Five years of Me Too: the fastest and most global evolution of feminism

Five letters, five years and the biggest push in the history of feminism.

On October 15, 2017, Alyssa Milano posted a tweet at 10:21 p.m.: “If you have been sexually harassed or assaulted, write Me Too in response to this tweet.”

It was not Milano, but the social activist Tarana Burke who coined that slogan in 2006, but that October the circumstances converged for the label to go viral.

Also all over the world.

It was the beginning of a feminist torrent that in the last five years has caused a change in social perception.

Also in the world.

It had never spread so fast, in such a heterogeneous and transversal way, or at so many levels, from geographical to cultural, passing through the political, the judicial or the media.

The reactions against it also speak of this propagation,

from the rise of the extreme right in different parts of the planet to the fall of federal protection of the right to abortion in the United States.

There are still innumerable inequalities, but that "me too" opened a universal hole in the silence.

It started with harassment, abuse and sexual assault, but the network gave women from all latitudes the opportunity to start using it massively to learn about and share what unites them: inequality and violence.

Actress Alyssa Milano speaks during a protest against the appointment of ultra-conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh in front of the US Supreme Court on September 28, 2018. Alex Wong (Getty Images)

Both, inequality and violence, historical, converged that day in those two words, but the reflection on them had existed for centuries;

the deepest changes had been taking place for decades, slowly;

and the need for them to be produced has become urgent in recent years.

“There is no doubt that we are in the midst of a new wave, if not the most important, of the feminist movement,” says Chiara Bottici, director of Gender Studies and associate professor of philosophy at The New School in New York.

The most widespread, yes: "But not because it has reached different parts of the planet, but because there is a clear awareness of being part of a global movement."

In “fostering that awareness,” Bottici points out, the internet has played a central role, and

has been “essential in triggering snowball effects, showing the potential of social media activism and the truly global reach of social media.” Feminist movement".

A visible acceleration, for example, in the newspaper archives of the media.

The first piece labeled in this newspaper with "feminism" is from May 5, 1976, only one day after the birth of the newspaper;

since then, that tag has generated 270 pages, and more than half (166) correspond to news from October 15, 2017, the day of Alyssa Milano's viral tweet.

In

open since 1877, of its 1,137 results with the word feminism, 513 are articles generated since that day.

In

with its first number in 1851, there are 2,476 of the 11,703 entries with that term.

And in

with 131 pages of articles labeled feminism, the first in 1944, a quarter are from the last five years.

Earlier this year,

published an interview with English filmmaker Joanna Hogg.

“Five years ago I felt like a pioneer.

Now I'm not anymore thanks to the Me Too,” she said.

But the Me Too did not come from nowhere.

For Begoña Leyra, doctor in Anthropology specialized in gender and director of the Gender Area of ​​the Complutense Institute of International Studies, progress has been "at different speeds depending on the geographical reality and the context", without being entirely "uniform", but in In any case, "the result of a long previous process that has been bearing fruit."

An “important” past, according to Argentine activist Thelma Fardin: “We can now have the debates that we have thanks to the past conquests of many other women.

It's up to us to move forward and leave the coast to the next generations.

There will be many battles, but at least they won't be the same."

Fardin is 29 years old, and every generation before hers in her region has had the same battle: violence.

Latin America lived, has always done and still does, in a constant pulse against it.

The year before Me Too was no exception.

In Brazil, in 2016, the gang rape of 33 men of a 16-year-old girl was posted on social networks and sparked a wave of protests and outrage throughout the country;

and in Argentina, Wednesday, October 19 of that year was Black Wednesday, one-hour strikes and demonstrations by thousands of women for the murder of Lucía Pérez, a teenager from Mar del Plata who was first drugged, then tortured and raped, and finally impaled.

"In Argentina", specifies Fardin, "feminism learned a lot from the mothers and grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo".

They were taught "to go out and take to the streets."

“And to put the body in dispute.

We put it on the street, all together,

In Spain, this compact displacement of women towards the streets and squares also occurred.

It also had to do with violence.

It was caused by the case of La Manada, and it was the trigger that led to the social and political change that continues to this day.

In France, it was the case of Jacqueline Sauvage, sentenced to ten years for killing her husband after 47 years of daily attacks, which opened the debate on the treatment of sexist violence, which until then was still done under the concept of crime of passion;

and her pardon, granted by then President François Hollande, was not only a victory for French feminism, which made Sauvage a symbol of the fight against violence, but also a change of perspective.

