Latin America has been celebrated as a global leader in progressive abortion reform in recent years. The marea verde (green tide) has swept across the region, ignited feminist energies and secured landmark legal victories in countries including Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. However, this momentum now faces a stark reactionary turn, exemplified by the rise of far-right figures like Javier Milei in Argentina and José Antonio Kast in Chile. With these leaders being vocally anti-abortion, there is an urgent need to examine the feminist movement from within to understand how the marea verde built such broad popular support and how it can now resist this anti-feminist backlash. Nayla Luz Vacarezza’s Las pasiones alegres del feminismo: O cómo agitar la imaginación política contemporánea addresses these questions with aplomb, exploring how collectivism, visual politics and creative strategy can re-energise contemporary politics.
If you stood in the streets of Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile or Montevideo during the last decade, you wouldn’t just see a protest; you would experience what Vacarezza calls a ‘kinetic concert of gestures, movements and dances that often occur without prior rehearsal. It is made up of murmurs, shouts, chants, songs, percussion and music, as well as moments of silence and stillness’ (p. 19). In her latest book, currently available only in Spanish, Vacarezza explains how feminists have occupied public space in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay as part of a broad project of ‘social decriminalisation of abortion’. Social decriminalisation refers to the shift in social norms and the perception of abortion in order to reduce stigma, reduce the perceived ‘criminality’ of the procedure and make abortion legislation more broadly popular. Vacarezza shows us that abortion rights aren’t just about a vote in a seat of power; they are about occupying public space and reclaiming the narrative from one of shame to one of collective power.
A real strength of Las pasiones alegres del feminismo is to show that joy and passion, which can be dismissed as apolitical, feminine and not the place of serious politics, are vital political affects. Feminists in the Southern Cone took these feelings out of the private realm and into public consciousness to show how shame and stigma work to dominate women and other oppressed groups. These feminists thereby shifted the window of what political discourse about abortion is allowed to be; ‘[t]hey showed, with sparkle and colour, that abortion could be much more than something sad or traumatic’ (p. 76). Vacarezza shows that this doesn’t emerge from nowhere, but that feminists are building on decades of mobilisation. It’s also very funny. While it is challenging to write about memes, protests and performance art in ways that go beyond dry description, Vacarezza does so accessibly and always provides enough of the backstory so that non-expert readers can be in on the joke too.
Yet the book doesn’t shy away from the painful realities of reproductive violence. Vacarezza narrates the affective politics of the far right, namely how they have often successfully worked to associate abortion with death, suffering, secrecy, guilt, shame and disgust and their effects, such as structural racism, pregnancy-related deaths from abortion and poor access to healthcare. In chapter three, titled ‘The transformational power of pain and grief’, Vacarezza discusses the catalysing force of suffering and what it means to take pain and grief into public space as a form of protest. Feminists have used images or objects associated with unsafe self-managed abortion practices, such as knitting needles, clothes hangers and parsley, ‘to mobilize people to bring visibility to the pain that remains hidden in secrecy’ (p. 110). Vacarezza remains wary of fetishising pain and remaining stuck in victimhood and recognises that such objects can reinforce stigma and fear, but sets out why it is important to remember the harsh reality of restricting abortion. She skilfully details the changes within the feminist movement, for example, the move away from previously common slogans within the abortion movement, such as ‘no-one is in favour of abortion’ and ‘abortion as a last resort’, which frame abortion as something unpleasant and a necessary evil. These stand in contrast to the loving, caring, empathetic and emphatically pro-abortion movement present in the region today. Vacarezza respectfully recognises these developments and, as she writes, ‘[t]he horizon is not simply leaving pain behind, but embarking on the difficult work of reimagining it, transforming it, and repairing it’ (p. 128).
This reimagined feminist abortion movement comes to the fore in Las pasiones alegres del feminismo. Vacarezza’s beautifully written opening passages draw the reader into the collective activism and shared emotional experience of feminist mobilisation in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. The images and photos that are scattered throughout the book provide a clearer sense of the scale of mass protests with activists raising their green handkerchiefs which are now the classic signifier of the pro-abortion movement, of the humour of memes and how their absurdity can be a unifying force, and how outlandish costumes can capture public attention. For example, chapter five is a fascinating account of the transformation that abortion pills have brought with an emphasis on the cultural activism around pills. Through interventions such as an activist dressed up as an enormous misoprostol pill in Argentina in 2009, more people became aware that abortion pills exist and learned whom to contact for support in using them safely and effectively. As Vacarezza explains, misoprostol became a more optimistic protagonist in the abortion movement, away from the knitting needles, coat hangers and parsley of earlier activism; ‘[s]uddenly, giant pills appeared dancing at demonstrations, smiling pills adorned various graphic designs, joyful songs about pills energized activist festivals …’ (p. 167). Vacarezza deftly ties aesthetics and cultural politics to on-the-ground abortion access, legal change and the social decriminalisation of abortion.
In all, Las pasiones alegres del feminismo: O cómo agitar la imaginación política contemporánea is a rich and fascinating account of the feminist mobilisation for abortion in the Southern Cone. It feels very much ‘of a moment’, and I was left wondering whether a book about ‘joyful passion’ could have been written had Argentina not had the big legislative win of 2020 when abortion for any reason was legalised up to the 14th week of pregnancy. Nevertheless, this moment has provided a turning point for Vacarezza to set out an exciting vision of hope, joy and love without ever being flippant about the struggles, pain, setbacks and violence feminists have faced across decades. This book is written for a broad audience with accessibility and clarity but keeping the detailed research and nods to theory that will make it essential for a wide readership across Latin American studies, politics, cultural studies, gender and feminist studies and beyond. This is an important book for us all as we navigate an increasingly polarised global landscape and the coordinated rise of anti-feminist, far-right movements, offering a vital blueprint for how joyful resistance can counter the politics of fear and shame.
