Authored by Vanessa Yemanja Chesnut, an undergraduate at New York University who is spending a year abroad in Buenos Aires studying Latin American politics and history.
It’s a day before the big march and Professor Palermo is having her class translate pamphlets and manifestoes to be distributed via social media. “I am so sorry that I am late to class. I am starting a feminist revolution!” declares Cecilia Palermo, who strides into class bedecked in black, drumming her pianist fingers on her knee. Palermo positions herself in the center of the room and demands that we all take out our laptops. Swiveling her hips to face a gregarious NYU Student, Palermo asks what languages he knows. He responds enthusiastically, “Mandarin and English and well, some Spanish,” giggling nervously. Suddenly from all corners of the classroom, a cacophony of voices shout, “Cecilia , Cecilia, I speak French, Spanish, Albanian, Dutch and Portuguese..” Dr. Palermo has morphed from our professor of Experiential Learning into a loquacious and intense feminist troop commander.
The Ni Una Menos (Not One Woman Less) march was spurred by the rape and murder of Lucía Pérez, a 16 year-old from the Argentine coastal city of Mar Del Plata. Pérez was abducted from her high school by a gang of men, who drugged and raped her. According to investigators, her injuries were probably sustained while she was being sexually violated with an “undetermined object.” The rapists dropped her off at a clinic, where she died the following day due to internal wounds and profuse bleeding. Currently two men are being held in custody for Pérez’s murder, yet there have been no convictions.
Cecilia Palermo is a professor of gender studies at NYU Buenos Aires and Universidad de Buenos Aires. She is also one of the five original organizers of the women’s collective, known as Ni Una Menos, which they founded in 2015. The feminist organization calls to ends gender violence against women and has mushroomed in the past year due to their online presence on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. While it is Palermo´s organization that only five days earlier decided to respond to the horrendous rape and murder of Pérez by organizing a march, various other feminist, LGBTQ and leftist organizations in Buenos Aires have also pledged to support the movement.
Palermo says that the march aims to support women´s struggles for empowerment and equal representation in Argentine society, as well as combatting gender-based violence and economic inequality in the workplace. In class, Palermo enumerates some of the demands of the organization: the equal division of labor and income, comprehensive sex education in schools, and the full application of “Ley 26485,” the Law of Comprehensive Protection for Women.
Since taking office in December of 2015, President Mauricio Macri has publicly addressed the reality of violence against women in Argentina, a country where a woman dies every 30 hours due to gender based violence, according to an Argentine NGO called La Casa del Encuentro. Yet, even though Macri has pledged to introduce extensive curriculua in schools that will address gender violence, as well as claiming that he would increase government funding for women´s agencies, many protesters were angry over his not doing enough and failing to keep his promises. In fact, Palermo even suggested on stage that former president, Cristina Kirchner had done more to promote women’s rights than Macri´s.
Despite the deluge of rain, over 200,000 protesters showed up on October 19 and could be seen, umbrellas in hand, marching down the main avenue towards Plaza de Mayo. Marchers were asked to wear all black and prior to the protest were asked that they leave their workplaces between one and two o’clock that same afternoon, as a protest of the death of Pérez. The energy in downtown Buenos Aires was palpable as the iconic hash tag became the rallying cry “#NiunaMenos, Nos Queremos Vivas,” (Not One Woman Less, We Want Ourselves Alive) could be heard echoing off the buildings. Many women in attendance said that the reason that misogyny and violence against women exists in Latin America is because of its culture of machismo.
On stage, one of the members of Ni Una Menos, credited the power of social media, saying that it has been a great tool for getting the movement’s message across. It only took two days for other countries such as Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico and the United States to stage their own rallies, according to Palermo.
By the end of the rally, photos of women who were murdered were blurred by the rain and signs and banners were bleeding paint. Protestors were soaked and street vendors will still trying to sell grilled meats. After barely squeezing into the subway car that was headed to the Recoleta district, I could still hear the chants from above ground, “!Basta con el patriarca! Vivas no queremos!” (Down with the patriarch! We want ourselves alive!).