Gender & Development

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cgde20

A new feminist ethic that unites and mobilizes

people: the participation of young people in
Argentina’s Green Wave

Gabriela Artazo, Agustina Ramia & Sofia Menoyo

To cite this article: Gabriela Artazo, Agustina Ramia & Sofia Menoyo (2021) A new feminist ethic
that unites and mobilizes people: the participation of young people in Argentina’s Green Wave,
Gender & Development, 29:2-3, 335-350, DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2021.2005924

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2021.2005924

Published online: 07 Dec 2021.

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GENDER & DEVELOPMENT
2021, VOL. 29, NOS. 2–3, 335–350
https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2021.2005924

A new feminist ethic that unites and mobilizes people: the

participation of young people in Argentina’s Green Wave
Gabriela Artazo, Agustina Ramia and Sofia Menoyo

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The year 2021 began with good news: on 29 December 2020, the law green wave; right to
that guarantees access to the right to legal, safe and free abortion was abortion; Argentina;
approved in Argentina’s National Congress and Senate. This feminism in LAC
achievement was the result of the struggles of the feminist and
women’s movement. A particular feature was the massive involvement
of young people in discussions, street mobilisations and vigils, with all
those taking part wearing green bandanas, the movement being
named the ‘Green Wave’ (Marea Verde), as a result. After the law was
passed, the organisation Catholics for the Right to Decide (CDD), an
active member of the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe
and Free Abortion – with the support of the Global Fund for Women –
asked us to investigate the role and participation of young people
from different parts of our country in the Green Wave movement. This
article discusses the findings of this research project.

L’année 2021 a commencé par une bonne nouvelle : le 29 décembre, la

loi qui garantit le droit à un avortement légal, sûr et gratuit a été
approuvée par le congrès et le sénat nationaux argentins. Cet
accomplissement a été le résultat des luttes du mouvement féministe
et des femmes. On retient notamment la participation massive des
jeunes aux discussions, manifestations et veillées, arborant toutes et
tous des bandanas verts, auxquels le mouvement doit son nom de «
vague verte » (Marea verde). Une fois cette loi adoptée, l’organisation
Catholiques pour le droit de décider (CDD), un membre actif de la
Campagne nationale pour le droit à l’avortement légal, sûr et gratuit,
avec le soutien du Fonds mondial pour les femmes, nous a demandé
d’enquêter sur le rôle et la participation de jeunes de différentes
régions du pays au mouvement Marée verte. Le présent article revient
sur les résultats de ce projet de recherche.

El año 2021 comenzó con una buena noticia: el 29 de diciembre de 2020,

en el Congreso Nacional y en el Senado de Argentina se aprobó la ley
que garantiza el acceso al derecho al aborto legal, seguro y gratuito.
Este logro fue resultado de las luchas del movimiento feminista y de
mujeres. Uno de los aspectos más destacados fue la participación
masiva de la juventud en los debates, las movilizaciones callejeras y
las vigilias, en los que todas las personas llevaban un pañuelo verde,
de ahí que el movimiento se conozca como la Marea Verde. Tras la
aprobación de la ley, la organización Católicas por el Derecho a
Decidir (CDD), integrante activa de la Campaña Nacional por el
Derecho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito —con el apoyo del Fondo
Mundial para la Mujer— nos pidió que investigáramos el rol y la

CONTACT Gabriela Artazo artazogabriela@gmail.com

© 2021 Oxfam GB
336 G. ARTAZO ET AL

participación de las jóvenes en el movimiento Marea Verde en distintos

puntos de nuestro país. El presente artículo explora los hallazgos de este
proyecto de investigación.

Introduction
The movement for the right to abortion, which has become known as the Green Wave
(Marea Verde) has had a major impact in Latin America, and around the world. A par-
ticular feature was the massive involvement of green bandana-clad young people in dis-
cussions, street mobilisations, and vigils, during the debates on the right to abortion in
the National Congress of the Nation in 2018. Young people were the fundamental driving
force behind this historic feminist effort to make this issue visible, and get it onto the pub-
lic agenda in Argentina. In light of this, we set out to investigate and analyze the partici-
pation of young people - women, trans people, cross-dressers, lesbians, bisexuals, and
non-binary people - in this feminist political event, in different provinces, including Men-
doza, Tucumán, Chaco, Salta and Santiago del Estero. In this article we present some of
the most significant findings around the Green Wave and its impact on the construction
of a new feminist ethic that is being forged in the heat of feminist political struggles.

