long path to achieving the legalization of abortion in Argentina through Law 27,610 in 2020.
In the ensuing years, the women’s movement that debated in the Encuentros organized within the Campaign or through Multisectoriales, but it was fundamentally active in the streets and won multiple laws critical to the fight against gender violence and femicides.
Our struggle reaped victories
In 2006, we won Law No. 26,150 on Comprehensive Sexual Education (ESI), which, though unevenly implemented in the nation’s schools, continues to be a major achievement.
In 2009, Law No. 26,485 was passed, providing comprehensive protection to prevent, punish, and eradicate violence against women in settings where interpersonal relationships take place. This marked a milestone in prosecuting gender violence, as the country expanded its legal definition of violence against women, including different types of aggression and the unequal power dynamic between men as perpetrators and women as victims.
Before 2015, something crucial happened for Argentina’s feminist movement: in 2010, the Penal Code was amended to clarify rules on nonpunishable abortions, establishing an important precedent and leaving no room for ambiguity.
2010, the FAL Ruling in Chubut
Known as the FAL Ruling (from the initials of the mother’s name in the case), it occurred in Comodoro Rivadavia and involved the rape of a minor by her stepfather, who was a Chubut provincial police officer, resulting in a pregnancy. Interpretation of the law changed after this case, finding the abortion sought by the minor was not punishable because it involved rape. Let us remember that in 2010, the voluntary termination of pregnancy was not yet legal, and the Penal Code only permitted abortion in cases where a woman was “idiotic or demented” or whose health was in danger; although it also covered rape scenarios, the treatment, interpretation, and application varied wildly, denying raped women the right to choose. In this case, a group of us women organized to support the minor’s family, call mobilizations, plan actions, and hand out flyers to publicize the case. In 2010, while abortion remained heavily taboo, we in the streets began to bring visibility to the fight for legal abortion. This cause, and the ruling’s outcome, was widely celebrated by feminist groups across the country, as it bolstered the legislative push that the Campaign for the Legalization of Abortion had been carrying on: recognizing that abortion is not punishable in rape cases opened up the question of why it is punishable in others. That debate, as mentioned previously, helped pave the way to the 2020 victory of the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy Law.
2015, Ni Una Menos
Within the framework of the fourth feminist wave, we place the emergence of “Ni Una Menos” in 2015. Precisely this is not about a different type of feminism, but rather about the spontaneous anger that took to the streets; although it had some amount of organization, what motivated its beginnings was indignation. Where at the same time it is that initial dispersion that generated the organization.
Prior to this date, the murders of women, kidnappings, disappearances and all the baggage of violence throughout the country of course generated anger and mobilization. But in that 2015 we said enough, the body of 14-year-old Chiara, whose death motivated the first #NiUnaMenos march against gender violence on June 3 of that year, was found by police dogs buried in the back of the house of Mansilla’s maternal grandparents, her killer, who killed her at the age of 18 because she was a woman and pregnant. Her femicide was a blow, and to the list of hundreds that there are a year, came “Not one less, we want to live”
Before achieving the judicial figure of “femicide“ in 2012, murders of women were judicially treated as ”crimes of passion“; unfairly associating ”passion” as the trigger for murders. This reality is what motivated that in the different provinces both feminist organizations and some trade union organizations and very few political parties come together. Generally, the strong presence in all the provinces was (and still is today) that of the left-wing political parties, including our MST. It was these women with these political, union and/or partisan belongings who organized the marches and/or actions in their cities.
All these struggles in the streets and conquests of rights were the breeding ground for the emergence of the NUM. The Meetings of Women who make up the country, the Campaign for the Legalization of Abortion, and the various Multisectoral Ones had in common that they were formed and driven by women who had political or party or union or neighborhood memberships, that is, women who were organized. In many provinces and at different times these “Multisectoral” emerged as spaces that grouped many sectors.
The qualitative leap with NUM in 2015 is that the anger is generalized and the participations are expanded. It becomes massive. Suddenly, independent women, mobilized only by anger, without belongings of any kind, begin to participate in these spaces. They started to mobilize families, parents, unions, there was a society that said: enough. And that at the same time allowed more and more compañeras to join and, given the reason for the anger, younger and younger compañeras to join; the age component was also important in this process.
3 June 2015
And it is that the femicide that triggered the anger had as a victim a 14-year-old teenager, Chiara Paez. She was pregnant and in the case it is recorded that her partner, a 16-year-old teenager at the time, did not agree to continue with the pregnancy. The case happened in the town of Rufino, province of Santa Fe. It was on May 10, 2015 that Chiara’s body was found buried in the home of relatives of the 16-year-old teenager.
Rufino is a small town, which did not have all the tools for the investigation of the case. But the cruelty of femicide and the indignation at the shortcomings of the State and justice made the anger explode not only in the province of Santa Fe but throughout the country. In this way, throughout the month of May, a huge mobilization was prepared throughout the country that resonated throughout the world.
It was a huge and massive feeling that demanded (and still demands today) urgent solutions against femicides and gender violence. It was clear that nothing was done to prevent femicide, neither at the public policy level nor from the justice system. The case had no previous complaints, but given the existence of laws to prevent violence, the inclusion of femicide in the Criminal Code, the Comprehensive Sexual Education Law, for Chiara it could have meant a teenage pregnancy that could have been avoided and for society a whole femicide that could have been avoided.
