The Pink House changes its skin, in tune with the whims of its new occupants.
The disappearance of Salón de las Mujeres is the response to the great innovations that Cristina Kirchner introduced during her first presidency (2007-11).
In those politically charged years, he promoted a profound transformation of the aesthetics and functions of a building that, until then, in democracy and dictatorship, had operated as an opaque machine of power, in which the routines of the administration and the State rituals.
During that entire period, which lasted more than a century, only the famous first-floor balcony, the one that overlooks the Plaza de Mayo, served to connect the masters of the Casa Rosada with the sound and fury of popular politics.
Cristina altered that old balance.
In 2009, Cristina created the Women's Hall and, a year later, the Gallery of Latin American Patriots.
There the visitor felt the weight of history, exposed in a partisan and radicalized version of the national-popular tradition.
There, the portraits of Kirchner and Guevara, Rosas and Perón, the martyr Salvador Allende and Commander Hugo Chávez were exhibited in privileged places.
Kirchner's wake took place there.
With Cristina, the Patio de las Palmeras also became a politicized space, where young people reddened their throats, testifying to their militant vocation.
When he came to government, Mauricio Macri dismantled the Gallery of Latin American Patriots.
True to her confrontational style, Milei decided to go much further, and 8M swept the Women's Hall.
She did not miss the opportunity that International Women's Day offered her to, in the same movement, irritate her critics and reconsider the commitment of her parishioners.
While waiting for the economy to resurrect, he harangues and entertains his followers with an anachronistic and harmful cultural war, which has feminism among its rivals.
The politics of polarization, at times so profitable in our public life, found a new space in which to unfold.
Milei could have opted for a less drastic reform of the Women's Hall, since, unlike the Patriots Gallery, the space dedicated to recognizing the contribution of women to the construction of a more egalitarian and plural nation is far from of being an incrustation of the national-popular or “socialist” ideology.
The Women's Hall did not propose a radicalized vision of the feminist feat.
In fact, in addition to taking down the portraits of Eva and the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Milei also had to get rid of Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson, Cecilia Grierson and Victoria Ocampo, as well as other figures very far removed from the political-ideological traditions that she so abhors. .
The new Hall of Heroes brings together the great names of the national pantheon (San Martín, Belgrano, Sarmiento) with others that are very debatable (Victorino de la Plaza and especially Carlos Menem) and others of lesser importance (Bouchard, Cabral, Francisco Moreno).
This incoherent set proposes three messages.
First, it celebrates the era of liberal and market-oriented economics.
Second, he praises territorial nationalism and men at arms.
The third message is cut out by the negative: not only are there no women but there are also no figures associated with the history of our democracy.
Seen as a whole, Milei's pantheon offers a vision of the past that is not only misogynistic but also archaic, reeking of mothballs.
Regardless of any form of adherence to militant feminism, the recognition of gender inequality and the need to combat it are beliefs shared by large sectors – probably the majority today – of our society.
Likewise, and despite many frustrations, representative democracy as we know and practice it – and this includes professional politicians – continues to be valued.
The gesture of challenging these ideas can be politically profitable during a time of unrest and frustration like the one we are going through today.
But such a divisive policy has costs.
It is contradictory to the ideal of a tolerant, diverse and plural political community on which those societies we would like to resemble are based.
Its use can also turn against its promoters.
The Casa Rosada, the official headquarters of the executive power, rather than expressing the preferences of its current occupant, must condense, on a symbolic level, the unity of the nation.
And just as the Gallery of Latin American Patriots wanted to impose a message that was not in tune with the predominant currents of our political culture, so also the Hall of Heroes proposes an ideal that only attracts a minority.
For these reasons, and in light of past experience, this authoritarian imposition will not last.
But let us remember that, in a constitutional and democratic political community, forms are important.
Hence, the next administration, when it arrives in 2027, must review this abuse and propose its replacement with an image of the past in line with the realities of a country that aspires to be an integral part of the 21st century.
In that image, women must have their place, as well as all people who, regardless of their gender, contributed significantly to the forging of a freer and more prosperous, more egalitarian and more democratic society.
Roy Hora is Professor of History from the University of Buenos Aires and Doctor in Modern History from the University of Oxford (1998). He is a professor at the University of San Andrés and the National University of Quilmes and Principal Investigator of CONICET.