1. Green Wave: origins of the movement

In 2007, feminist lawyer and campaigner for Argentinian women’s right to abortion,
Dora Coledesky, surveyed the activities up until then of the Commission for the Right
to Abortion (Coledesky 2007). In this overview, many of the features of the Commission’s
work revealed a special form of political organisation, which, from the perspective of
2021, can be seen as having given rise to the phenomenon of the Green Wave. The Com-
mission for the Right to Abortion was created in November 1987 by the feminist group
the Association for the Work and Study of Women (Asociación de Trabajo y Estudio
sobre la Mujer- ATEM ‘25 de noviembre’) that, in 1982 and for the following thirty
years, held annual meetings. These meetings were places where activists could participate
in workshops and conferences and share recreational spaces, and were fundamental in
the development of Argentinian feminism. (Tarducci 2018).
In 1987, ATEM held a conference on the right to abortion, out of which came the idea
for creating a group to press for this right, with an initial group formed by Dora Coledesky,
Safina Newbery, Laura Bonaparte, Alicia Schejter, María José Rouco Pérez, Rosa Farias and
Alicia Cacopardo. The Commission for the Right to Abortion undertook multiple and
creative tasks, understanding that raising the profile of the demand for the right to abortion
was fundamental. Thus, they organised lectures and debates, collected signatures on peti-
tions, supported actions for reproductive and non-reproductive sexual rights, participated
in the drafting of three bills and wrote their own proposed law, among other actions. In
1990, the ‘V Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting’ was held in San Bernardo,
Buenos Aires, Argentina. At this meeting, the Commission coordinated the workshop
 GENDER & DEVELOPMENT 337

‘Abortion as a Right’, establishing 28 September as the day for ‘the right to abortion for
women in Latin America and the Caribbean’. In 1992, the Commission presented for
the first time, in the Chamber of Deputies in the Argentinian National Congress, the
draft of its project on contraception and abortion. It also proposed recognising the right
of every woman to terminate a pregnancy before 12 weeks of gestation, generating the
slogan, ‘contraceptives so as not to abort, legal abortion so as not to die’ (Tarducci 2018).
These initial actions profoundly marked the historical course that the Campaña Nacio-
nal por el Derecho al Aborto Legal Seguro y Gratuito (National Campaign for the Right to
Legal, Safe and Free Abortion (CNDALSG) would take, and would strongly influence the
development of the Green Wave as an intergenerational phenomenon. These actions
were fundamental for the struggle to grow year by year, gaining strength and visibility,
adding more and more actors and organisations, and establishing debate and discussion
on abortion and contraception within Argentinian society. At the same time, marches
protesting against the increasing number of femicides in Argentina took place, a mobili-
sation called Not one less (Ni una Menos)1, which has become a central part of the fem-
inist movement in Argentina and Latin America. This allied feminist mobilisation
increased the size and amplification of the Green Wave itself, with the result that on
30 December 2020, Law No. 27,610 on the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy was
passed in the National Congress, and enacted on 14 January 2021.
We maintain that through the speeches, practices and political actions of the youth of
the Green Wave we can begin to understand the process that, framed as part of the histori-
cal struggle of the Argentinian feminist movement, led to the achievement of the right to
legal, safe and free abortion in Argentina. We argue that a preexisting template of Argen-
tinian feminism has enabled young people to articulate a set of experiences that were invis-
ible, violated or silenced by the patriarchal structures that are particularly dominant in the
institutions responsible for the education and social formation of young people.
In this article we will focus on the reflections and analysis of young people on their
involvement in the Green Wave, and the impact of this event in the construction of a
new feminist ethic.

1.1 How to grasp complexity: methodological and epistemological aspects of the

research process
Before delving into analysis and reflections on the significance of the Green Wave, some
methodological and epistemological observations should be made about the research
process carried out in 2020. The approach is based on grounded theory, which requires
the identification of theoretical categories that are derived from the data through the use
of a constant comparative/descriptive method, relying on the theoretical sensitivity of the
researcher. This guides the researcher in comparing the contents of various interviews or
observational episodes with the theoretical concepts arising from the effort to identify the
fundamental themes (Páramo 2015).
We developed an exploratory qualitative research process, based on an interpretation
of the phenomena under study from the perspectives of the researchers themselves. The
research focused on recovering the narratives of young cis, trans, lesbian, bisexual and
338 G. ARTAZO ET AL

non-binary women, aged between 15 and 26-years-old, from different provinces of

Argentina, among them: Chaco, Mendoza, Salta, Santiago del Estero and Tucumán.
Using these narratives, we conducted an analysis and attempted the construction of con-
ceptual relationships and meanings, using a decolonial feminist approach2 throughout.
Taking into account the intrinsically conflictive character of the research process result-
ing from the tension between the current theories of feminisms, and the emergent ones
embodied by the Green Wave, we decided to build new meanings for certain notions
from the terms used by the interviewees themselves, through an analysis of respondents’
answers in relation to the context where these were given, and in comparison with what
other respondents said.
Through the sampling process we aimed to make visible Argentina’s geographical
diversity and complexity, and to capture the particular features that characterise the
Green Wave as a movement. This involved situating the realities of young women and
men in their urban/rural contexts and positions of relative marginalisation in society, pla-
cing special emphasis on disputes with those in authority (particularly religious/admin-
istrative authorities), which manifest differently in different regions.

