Buenos Aires. In the Plaza de Mayo gardens, on November 30, 2023, the women of the
Pueblo Jujuy met, camped out for months with tents and stoves, as Ines told us while crocheting: “fighting against fascist measures against indigenous peoples and human rights”. In the supermarket, the elderly ladies discuss the price of coffee that has risen by 140%. A few months later, on June 3, 2024, the anniversary of “Ni una menos” (“Not One Less” the feminist movement born in Argentina in 2015), to the roll of drums, thousands of people - public transport workers, housewives, trans, indigenous women, Afro-descendants, migrants, prostitutes -, challenged the government against ‘hate speeches and crimes’, gender violence, the oppression of indigenous peoples and the plundering of the land. In the same week, the General Confederation of Labor took to the streets against the law on Deregulation and the ultra-liberal policies of the government of Javier Milei, which has taken away funds from research, school, pensions, prevention and policies for gender inequality, especially affecting the female population, who are the poorest.
On the same day, when Maria Noel Vaeza, director of UN Women for the Americas and the Caribbean, recalled that: "Here where there is a femicide every 18 hours, we need a shared public policy between ministries, prevention, respect for international treaties" the government's response was the dissolution of the Undersecretariat for the protection against gender violence, the last remaining bastion of the former Ministry of Women. In fact, Milei kept his word, given that the day after his election, eight months ago, the first thing he announced was the closure of the Ministry of Women, "degrading because discriminatory" and a new referendum to cancel the law on the interruption of pregnancy. Since then, the 'minister of women' Ayelen Mazzina, has had to suspend dozens of projects, from childbirth leave, to nurseries for single women, to the emergency number in 5 indigenous languages, to environmental methodologies linked to gender. However, Argentine women are in the front row: like Ines who crochets in Plaza de Mayo, or like the others who knit while warming themselves by bonfires along the central street in front of the frozen ocean of Ushuaia, we have met many other resistant women.
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First stop, the streets to visit with the ‘feminist tours’. Just choose between the various associations and in two hours you discover that in BA there were only 3 monuments or streets that represented women, until in Puerto Madero - around the new Puente de la Mujer by Calatrava - fountains, gardens, statues and streets were dedicated to women. From Juana Azurduy and Micaela Bastidas who took up arms against the Spanish, to the doctor and suffragette Julieta Lanteri, who with Eva Peron obtained the vote for women in 1947 before being killed, to the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, who finally had a street named after the last woman to disappear. "We don't just propose the history of women, but that of our continent, to make people reflect on inequalities" says Leticia Garziglia, one of the creators of Femitour @femitour.bsas. "If there are now rights recognized at a legal level it is because there has been a fight: in Argentina there is a great movement that will not let this new patriarchy pass blind to violence".

From the two unmissable neighborhoods of Boca and Puerto Madero, it is a step to the Barrio Rodrigo Bueno: a no man's land where until a few years ago migrants from Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador and the countryside lived on stilts and fished in canoes on the river, now
become the recognized center of shared social projects. Here Bettina Gonzalez, tireless curator of environmental projects against poverty, takes us. "If before the urban forms of 'villas' and informal settlements were resolved without ever achieving true integration, as in the very difficult nearby neighborhood of Villa 31-, here instead there has been a health, economic, cultural evolution, rents depend on social position, age, possibilities". The flagship and heart of the neighborhood has become the 'Vivera Organica', a plant nursery now famous as an example of circular culture in the environmental, social and economic fields, a self-sustaining cooperative of 14 women, with the aim of integrating the urban identity of migrants and spreading the culture of biodiversity. Between greenhouses and classrooms, unknown flowers and butterflies, they teach other women how to open more vegetable gardens and practical eco-friendly schools, they design urban spaces, sell salad to hotels, cook and organize events "And to think that before there was only one address for a thousand inhabitants: Avenida Espana 1800. We gathered in the streets to design the spaces, many were trained as bricklayers, some stayed to work here". Like Elisabeth Cuenca, the only one who completed the driving course and now accompanies urban planners from all over the world. And Peruvian Nikkei, one of the best Peruvian restaurants in the city, can only be here.

La Vivera has also become famous thanks to the social marketing of Jessica Oyarbide, who has applied here the models studied in India and Bangladesh, where ethical incubators and social enterprises are deeply rooted. Jessica has invented two initiatives - ‘Marcas que Marcan’ and ‘Echos’ - with which she accompanies businesses and encourages social transformation, with courses, consultancy, study trips, brand customization, propagating a positive impact on society, the gender perspective, the economic inclusion of people who have escaped from situations of hardship. In this way she has also made known the initiatives of rural women, who today in the streets of the city collect signatures against soybean cultivation and sell native plants. Among the most active is the “Red de Mujeres
Rurales”: "There are more than 500 women in more than 100 organizations - Yamila Niclis of
‘Agrocultura’ tells us -, intent on making the different professions in the fields known, from veterinarians to sociologists, with projects on environmental practices, biotechnology, climate, connectivity, social responsibility". Where to go? There are dozens of initiatives to look for during a trip to the pampas. Yamila and Jessica invite everyone to the indigenous communities of the Grand Chaco, whose artisans sell their hand-woven products in the solidarity market, or from the solidarity chain of the ‘honey queens’, the cooperatives to meet in the province of Buenos Aires and in 18 countries around the world.

But since people come here to discover infinite spaces, then with a backpack we go to the “Entrepreneurs for nature” of Rewilding Argentina, a Foundation that protects territories and species, in one of the most ambitious conservation projects on the planet. Here Sofia Heinonen, a scholar of ecosystems at risk, recognized by the BBC as one of the 100 most influential women on the planet, directs four parks, which cover more than a million hectares, with a multidisciplinary team of over two hundred people. "We are 50% women and 50% men, but women occupy more positions of responsibility and command: a small difference in favor of emancipation! - Sofia told us - As for tourism and entrepreneurship, we include women in projects related to nature tourism or as guides, they enhance their know-how, such as craftsmanship, weaving, knitting, traditional cuisine, and this helps families because
women distribute their income better". In the protected parks at the ends of the country we meet the ‘Entrepreneurs for nature’, dozens of places for as many natural products and activities with tourists, all to be discovered from north to south: at Margarita Ibanez you go for fabrics, but then you follow the paths to the river in search of rare birds. Carola Pucchiaro and Marisa Palomeque instead participated in an aquaculture training, becoming experts in algae-based diets, but then they also opened a bicycle rental, while some instructors offer diving and boat trips to travelers who stop in the colorful wooden houses. While Veda Palavecino and twenty other women dye and work wool, Alina Ruiz has studied new recipes and organized a cooking school with local products.

 

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Tags: women in tourism