By Brenda Werth

#NiUnaMenos Protest in Neuquen / Flickr/ Creative Commons

The #MeToo movement – described frequently as a moment of reckoning in the societies it touches– is arriving in Latin America, but the region’s own #NiUnaMenos movement provides a superior model for driving awareness of violence against women.  Latin America has a deep history of activism against gender violence, including decades of organizing against feminicide at the U.S.-Mexico border and most recently the mass mobilizations of #NiUnaMenos in Argentina, Peru, Brazil, and Chile.  Two major cases have breathed life into the framework of #MeToo in the past three months: Argentine actress Thelma Fardín’s open denunciation in December of actor Juan Darthés for raping her on the set of the children’s show “The Ugly Duckling” when she was 16 years old; and most recently, the mounting accusations of sexual assault and misconduct against former Costa Rican President and Nobel Laureate Oscar Árias Sánchez.  In denouncing celebrities and politicians in positions of power, #MeToo in Latin America replicates the pattern of “toppling the powerful, not the ordinary.”

While the significance of bringing down the powerful and those who historically have seemed most immune from prosecution and public scrutiny should not be underestimated, the concern that #MeToo so far has had little effect in changing attitudes of the ordinary or holding the ordinary accountable is a valid one and presents a much bigger and strategically important problem.  New York Times writer Amanda Taub writes that “the movement has had little effect on the broader problem of sexual abuse, harassment and violence by men who are neither famous nor particularly powerful.” While addressing the broader problem of sexual abuse, holding perpetrators accountable, and implementing long term systemic change are central tenets to the original mission of #MeToo as envisioned by founder Tarana Burke, there is a sense that the movement’s adaptation and subsequent viralization have narrowed the movement to focus primarily on cases of sexual abuse with potential for media spectacularity.

• The #NiUnaMenos movement in Latin America, on the other hand, offers concrete examples of how to address the broader problem of sexual abuse and gender violence at the grassroots level through open popular assemblies, rallies, demonstrations, collective performances, and social media. University of California Professor Alyson Brysk notes the importance of the grassroots organizing against gender violence that preceded #MeToo.  #NiUnaMenos was first introduced in 2015 by Argentine journalists, activists and artists who, outraged by the murder of 14-year old Chiara Páez by her boyfriend, announced a call of action via social media to build solidarity against gender violence and feminicide.  Cecilia Palmeiro, one of the movement’s founding members, says #NiUnaMenos embraces a “feminism from below” that is intersectional, transversal, and horizontal and engages with marginalized communities, with a revolutionary lineage of activism passed down from the Mothers, Grandmothers and other human rights groups.  In joining forces with the International Women’s Strikes, #NiUnaMenos makes the crucial link between gender violence and the forms of economic inequality and exploitation that affect women worldwide.

While #MeToo “jumps to countries across Asia, Europe, and Latin America,” the lessons of movements from Latin America such as #NiUnaMenos are indeed more valuable – and worth being studied by the United States and Europe. A hemispheric exchange of ideas, methods, and practices between movements such as #MeToo and #NiUnaMenos would help establish new networks of solidarity while drawing attention to the diverse challenges and questions that inform both movements and the contexts in which they emerged. Furthermore, mutual acknowledgment of the sophistication and potential international impact of these and other movements would help to dispel the notion that Latin America is “catching up” by finally grappling with #MeToo and would contest the familiar trope of knowledge dissemination from North to South.

March 8, 2019

* Brenda Werth is Associate Professor and Department Chair, World Languages and Cultures, at American University.