1.2 New faces, new learning: characterisation of the young interviewees

We opted for in-depth interviews, which had to be adapted to virtual media and the use
of digital platforms due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. We interviewed 22 young
people aged between 15 and 26 years of age, who participated – and in most cases con-
tinue to do so – in the Green Wave. This age range was chosen because it was largely
young people who took centre stage during the debate in Congress in 2018, doing so
in new and rousing ways.
We began from an intersectional perspective, as proposed by decolonial, community
and Latin American feminisms (Guzman 2019; Cabnal 2010). From there, we sought to
include the greatest possible diversity of young people, in terms of age, gender identity,
race perception, social class, geographical location and political affiliation.
The interviewees perceived themselves as cis-heterosexual women; cis-bisexual
women; lesbians; non-binary people; transgender men; cross-dressers; and a cis-homo-
sexual man. Most of the interviewees were in the educational system, either at secondary
or tertiary/university level, and in some cases they were already working. Most of them
were pursuing study or careers in the Social Sciences (social work, sociology, political
science, law, economics, psychology, social communication), and some in the Huma-
nities and Arts (dance, arts, theatre, sound engineering, photography). Most of them
had chosen to study in public universities. Those who were studying in private univer-
sities were doing so because their chosen subject was not available in the local public uni-
versity. Many were young people living in the capital cities of their province who had
migrated from smaller towns or cities, for study and socio-economic reasons, and in
some cases, due to violence experienced in their places of origin. We also interviewed
young people living outside of the major cities.
With respect to political participation, almost all of the young people were involved in
politically active groups, representing a wide and diverse range of groupings, be it party-
 GENDER & DEVELOPMENT 339

political organisations, feminist collectives, high-school student groups, university move-

ments, local social organisations, non-governmental organisations or foundations, and
grassroots cultural spaces, among others. Many of the young people participated in the
different organisations that make up the CNDALSG, or were linked to it by the leading
organisations involved. The young people we observed had chosen to get involved in
politics, and to play a major part in activism and organised collective struggle for their
rights (Bossio and Acevedo 2019).
From a social movement perspective, we strongly believe that one of the main findings
of our research is the identification of young people as the leading protagonists in the
major gains achieved in terms of access to rights in Argentina.
The diversity of geographical location and political connections among the young
people interviewed enabled us to capture different rationales and cultural and social pat-
terns of organisation and participation, as well as different perceptions of the feminist
movement and the Green Wave. There was significant diversity in the interviewees’ edu-
cational trajectories, socio-economic positions and sex-gender identities, which enabled
us to observe the particularities around the intersection of their life experiences and their
experiences of oppression. This situated their experiences, feelings and individual and
collective identities within the framework of socio-political, historical, cultural and reli-
gious structures that shape, determine and condition their life trajectories, as well as their
different patterns of involvement and participation in the Green Wave.

1.3 For freedom of sexuality and a longed-for state of feminism: social tensions and
confrontations
In this process of great mobilisation and gaining of social visibility, young people, with
diverse identities and concerns burst onto the public scene, shaping the political tempo
and publicising their demands. This helped to take forward the process of social sensitis-
ation which feminists had been leading for many years. The change was not only felt at the
macro-political level. Feminist young people found themselves confronted with the task of
generating debates and leading the struggle for the recognition of their right within sec-
ondary and tertiary educational institutions to the effective implementation of the Com-
prehensive Sexual Education Law (CSEL). Their demands were directed towards the
same power structures that oppose discussion on sexuality within educational environ-
ments, who are under pressure from Catholic and Evangelical church congregations.
These sectors developed fundamentalist media campaigns to oppose the young people
who were participating in the Green Wave at a political and social level, with anti-abortion
campaigns featuring messages such as ‘Don’t mess with my children’, or ‘Let’s save both
lives’3. This effort, designed to shut down politics within educational institutions, was
one of the methods of control used by the establishment4 to stoke prejudice towards
young people and deny their right to the enjoyment of a free and full sexuality.
We started our research with the assumption that the dynamics of colonial power con-
tinue to operate even today, in different sectors, through the administrative and ecclesias-
tical influences that are strongly rooted in institutions throughout Latin America.
Throughout our research, our theory that the Catholic Church continues to exert a strong
340 G. ARTAZO ET AL

influence on the political, judicial and economic elite in some provinces (Salta, Tucuman,
Córdoba Santiago del Estereo, among others) was confirmed. The Church works as part
of an opposing political resistance in the face of feminist advances in the attainment of
rights in general, and sexual and (non) reproductive rights in particular. We observed
that the young people were not only very clear about the adversary they were facing,
but also that they were not afraid of it. Courage, creativity, debate, and political organis-
ation are the words that emerged strongly from our recordings with the young people we
interviewed throughout our fieldwork.
The diversity of forms, strategies and positions assumed by young people across
Argentina has been key to achieving goals. Young people introduced powerful argu-
ments, fostering a new political configuration which had the capacity to bridge strongly
rooted religious and cultural differences:
‘It inspires me to know that I can sit down to talk, to debate, to not be afraid, to know that I have to
take advantage of being young and do things because I have the potential. All young women have
the potential and it seems to me that growing up with these mentors, older ones, are those people
who are very necessary within feminism.’ (Interview in Santiago del Estero Province, August 2020)