"Donal Trump was clearly one of the triggers in the American context," says Bottici.

Trump's arrival at the White House was with the memory of a phrase that went viral in the middle of the 2016 campaign and that also had to do with violence: "When you're a star, you can do whatever you want.

Grab them by the pussy.

Whatever".

Within 48 hours of taking office, Washington was filled with the first Women's March to protest against a power they recognized as sexist.

That demonstration was replicated in various American cities and other countries —there were more than 600 calls— with a total participation of around two million people.

Barely two months later, on 8-M of that year, the feminist movement in various parts of the planet made the first trial of a strike,

in many cases with figures that exceeded the forecasts even of the organizers.

In October 2017,

published

dozens of sexual abuse allegations against celebrity producer Harvey Weinstein for harassment, sexual assault, and rape.

These were followed by others and he was expelled from his company and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Three years later he was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

The common conscience was already present, and although much more evolved, it had a seed in awareness

or

, which we could translate as feminist self-awareness, a concept coined during the second wave of feminism in the United States that arose from meetings of groups of women where they told their individual experiences;

in doing so, they discovered that they were not only theirs, but common, and therefore structural.

The fourth wave of feminism

The difference in the last five years?

I summarized it in

(Ediciones B, 2019), Nuria Varela: "The fourth wave of feminism, fueled by the previous three, social networks and the awareness of the younger generations, is removing the patriarchal foundations like never before."

Already on the phone, the now director of Equality in Asturias and in 2008 the director of the Cabinet of what was the first Minister of Equality in Spain, Bibiana Aído, has two reflections.

One, that "it has been joyful to see how some issues raised five years ago and described as 'crazy', which is the most common term used by patriarchy to disqualify women's thinking, today form part of 'common sense'."

The other, about what it has caused: "The latest patriarchal reaction is more violent and reactive than in previous times."

Whenever there is an advance, all the experts agree, an opposition will arise, which will be greater the deeper and faster that advance is.

The demonstration of the 8M of 2018, seen from the roof of the Casa de América in Madrid. carlos rosillo

Bottici recalls "the rise of neo-authoritarian and neo-fascist movements throughout the world, movements that are not simply conservative, but re-actionary in the literal sense of the term, because they are trying to turn the wheel of history around."

The fall of

in the US last June, which meant the end of national protection of the right to abortion, is the most recent and most concrete case of this return to the past.

According to Bottici, "it is no coincidence that gender has become such a crucial battleground for contemporary politics, because all contemporary forms of neo-authoritarianism take on macho, sometimes even cartoonish, traits."

Put Trump, Jair Bolsonaro or Matteo Salvini on the list.

Also to Giorgia Meloni, who "is a clear example that feminism does not mean that women take the place of authoritarian men: it means that there is no authoritarianism."

In the face of this, feminism is resisting more and more and more visibly, and its progression, to a greater or lesser degree, has led to palpable changes at different levels.

From the decriminalization of abortion in Ireland, Colombia and Argentina, to the regulatory change that the feminist movement caused in Spain after the case of La Manada and that has ended with the approval of the Sexual Freedom Law.

The Chilean feminist government or the struggle of women's football for equal pay with men's.

The social opening towards the normalization of hitherto taboo issues such as the rule or the social brake on attitudes naturalized for decades such as the chauvinist chants of the Colegio Mayor Elías Ahuja in Madrid.

The struggle of women in Sudan, in Afghanistan, in Iran.

decriminalization of abortion

Progress is a fact, although sometimes, almost always, all progress has "buts", another side that does not change.

"It's an onion," launches the anthropologist Leyra.

She refers to the social representations of the psychologist Serge Moscovici: “Apparently, facing the gallery, feminism has spread.

Now it's cool to wear a 'I am a feminist' T-shirt and of course companies like Zara and H&M have jumped on that market, because there are always economic interests.

But if we are removing layers, in the hard core, there is still a long way to go and modify”.

The path to the center of that “onion” is sometimes slow, sometimes complicated, and sometimes it happens naturally.

In Argentina, says Fardin, the fight to decriminalize abortion "made the whole society see itself questioned", in large part, "by the girls, the youngest, sitting at the tables of the houses posing and showing their position".

And that debate that began with abortion took them further: "It made us think about all the forms of violence to which we had been subjected and the importance of the freedom to decide on our lives and our projects."

Very different future possibilities, conditioned by territory, politics, ethnicity or social class, but with inequality and violence as a common background.

