“I won’t apologize for having a penis,” Javier Milei said to cheers and applause at the Buenos Aires Book Fair.

The year was 2022, and the notion of a Milei presidency was more fantasy than plausible reality. But that’s when the radical libertarian first vowed to eliminate the Ministry of Women, Genders, and Diversity if elected to the Casa Rosada.

It was a promise he would keep. In December 2023, days after being sworn in, Milei folded the government body into a newly-created Ministry of Human Capital, which itself was recently put under the control of the Ministry of Justice.

This Monday, June 3, marks the ninth anniversary of Argentina’s Ni Una Menos march. Each year, thousands take to the streets to protest gender-based violence, demand action from public officials, and take stock of how far the nation has come. But since Milei took office, many of the programs designed to end gender-based violence have been paralyzed due to budget cuts and mass layoffs, while incendiary anti-feminist remarks like his Book Fair comments have become commonplace in the halls of power.

“The way [the government] approaches these programs is by dismantling them or letting them die,” said Natalia Gherardi, executive director of the Latin American Justice and Gender Team (ELA, by its Spanish acronym). It took two months for Claudia Barcia to be named chair of the new undersecretariat, and workers who wished to remain anonymous told the Herald they felt adrift at the time, finding tasks for themselves or simply passing the hours at their desks while being given no direction.

According to the Civil Association for Equality and Justice (ACIJ), government data show that public spending on policies that aim to reduce gender-based violence is 26.8% lower than it was in 2023. At the undersecretariat itself, these spending reductions are even more dramatic. During the first quarter of 2024, expenditures were down 78% compared to the same time period the year before.

Two of the key initiatives in........

© Buenos Aires Herald