The green bandana became a sign through which supporters of the campaign recognised
each other, and made explicit a blunt, provocative, and potentially risky position. How-
ever, this form of activism - carried out with great conviction and feelings of political
responsibility - resonated with many young people from a broad spectrum of religious
and cultural backgrounds, promoting the recognition of bodily autonomy as an essential
right for Argentinians.
It is in this sense that in our research, experience is the key to the process of generating
knowledge, because it includes the dimensions of sense, time and space. A qualitative
research approach was adopted, because the ‘materials’ to be examined were not only
observations of and participation by the activists involved in the Green Wave, but also
productions, actions and cultural and social constructions that were the symbols and
signs belonging to this movement and its young activists.
The young people we interviewed felt deeply proud of playing an active part in an his-
torical moment, knowing that the process would potentially not only change their lives,
but also the lives of future generations. There was a generational commitment to go out
and contribute individually to a collective political project that both included and trans-
cended them. Young women built and build their activism and identity from their own
feminist experience and from the multiple positions they occupy, questioning structures
of power and subordination which are maintained by older generations, but recognising
the intergenerational nature of their struggle:
‘I remember once we were in a discussion about abortion or something like that at the University,
and one of the older feminist classmates said “I am not a virtual feminist, the kind that stays at
home sharing on the networks” and one of the younger girls answered her and said “the truth is
that the only thing I can add to feminism today is to share these images so that 5000 of my friends
who are young understand at least through an image that women should not be beaten.’ (Interview
in Salta Province, July 2020)
 GENDER & DEVELOPMENT 341

We understand this political perspective as part of a ‘new feminist ethic’, which drives
towards undoing the impacts of patriarchy through a profound questioning of the
world and the ways people are connected, as a fundamental part of social transformation.
‘Today I define myself as a feminist, as a feminist militant. Who militates it, who lives it. This is so
for me, I learned it from experience. Feminism is lived, it is something that is not only carried in a
green bandana or in a political debate. No. It crosses you from all sides and your emotional ties as
well. So today I define myself as a feminist, as the first word that comes to my mind.’ (Interview in
Mendoza Province, July 2020)

According to the young people interviewed, this path involves truly embodying the slo-
gans and inhabiting the contradictions, it involves the politicisation of their ways of
behaving and feeling. This means that their day-to-day relationships are influenced by
their feminist debates, bringing to life the slogan ‘the personal is political’.

2. A ‘new feminist ethic’: constructions and developments of the Green Wave

Up to this point, we have discussed how the social and political phenomenon called the
Green Wave took on diverse characteristics, understanding it as part of a contextualised,
gradual, complex and conflicting historical process, as complex as the configuration of
young new faces that were incorporated into the campaign, embodying it and contribut-
ing their thoughts and actions. During the research process the notion of ‘new feminist
ethics’ emerged, which allowed us to understand these new forms of reflection and self-
reflection, of questioning, of overcoming and action, in which the everyday is constantly
analysed and politicised, and where the individual, the collective and the community are
linked in a powerful and necessary triad to transform reality. It means a new way of
understanding what it means to embody and live the ideologies which are being fought
for, regaining in daily actions part of the historical struggle of feminism in Argentina and
Latin America.
The intergenerational dialogue that feminism built and that the Green Wave made vis-
ible, is part of a dialectical ethic that constantly goes through conflict, takes on tensions
and contradictions, and makes something new:
‘I would not say that the Green Wave is only the young people because it is also ignoring the struggle
that has been brewing for years with the Campaign [the CNDALSG]. But I do believe that the effect
of the Green Wave, of the youth, is what boosted the effect … and it was super big, and it was also
shocking because they were students.’ (Interview in Tucuman Province, June 2020)

It disrupts the division between the public and the private to form a way of being and
doing politics that permeates everything, that crosses all dimensions of existence and
all the territories – geographical, social and symbolic – that they inhabit.
To try to explain what this new feminist ethic consists of, and how it is expressed
through the youth of the Green Wave, we looked at three factors in our interview analy-
sis. The first factor considered was the use of generational and intergenerational political
references, that is, how new values and cultural practices are formed in simultaneous dia-
logue and tension with the historical experiences of the Argentinian feminist movement.
342 G. ARTAZO ET AL

The second factor related to the way in which connections and ways of behaving are
formed, and to the ways of understanding emotions and the place occupied by them,
as well as attachments and the place of the body in feminist political practice. The
third factor, was linked to the unique power that young people bring, inhabiting and
enabling the capacity of doubt in a hyper-productive, qualification focused, competitive
and deeply binary society.

2.1 Generational and intergenerational political references: dialogues, tensions and

challenges
In respect of generational issues in the Green Wave, we analyzed the ways in which young
people perceive the intergenerational dialogue between historical models of feminism in
Argentina, and the CNDALSG in each geographical area. We looked at the cultural values
and practices that emerged, and how historically constructed world views are questioned
– leading to the generation of internal, logical tensions. We also looked at the visions and
perceptions of the young people themselves, within the framework of the Green Wave
and the feminist movement.
For the young people we interviewed, there was an intergenerational dialogue that
facilitates the learning and transmission of key concepts, as well as the construction of
debates within the movement. This dialogue was carried out in a creative and horizontal
manner, enabling new syntheses, although the process was not without internal conflicts
and contradictions. The young people respected and gained significantly from the con-
tributions and experiences of the older activists in the movement and the CNDALSG,
recognising their courage, strength and achievements:
‘The achievements of the CNDALSG have been many, since they started back in the 80’s, with the
first actions of visibility for the right to abortion, if it were not for the political intelligence of our
older feminists in proposing coordinated actions, to extend them throughout the territory, to make
networks and to enthuse the youngest ones. None of this would have happened … without the older
feminists … but also without the Green Wave … we don’t know if we would have finally achieved
the approval of the law … we are all necessary … and for the conquests to continue without a doubt
we always need more women comrades and the ‘intergenerational’ of course … the signature of
feminisms in Argentina.’ (Interview in Salta Province, June 2020)