“Phrases such as “intersectionality”, “transfeminism” have been generalized: there is an awareness that one has to situate one's own struggle within the many feminist struggles that take place around the world”, points out Bottici, who believes that where “ has been able to achieve the most important concrete results is where feminism has been able to intersect with other struggles, such as against racism and capitalist exploitation.”

For her, “the spirit of the most successful feminist movements” today is “anarcho-feminist”.

“Not because feminist activists are anarchists,

That variety of paths, "that complexity that the fourth wave has brought," says Leyra, the anthropologist, "enriches debates and heterogeneity," but has also caused "splits and conflicts."

"In reality they have always existed, but also in reality they have always played against us, when there is no unified discourse it is more difficult to build common agendas."

There are two issues that are still on those agendas, the same ones with which

began and that transcended it, the basis, in fact, of the entire agenda: violence and inequality.

In front of them, the feminist movement, Bottici points out, "like a karstic river" that has never gone away: "Now what we are witnessing is how it bursts and floods the streets, from Buenos Aires to Tehran."

Five years of milestones after 'Me Too'

2018

Gymnasts raise their voices

Trial of Larry Nassar, who ended up sentenced to 175 years in prison for abusing gymnasts in the US. Matthew Dae Smith (cordon press)

The trial of Larry Nassar, the doctor of the United States Gymnastics Federation, accused of abusing hundreds of girls and young women, ended with 175 years in prison.

The power of the testimonies of the 80 gymnasts who were originally going to appear, made it end up being almost 160. Just before reading the sentence, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina of Lansing said: “I just signed your death warrant.

You haven't done anything to make you deserve to walk free anymore."

Ireland decriminalizes abortion

Catholic Ireland broke with its past, completed its social modernization and issued a powerful message to the world in the historic referendum held in May 2018 in which it approved, by a resounding 66.4%, the legalization of abortion.

Ministers and a feminist strike

Spain had its first Council of Ministers in 2018 (11 of 18 were women) and a 24-hour strike for March 8 that went around the world.

The RAE also eliminated one of the definitions of "easy", the fifth, because it referred only to women and replaced it with a neutral one.

At the same time, the far-right Vox party won twelve seats in the Andalusian parliament.

Imelda Cortez acquitted

The young Salvadoran Imelda Cortez, accused of an attempted abortion. Rodrigo Sura

After a year and a half in prison, the Salvadoran justice system acquitted Imelda Cortez, the 21-year-old girl who had become a symbol of the feminist struggle.

She had been taken to prison for an alleged aggravated homicide attempt against her newborn daughter —as abortion is typified in El Salvador—;

when she was 18, she gave birth in an outhouse at her home and, although the baby was born healthy, she was found nearly unconscious after bleeding to death.

The pregnancy was the result of one of the rapes of Pablo Dolores Hernández, 60, her mother's ex-partner and the man who had raped her since Cortez was ten.

Echoes in China and India

The echo of the Me Too reached China and India, two countries where social repression and the situation of women are among the most pronounced in the world.

In India, considered the most dangerous democracy for them, it came through the Boollywood industry and also splashed journalists and comedians.

In China, where protests are often punished with jail time, it happened on university campuses.

2019

Von der Leyen and Lagarde

From left to right, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and Christine Lagarde, the first woman in front of the European Central Bank. Thierry Monasse (Getty Images)

In Europe, after more than 60 years with only men at the helm, the German Ursula von der Leyen became president of the European Commission and the French Christine Lagarde the first woman at the European Central Bank.

The Kandakas of Sudan

They called

, the title given to the Nubian queens of ancient Sudan.

They were the women, most of them very young, who had become a key part of the revolts in Sudan.

The image of Alaa Salah, a 22-year-old architecture student, captured by the Sudanese photographer Lana H. Haroum, perched on the roof of a car and dressed in a white cotton tunic, finger raised, surrounded by hundreds of people, gave around the world

And she became the symbol of the revolution that overthrew Omar al Bashir.

Taken by me@lana_hago#8aprile pic.twitter.com/o7pDUsQg84

– Lana H. Haroun (@lana_hago) April 8, 2019

The menstruating emoji

After two years of struggle, the NGO Plan International in the United Kingdom managed to create the emoji that symbolizes menstruation, something that, according to the organization's spokeswoman, Carmen Barlow, said at the time, "could help normalize periods in conversations daily”.

The golden left foot against salary discrimination in football

US players celebrate the World Cup after defeating the Netherlands in Lyon in 2019. Richard Heathcote (Getty Images)

Alex Morgan, the golden left foot of the United States team, emerged in 2019 as a voice for equality with special impact in the United States, where the women's team is as well known as the men's.