The absence of the application of these public policies is what is denounced along with the hypocritical behavior of the officials of the national government (the president was Cristina Fernández de Kirchner) and of the provincial governors, who said they supported the claim but did not do, nor do they do today anything against this scourge. In fact, it is clear that they are partly responsible for not designating enough budget to really address this problem and of course for promoting a macho-patriarchal model that enables violent actions against women. The latter was blatantly done by the current government (Javier Milei de la Libertad Avanza, 2022-today), but also perhaps more covertly by the governments that respond to Peronism previously (Alberto Fernández, 2018-2022 and Cristina Kirchner, 2007-2015).
It was thus that the feminist movement added June 3rd as the date to specifically demand against femicides to the agenda of struggle that the feminist movement has. Calendar of struggle that starts on the 8th with a more classist character because it is the International Working Women’s Day, continues with the 3RD against femicides, continues on the 28TH the Global day of Action for Legal Abortion, and ends on the 25TH the Day of Struggle Against Violence against Women (date that commemorates the murder of the Mirabal sisters at the hands of the Trujillo dictatorship in 1960).
The struggle continues
The NUM (Ni Una Menos) in Argentina had a significant impact on the involvement of women who at other times in history had not been involved, that is, women who saw the news and directly took to the streets. This motivated us to start talking about feminism in all areas, for better and for worse.
It generated negative reactions from now on, especially in 2018 when the movement for the legalization of abortion broke out. When people started talking about abortion in schools, in neighborhoods and on the streets, when we were on the way to winning that fight, feminism was directly (and rightly) associated with abortion and consequently a sector (especially linked to the church) began to delegitimize the claim of feminists because they were all “murderers” for wanting legalization. Although there were debates, which were later settled, the NUM put on the green scarf characteristic of The Campaign. These debates were given for wanting to separate the different forms of violence – femicide and abortion – since there was not a unanimous agreement with abortion but with claiming against femicides.
The negative reactions in the streets and on social networks were contrasted with the massiveness of the complaint and with the entry of feminism into homes, perhaps not as a practice that directly avoided violence (because public policies are needed for that), but as a topic of conversation. That was also a significant step, because although it was not taboo (like abortion for many years) to talk about feminisms, to talk about violence, to question the status quo led to more women taking to the streets.
In the case of NUM, the judicial conquest was to incorporate the figure of “femicide”, which although it already existed legally (remember that it was incorporated in 2012), the reality is that it was not automatically applied to all murders committed by men against women. This change brings with it the realization that in the murders of women committed by men there is an inequality of power, where it is the man who holds the power, be it physical, economic, legal, political or of any kind, placing women in a situation of irreversible vulnerability. This is also the purpose of Law 26,485, which identifies all types of violence.
All the laws that we have achieved in these ten years that have passed since the first of June 3 have been conquered by the women’s movement in the streets. Although some governments tried to appropriate these achievements, it is clear that without mobilization it is more difficult to win rights. Some of the laws of this period were:
2012, Gender Identity Law No. 26,743, legislates on the right of people to have their self-perceived gender identity recognized. A great achievement that implies the possibility of modifying personal data such as name, gender and photo in the ID and other documents, as well as accessing health treatments to adapt gender expression.
2018, Brisa Law N° 27.452, establishes an economic reparation regime for children and adolescents who have been victims of family or gender-based violence, in particular those who have lost their parent due to femicide.
2019, Micaela Law N° 27.499, establishes mandatory training in gender and gender violence for all people working in the public service, at all levels and hierarchies, in the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. This law, also the result of the struggle in the streets, is named after Micaela García, a victim of femicide who made visible the need to address violence against women from a gender perspective.
2020, Law of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy N° 27.610, which establishes access to the interruption of a pregnancy until the 14th week and with the only requirement of signing an informed consent. This was a process of struggle that took more than a decade to be conquered, and which unfortunately is still called into question today.
2021, Law of Trans Labor Quota N° 27.636, also known as the Law of Promotion of Access to Formal Employment for Transvestite, Transsexual and Transgender People “Diana Sacayán – Lohana Berkins”. It establishes a minimum quota of 1% of the positions and positions of the national public administration for transvestites, transsexuals and transgender people, with the aim of guaranteeing access to formal employment under equal conditions.
A 3J that should be massive
Today all these laws seem to be in danger before the advances of the liberfacho Milei, the truth is that the women’s movement is ready to go out to fight. We did this in February 2025 in the face of the president’s hate speeches, we repeated it on March 8 for our rights, we are going to follow it on the 3rd and always in the streets to show that they are not going to take us out of there, that they will not happen and that together we are going to achieve more rights.
There is a process in the world of the rise of the right, which settles and gloats over the reaction that any feminist wave received. Of course, since the fourth wave was the most political, the deepest, their reaction has the proportionality of that depth. The incels and a whole sector of males not included in the debates, not understanding them and as a preservation of their privileges, blame us women for their ills. That available mass was co-opted by the ultra-right, developing its policies of hatred of feminism and its anti-rights side.
Feminist leaderships have a lot of responsibility, which are radicalized on the one hand where there are no debates or any cultural battle, and those leaderships that, because they are lukewarm, do not see the need to fight or confront the ultra-right on the streets.
This 3J let’s go out to the streets, defend our rights, alive and free we love each other, let’s face Milei and all her package against us. It is possible in unity with other struggles and with a continuity that must go beyond the 3RD. Not one less with more strength against the ultra-right.