Valuing the legacy of feminist struggle requires an exercise of active memory that
involves thinking of oneself within a place in history, which shares a particular time
and space: a community of actions and affections that maintains ties, traces and threads
drawn from battles won and those still being fought. At the same time, the young people
we interviewed also identified certain points of ideological distance from some
approaches and forms of activism. What is new is that these distances or differences
are not perceived by young people as problematic, but on the contrary, as enriching
and empowering experiences:
Interviewer: ‘(..) And to continue thinking generationally, how do you think the relation-
ship is, how do you see this incorporation of youth, of young women, within the feminist
movement and the struggle for abortion? And how would you think about it or how
 GENDER & DEVELOPMENT 343

would you link it in the relationship with other generations, with the ‘older’ generations, so
to speak?’
Interviewee: ‘And, yes, I think that now, last year, the year before, with all the Green
Wave, I was able to go out in the street and see all the girls my age, and it was impressive.
There were older adults, for example, in the National Meeting of Women, the one I went to
last year, there were a lot of older adults, but above all they were girls my age, girls between 15
and 25 years old, who went out to the street full of brightness, their hair full of colours, who
went with a scarf as a bra or without any clothes, who did not care about anything, they went
out to fight. I feel that my generation has a lot of intensity in its body, that it has blood run-
ning through its veins with everything and that it does not mind going out into the street and
shouting, shouting loudly. I see that a lot of older women tell me, even though they are fem-
inists, they tell me “Oh, why, why, why do you need to go out without a bra, or why do you put
glitter on your face”, and all that. I think that’s the biggest difference I see between us and
older people. (Interview in Santiago del estero Province, July 2020).
Intergenerational dialogue is part of the feminist agenda, and has its own history
within the CNDALSG (Coledesky 2007). From an intersectional perspective, generational
difference is an area connected to the inequalities faced by women during their lives. The
inequality between generations refers to the way in which young people experience guar-
dianship and the reduction of those positions that do not fit with the heterosexist, adult,
patriarchal gaze. The influence of adultcentrism (the belief that adult perspectives are
intrinsically better5 permeates everything: it is maintained as debate and power and con-
stitutes an immanent tension in activist practices. The young people we interviewed are
taking forward new ways of publicising the feminist agenda, creatively constructing
languages, concepts and aesthetic values that include visual and symbolic impacts (such
as the green bandana, glitter, artistic interventions, activism in social networks, etc.):
‘What happens is that when one speaks of what one is passionate about in feminism, I think that
one speaks more from the heart than anything else. I can’t give you the exact definition of feminism,
but I say it as an experience, and that speaks for itself. And that is so, and I see it in the kids. I see
them together buying stickers, more handkerchiefs, putting them in their backpacks, painting them-
selves.’ (Interview in Mendoza Province, July 2020).

The Green Wave and the CNDALSG have contributed to this great intergenerational dia-
logue. Recognising adultcentrism as part of the problem addresses and reshapes the dia-
logue from being young people merely engaging in the pre-established type of activist
actions of the CNDALSG, to a recognition that this must be accompanied by intergenera-
tional inclusion, with children and youth contributing with their views.
As a conceptual synthesis of this area of analysis, we would like to highlight that within
the Green Wave, mechanisms for group functioning and discussion were designed with the
objective of confronting the adultcentric practices that were excluding young people within
the movement. This meant abandoning paternalistic and patriarchal practices to integrate
methods of discussion that stressed the category of age as separate from that of ability:
This issue was not resolved by a unilateral decision from leadership, it was approached
and developed across all the discussions based on the central role of young people in
344 G. ARTAZO ET AL

multiple spaces and activities. This capacity for subjective dialogue within the Green
Wave movement has enabled criticism of what members did not want to see repeated,
and the valuing of everyday experience as a necessary part of this discussion.

