Eight years later: where are the feminists?

Eight years have passed since our country entered the history books as the place where one of the largest feminist revolts on the planet was unleashed. The murder of Chiara Páez marked a before and after throughout society and the movement grew with exponential force, anchored to a weariness silenced for decades. On June 3, 2015, millions of women and dissidents cried foul over the femicide of the 14-year-old girl, pregnant and buried in the courtyard of her ex’s house. The bar was very low and the slogan was very basic: “Stop killing us”, “We love each other alive”. In our Penal Code the figure of femicide appears only in 2012 so everything was new and fresh. The fatigue of the violence experienced was expressed in that demonstration that exceeded expectations and made it clear that things had to change. So it was, the green revolt filled streets throughout the country and society entered an unstoppable feminist verbiage. Everyone was talking about What was happening to women. Milestones of this fifth waveAlthough the rights conquered do not date only from 2015, after the explosion, public policies for the eradication of violence were put into action and organized feminist movements activated laws that place us as a vanguard country: Parity Law, Brisa Law, Micaela Law, Incorporation of street harassment as gender violence, Trans labor quota, Law of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, among others. Not only was it a shake-up at the judicial level, the media, jobs, trades, families and friends were also hacked by a wave of claims that still resists. 2019 was another before and after: society was able to place rape culture as one of the big problems. Cancellations, heated social debates and an increase of more than 200% in the lines of reporting sexual abuse placed us where we are today.  The sexualization of minors in mainstream culture is actively repudiated as well as sexist humor regarding our abilities. Abuses of power no longer go unnoticed and gender protocols were invented in places where there was a total lack of protection. Equitable care, more present paternities, respected births, inclusive language, sexual and reproductive rights, gender parity in cinema, music, in the media, in the National Congress, legal abortion, Comprehensive Sexual Education and millions of networks of women who put the body in all corners of the country where the State makes water. These and many other achievements are affirmed in the fifth feminist wave that swept away everything it could.   AND NOW? DO YOU SEE US? From 2015 to now, a long journey. The force with which it was activated in the streets diminished by the steamroller of an unexpected pandemic, the mental exhaustion of a country that is in a deep economic crisis and the disinterest product of the repetition of slogans that almost mean nothing anymore. And while some things are no longer as before, others are: every 28 hours a woman dies at the hands of a violent man. Since femicides are counted, 2554 have been registered and that number does not seem to go down. It depends on the year, the figure is modified but in general parameters it is almost the same. On the other hand, nine out of ten men who have a perimeter dictated break it and the home continues to be, for those who suffer violence, the most unsafe place.  Justice and complaints of sexual abuse also did not have significant changes. The latest National Victimization Survey, published by INDEC (2017), indicates that the “non-reporting” rate of “sexual offense” crimes is 87%, one of the highest records of all those analyzed. In fact, official data from the Ministry of National Security show that there is an increase in this crime from 2015 to the present. According to the latest report, 5,613 rapes were recorded in 2020. 80% of these cases correspond to female victims and only 10% to men. Femicides are the consequence of a scale of mistreatment and discrimination and that number, a possible example of structural inequality. As far as the organizations that are responsible for naming and encrypting it can detect, the thing remains more or less the same as a decade ago but with some big differences: the information is already between us, now we have to see what we do with it.

Original source in Spanish