That 8-M, Morgan and her teammates from the national team filed a lawsuit against the United States soccer federation for salary discrimination in a Los Angeles court.

Spacewalk

Astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch perform the first all-female spacewalk.

2020

It is law.

Argentina legalizes abortion

Demonstration in favor of abortion in Argentina, in February 2020. Matías Baglietto (Getty)

The Argentine Senate approves in December 2020 the legalization of abortion until week 14. The country buries the law that, since 1921, considered it a crime except in case of rape or risk to the life of the mother.

In the streets, a feminist green tide bursts with joy.

step back in poland

The Polish Constitutional Court ruled that abortion for malformation of the fetus or irreversible disease was unconstitutional.

Until then, this was one of the three assumptions allowed in Polish legislation and represented around 97% of the 1,110 abortions performed legally in the country during the previous year.

Scotland: Free Feminine Health Products

The Scottish Parliament unanimously approves universal free access to hygiene products for menstruation.

Scotland is a pioneer in the world.

These products were already provided free of charge to high school and university students

A referee in the Champions

Stéphanie Frappart, French, 36 years old, was the first referee to officiate a Champions League match, Juventus - Dynamo kyiv on December 2, 2020.

The Ecuadorian State, guilty

Paola Guzmán committed suicide at the age of 16, two decades ago now, after learning that she was pregnant from the vice-rector of her school in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

The man, who was 65, had been abusing a girl who was 50 years younger for more than a year.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights sentenced and punished the Ecuadorian State in 2020 for lack of diligence to prevent sexual violence, first, and to prosecute those responsible, later.

2021

The Olympia law, in Mexico

The Olympia law was approved at the national level in Mexico.

It is a set of reforms that modify the Federal Penal Code and the General Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence to recognize digital gender aggression and punish practices that violate the privacy and sexual intimacy of people, especially girls and women.

A woman at the head of the WTO

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became the first woman and the first African to serve as Director General of the World Trade Organization.

Harris, Yellen and Pelosi

US Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House in 2021. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (AFP)

Kamala Harris became the first female vice president in the history of the United States —and the first with presidential power for 85 minutes on November 19, 2021 while Biden underwent a colonoscopy under anesthesia—, Janet Yellen, the first in the Treasury Department and Nancy Pelosi, the first to preside over the House of Representatives.

Against the marriage of girls

India raised the age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, bringing it on par with that of men.

In 2019 Indonesia did so, raising it from 16 to 19, and that same year Tanzania banned the marriage of girls under 15 and ordered the minimum age to be raised to 18.

Elite sport, women and mental health

American gymnast Simon Biles, in July during the Tokyo Olympics.

Tim ClaytonGetty

In 2021, the tennis player Naomi Osaka at Roland Garros and the gymnast Simone Biles became the voices of social recognition of mental health problems and the importance of treating them and talking about them without prejudice.

2022

Colombia decriminalizes abortion

The decision of the Colombian Constitutional Court to decriminalize abortion marks a milestone in the region.

Once again, it is justice that is at the forefront of women's rights and agrees with feminist organizations, who have found better allies in the magistrates than in the rulers.

Chile: Feminist Government

President Gabriel Boris (in the center, with a beard) poses next to the Palacio de la Moneda with the members of his new Council of Ministers, last September.

Sebastian Vivallo Onate (Getty)

Chile sets up the first feminist government in Latin America and, although it has now been paused, the (joint) Assembly set up to draft the new Chilean Constitution presented the first text with a gender perspective in history.

Goodbye to Roe vs. Wade

The United States Supreme Court struck down the right to abortion last June.

A majority of six judges against three decided to overturn the precedent of 'Roe conta', a ruling that in 1973 made the voluntary interruption of pregnancy constitutional.

Its protection has since remained in the hands of each of the 50 States.

The law of the only yes is yes

The only yes is yes, the motto of the last six years of feminist struggle in Spain, became a law, that of Sexual Freedom.

In the center: consent, free and clearly expressed.

The unfinished Iranian revolution

The affront to the Iranian regime is not new.

Feminism has been facing repression for more than a decade, but now has been the time for revolution.

It is the clothing that covers their hair, yes, but deep down and at the base there are also the rights that are denied them and the basic inequalities to which they are still subjected.

An Iranian woman shows a banner with the image of Masha Amini, the young woman killed by the country's police for not wearing the veil properly.

Markus Schreiber (AP)

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