2.2 Connections and behaviours within the Green Wave

In order to better understand, from a theoretical perspective, the experience of our inter-
viewees, both as individual activists within the Green Wave and in relation to their fellow
peers and mentors within the movement, it may be helpful to turn to some of the aspects
of Contemporary Social Theory (Bourdieu 2007; Foucault 2012) and Classical Theory
(Portelli 1977; Thompson 1963). Here, the experience of subjects (ie. individual
human beings) has a double dimension: on the one hand it is structural, produced by
the ‘conditioning factors’ that shape the economic, political and cultural contexts within
today’s capitalist societies. On the other hand, the conditioning factors that influence a
human being’s world views, cultural horizons and social expectations, are validated,
reproduced and internalised individually, because of the influence of patriarchal political
power. The expression of these conditioning factors plays out in individuals’ lives. The
capacity to single out vital experience6 is what enables the introduction of changes, dis-
ruptions and rebellions against dominant world views.
Other theoretical work, on sex and morality, is also instructive in helping to elucidate
the experiences and explain the politics of our interviewees, and others, in the Green
Wave. The moralisation of sexual practices as something good or bad relates to hetero-
sexist parameters that objectify ways of being as women and men, nullifying other pos-
sibilities of sexual experience for young people. Virginie Despentes (2007), in her book
King Kong Theory, shows how the mechanisms of sexual violence are added to the mor-
alisation of the ‘good victim’, as part of a violent, macho framework. The ability of young
people to denounce group moralisation within educational institutions enhances pro-
cesses of change and inclusion, as well as transforming their own life experiences.
Interviewer: ‘And to the activism for abortion rights, at what point did you join?’
Interviewee: ‘Well, that was` in 2017, if I remember well, because that was when the
topic started to be talked about, and I started to hear about it. Before, it was kind of for-
bidden to talk about it … it was kind of censored, there was no information, the topic was
not talked about. It was as if there was only one hegemonic position and that was what was
always right. So I never dared to question it … like all the things that are imposed on us,
since we were little, as if we were told that, and well, it must be like that. And precisely,
through different voices I started to hear that there was another side of the coin, that
there were other versions, that there were other arguments. Then I started to investigate,
on my own, finding out with colleagues, talking to teachers, talking to friends about the sub-
ject … and well, I met the Campaign, teachers who are part of the Campaign, so … it was
like … something beautiful to discover, and very sad at the same time, to know that for so
many years of my life I did not question it, that I lived like with my eyes closed, while so
many women were dying … ’ (Interview in Chaco Province, July 2020).
Complicity with the status quo is an issue that is constantly debated by the youth of
the Green Wave, generating a collective involvement, because as one interviewee stated:
 GENDER & DEVELOPMENT 345

‘if they touch one of us, they touch us all’ (Interview in Mendoza Province, June 2020).. This
is how new values and strong plans of action are built: ‘we will no longer be accomplices
with our silence’ (Interview in Jujuy Province, July 2020), another interviewee explained.
There is power in building new patterns of action where the community takes on a major
ethical and political relevance. Here, we take the notion of community from the commu-
nity feminist movement (Guzman 2019; Cabnal 2010) which has its roots in Latin Amer-
ica. Community feminists propose a way of living that involves thinking beyond
individual experience, breaking with colonialism, racism and patriarchy.

2.3 Youth: the power of living in doubt

The Green Wave as a youth movement has symbolically, culturally, socially and aesthe-
tically expressed the possibility of questioning the hegemony of heterosexuality in mod-
ern societies. In Latin America, the ability to question the heterosexual status quo is
further hindered by racial and social factors that strengthen resistance to any change
(Duarte Quapper 2015). This strong adherence to normative heterosexuality consolidates
the sexual division of labour in which the tasks of care – vital for the reproduction of
society itself – fall to women, whether or not they have the capacity to bear children (Bos-
sio and Acevedo 2019).
Those who do not conform to this rigidly heterosexual norm find their desires and
aspirations constrained. The Green Wave has made criticism of this ‘compulsory hetero-
sexuality’ more visible and powerful, establishing desire and pleasure as a right, and
autonomy as the capacity to choose – among multiple possibilities – in freedom and
according to personal preference, but combined with collective attention borne out of
affection and political responsibility.
‘It was always very uncomfortable to debate with the school authorities, for example … the fact that
my classmates and I wanted to create a student centre, and obviously the directors did not like that.
They didn’t like it and it didn’t suit them either, because it was to point out a lot of things that they
were doing wrong with our rights, legally too, at a legal level we are talking about, that there were
many things that were not being fulfilled … and they didn’t want to give us information. We were
never educated on the subject of comprehensive sexual education, in my school never, but never ever
in the ten years I was there. So the discussion with the adult people in my school was at that level …
to tell them you are outside the law … well, you can imagine, a disaster. So, well, these things that
were not being fulfilled, and we were not informed that they had to be done. We did not know that
we could have a student centre, that it was possible to do it, we did not know that there had to be a
student council, we did not know that we could be part of the educational decisions. So it was like a
struggle, a very big dispute every day, talking for hours and hours. And also because our voices were
silenced because we were minors, we were students, and they had power over us, punitive power.
Well, they even wanted to kick a classmate out of school without any argument, this was very fre-
quent, and we organised ourselves to prevent this from happening.’ (Interview in Mendoza Pro-
vince, July 2020)

Taking its lead from the feminist movement and the CNDALSG, the Green Wave has
managed to create a path not previously trodden by women and dissidents in Argentina,
a path where desire, hopes and freedom might be part of a possible future (Coledesky
2007). However, there is still a long road to travel in a (neo)colonial and patriarchal
346 G. ARTAZO ET AL

continent, in which patriarchal reaction7 continues to cut short lives. In Latin America,
there are plenty of stories of extinguished lives, where death was not inevitable. Women
and girls suffer a lack of choice over something as fundamental as being a mother or not,
and paternal and state abandonment, in addition to the structural poverty and systematic
exclusion that in Latin America, even today, particularly affects women8.
Those of us who were assigned female at birth, know what the closing down of possible
futures means, the childhoods that are marked by these experiences. After the approval of
the law on the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy (VIP)9 new paths seem to be opening
up, offering the possibility of choice over whether to be mothers or not. The results of our
research lead us to place a high value on the possibility of doubting and questioning –
traits exhibited by our interviewees. In the case of our interviewees, at least, to be
young and to question are synonymous. We should actively listen, question, reflect,
empathise and share our own experience, hoping that this process will be reciprocal.
The possibility of doubting and dwelling in spaces of non-definition is part of the
achievement of the Green Wave; thinking and rethinking practices, addressing the
relationship between partners, self-criticism, talking with mentors, problem solving
and questioning. Young people are often expected to be the ‘engine of change’. In our
experience, young people are turning this around and thinking: engines and changes,
not one but all, complexity and not linearity, multiplicity and not universality, possibili-
ties and not ideals (Duarte Quapper 2012). This formula, in part, consolidates what we, as
a research team, are calling the ‘new feminist ethic’.

3. Choosing ourselves in times of patriarchy: conclusions and reflections on the

construction of a plurinational10 and diverse feminist ethic
In March 2020, when we began our research, we faced a double challenge: addressing the
complexity of the Green Wave in a year in which the VIP law would again be voted on,
and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which threw the entire methodological
process of data collection into uncertainty. Nevertheless, during the first semester we
focused on data collection – remotely and virtually – and on beginning to describe certain
recurring themes, which marked the interpretative lens through which the team was
going to carry out the research process.
At the same time, we were following the tracks that the Green Wave has made over the
last few years. Tracks that, after a long process of discussion and reflection among the
team, we chose to conceptualise as a ‘new feminist ethic’. We see this feminist ethic as
being something created through a synthesis of the workings of the CNDALSG and
the activism of the new generations involved in the Green Wave: a diverse, plurinational,
dialectical and popular ethic (Guzman 2019). For us, it is an ethic that chooses to position
itself in opposition to anti-progressive social forces, but is also ready to revise its own pos-
itions as an epistemological stance towards life. It is a process of constant revision and
disruptive and irreverent practice, building strongly politicised individual and commu-
nity experiences. It involves radicalising the multiple political experiences that the fem-
inist movement, in all its diversity, encompasses. We choose to use the word radicalise,
 GENDER & DEVELOPMENT 347

here, because where some political language calls for the ‘extermination’ of neoliberal
models and ‘making them extinct’, the feminisms of Latin America offer in contrast, lov-
ing, communitarian, caring, empathetic descriptions of the experiences of struggle and
that is, in itself, a radical practice.
Furthermore, in an Argentina that experiences a new and shocking femicide every 29
hours (La Casa del Encuentro 2021), speaking of ethics becomes a radical proposition,
taking place as it does, in a context in which violence against women and girls is an every-
day fact. Seen in this ethical light, the right to abortion is part of a historical claim, which
is not only about considering the right to choose, but is also an act of social justice, for all
those who have lost their lives through illegal abortion in Argentina, and for all those
bodies, desires and lives that have been obstructed by a patriarchy that maintains as a
maxim the principle of existing for others, not for oneself.
In this article, we have tried to tell a political story that reflects on the young people
involved in feminism in Argentina, and how the Green Wave grew out of a deeply com-
plex and gradual political process. This process has been built from a multiplicity of pos-
itions and by a multiplicity of new faces and peoples, using novel and original practices
that have posed new challenges, but that have led to a historical gain in terms of the pol-
itical achievement of feminism in Argentina.
For its part, the political problem of adultcentrism is one of the concerns of feminist
youth, and is being constantly addressed through their reflections and practices (Duarte
Quapper 2015). As part of this process, young people find themselves contending with
methods rooted in political action, questioning existing practices, and glimpsing ways
in which they can put pressure on heterosexual-cis-patriarchal morality in their everyday
lives. From there, they can build new meanings that, in a slow and gradual way, are
spreading and making new horizons possible.
The Green Wave moves and touches us, questioning others and ourselves, it addresses
the construction of this new feminist ethic, introducing important concepts such as affec-
tionate responsibility, defining it in the following way:
‘I believe that responsibility for others, for the care of others, is fundamentally based on respect for
the integrity of that person. And the way in which we can practice it, I think there are two ways: one
is as an individual, where if we see a friend in a situation of violence we not only approach them,
well first we understand them, and then accompany them and help them to overcome, let’s say, that
situation of violence and to get out of that situation; and there is also the collective part, I think that
taking care of each other, in community, is this, fighting for our rights, and once we achieve those
rights, protecting them, that I think is also the way to take care of ourselves as a community.’ (Inter-
view in Mendoza Province, August 2020)

This notion of the integrated nature of the individual, the collective and the community, res-
onates strongly in young people’s stories. It weaves together an extremely novel and interest-
ing theoretical, conceptual and political whole, managing to translate into young people’s
lived practices, and making a significant contribution to Latin American feminism.
Inhabiting positions of doubt makes the possibility of sitting in discomfort a right: the
right to doubt in order to choose, reflect and recognise that one’s own life has worth, to
consider the way in which this life is built both individually, and with others. New slogans
348 G. ARTAZO ET AL

and new universes appear, which young people mean to be part of their future. However,
this new feminist ethic – as we have said – is dialectical, always flexible, always in move-
ment; that is what the young people themselves have achieved. ‘Let’s not fight among our-
selves’, said one of our interviewees, when she talked about how she understood her
interpersonal relations, that is, questioning even what the young people themselves
have constructed as mandates to follow. ‘Why do I always have to love my body?’,
asked another of the interviewees, or ‘Why does abortion have to be a traumatic experi-
ence? It doesn’t seem that way to me’ (Interview in Salta Province, June 2020).
In this sense, the Green Wave has influenced the Latin American feminist social move-
ment as a whole, in all its size, plurality and diversity. It has enabled the revision of inher-
ited political practices, producing new ways of doing politics in which young people feel
strongly involved. These political meanings and practices are applied in all aspects of
everyday life, building a way of being and doing politics that permeates everything. In
this way, the young people we interviewed think of themselves as undertaking activism
on a daily basis in all the areas – geographical, social and symbolic – that they inhabit,
so that they can no longer think of themselves living in any other way.
These dimensions of politics and activism reflect a need, shared by those activists
within the Green Wave, to build and make community, to live this approach with others
who share, exchange and learn; with those who are recognised as contributors to the his-
tory of struggle, and with those who can discuss new visions. Making community
involves building interpersonal bonds in a new way, and that is where the need to
build a new feminist ethic appears. It involves a way of making bonds in community,
making possible the good way of life we desire.

Notes
1. In 2015, the marches under the slogan "Ni Una Menos" (Not One Less) were a reaction to the
femicide of Chiara Paez - a 14-year-old girl from Santa Fe, beaten to death by her 16-year-old
boyfriend – and achieved visibility and prompted intense social debate around the femicides
that occurred during that year. “Ni Una Menos” represents the demand of a large part of society
for public policies to prevent multiple sexist violence, whose most extreme expression is femi-
cides. See: https://www.csjn.gov.ar/omrecopilacion/docs/informefemicidios2019.pdf (last
checked 8 November 2021).
2. A decolonial feminist approach involves the application of an analytical lens that reveals the con-
tinuing influence of patterns of patriarchal and colonial power established by Europeans in Latin
America over previous centuries.
3. See, for example, ‘”Salvemos las dos vidas”: multidud de marchas en Argentina contra legalción
del aborto’, El Observador, 28 November, https://www.elobservador.com.uy/nota/-salvemos-las-
dos-vidas-multitud-de-marchas-en-argentina-contra-legalizacion-del-aborto-20201128212328
(last checked 17 September 2021)
4. We understand ‘the establishment’ to mean the spirit of the norm that represses/corrects any dis-
ruption that confronts the status quo.
5. The word adultcentrism refers to the existence of a type of hegemony, an asymmetrical social
relationship between adults, who hold power and are the reference model for the vision of the
world, and other people, generally children, adolescents, young people or the elderly.
 GENDER & DEVELOPMENT 349

6. We take the notion of experience (Cambiasso and Longo 2013) to be understood as a mediation
between the determining pressures of production relations, and the historical process of class for-
mation, which in certain historical and cultural conjunctures grant specificity and dynamism to
the vital experience of people.
7. See El derecho al aborto ante la reacción patriarcal. Casos emblemáticos de la violación de los dere-
chos humanos de las mujeres en relación al aborto en América Latina [The right to abortion in the
face of patriarchal reaction. Emblematic cases of the violation of women’s human rights in
relation to abortion in Latin America], Ane Garay Zarraga (n.d.) Mundubat, https://
clacaidigital.info/bitstream/handle/123456789/720/Derecho%20al%20aborto%20ante%
20reaccion%20patriarcal.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y (last checked 10 November 2021)
8. ‘The advent of the "feminization" of poverty and its operational definitions … [is] a fact that
doesn’t occur in a vacuum, but is configured on previous meanings with respect to the socially
constructed places for women and men, their living conditions and the definition of intervention
strategies on the hegemonic social problems at each moment’ (Aguilar 2011, 128).
9. Voluntary interruption of pregnancy is the name given to voluntary abortions.
10. Plurinational is an adjective used to qualify that which is linked to several nations. Thus, a plur-
inational state is one in which at least two national groups coexist. In a plurinational country,
therefore, several national communities coexist, each with its own culture and social character-
istics. These groups recognise each other, accepting and respecting their particularities. This cat-
egory is used in Bolivia’s constitution to designate itself as a plurinational state.

Acknowledgements
We were invited to participate in this research project by the Non-Governmental Organization “Cató-
licas por el Derecho a Decidir” (Catholics for the Right to Decide), through funding from the organi-
sation “Fondo Global de Mujeres” (Global Women’s Fund).

Notes on Contributors
Gabriela Artazo (contact author) holds a Ph.D. in Political Science, and is professor and researcher at
the Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina, and a member of El Telar:
Comunidad de pensamiento feminista y latinoamericano. Postal address: Avda Valparaiso s/n UNC
PC:5000, Córdoba, Argentina. Email: artazogabriela@gmail.com
Sofía Menoyo is an ARtivist, teacher and feminist researcher and member of the El Telar team. Facultad
de Artes y FemGeS-FFyH (Área de feminismos, género y sexualidades - Facultad de Filosofía y Huma-
nidades de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina). Email: sofia.menoyo@gmail.com
Agustina Ramia Villalpando holds a degree in Social Work from the National University of Córdoba,
Argentina,.and is afeminist researcher and member of the El Telar team. Email: agus.ramia@gmail.com

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