August 12, 2025 • 12 mins
Today we highlight some of the many works and activism of Veronica Gago, how intersectionality plays into it all, and what we can learn.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this and Samantha and welcome to stuff I Never
told you, a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And welcome to today's activists around the world. And today
we're talking about an icon and the feminist anti fascist
movement and research. She's a professor, an advocate, writer, leader,
and so much more. We are talking about Veronica Gago.
And Gago is a published author and professor of social
(00:39):
science focusing on feminism and overall governmental policies and economy.
So she's a professor for the Faculty of Social Science
at the University of Buenos Aires and the National University
of San Martin. Yes, this is also going to be
a test into my high school Spanish apologies and advance,
but here we go. So in addition to her research
(01:00):
and published works, which she has several, she also has
been an active member and co founder of the ni
Unamentos movement or not One More in English, which hosted
strikes throughout Argentina to protest the sexist and inhumane treatment
of women in the country and anti abortion laws. They
were part of that green movement, and we've talked about
we praised and we wish for our own. But all
(01:22):
of that to say she was one of the big
centers and focuses of that. She grew up in Argentina
during a time that caused a lot of financial and
economic crisis in the country, so it's not surprising to
know that her family were active within political discourse and
this kind of like pushed her into activism as well,
and she has put it into practice the different types
of activism that pushed Argentina to step forward in their
(01:45):
feminist movement. She is a force, and I will say
after I was reading it all about her, there's so
much information, of course, because she is a professional writer
a researcher, that we couldn't focus on everything. So we
were giving tidbits here and there, include some of the
books that she has written. She has had many lectures,
she is on YouTube, she's on different podcasts. We probably
(02:07):
should have her on. I feel like that about many
of our activists, but just so you know, we're just
kind of dwindling it down to our fifteen minutes or
less episode in this one. So apologies if I miss
something that you think is important, and if you do,
let me know, because I know, again she's an icon
in this community. So here's a bit more about her.
Organization ni Una Menals from her article titled violence of
(02:31):
Feminist struggles against victimization to set fear on fire quote
the nie Una Menals not one woman less movement emerged
in response to the multiple and specific forms of violence
faced by women, lesbian's, transtravistis and non binary people by
occupying the streets at a mass scale in Argentina and Abiyayella.
More broadly, the question of violence has escaped from its
(02:53):
enclosure under the concept of domestic violence and the mode
of its domestication through the response attempted by institutions, NGOs
and philanthropic and paternalistic forms of management. So she has
really dug deep into the connections of the multifaceted ways
of striking against violence or protesting against violence and violations
(03:14):
against the marginalized communities. She talks about using these tactics
as a way of radicalizing a movement, not allowing for
a single prong strategy, but more of a large scale response.
So I think something is really important that we should
be learning more about because we don't do this well.
We don't do this well in the US, I think.
But in another article published for the Journal of Latin
(03:35):
American Geography for the University of Texas Press. She writes,
Argentina's massive, popular and radical feminist movement has revitalized political
struggles in the country, building a transversal movement capable of
challenging multiple forms of violence that have differential impacts on
women and feminized bodies. It has done so by opening
up new forms of knowing and inventing new political tactics,
(03:56):
by weaving together different no hows and knowledges based on
multiple sus of heterogeneous concrete bodies and experience. Writing from
this feminist movement and situated within the experience of feminist strike,
we know how the strike as the process calls into
question hegemonic forms of knowing and assumptions about the subject
of that knowing through embodied an embedded process of investigation
(04:17):
and knowledge creation that produce new subjects, new concepts, and
new internationalists and plorer national alliances. That's a lot, but
she does talk about the fact that it opens up
so many things. Essentially, it brings in new ways of protests,
of counter protests, of tactics of political movements, and how
it does revitalize and revolutionizes something that has been needed
(04:40):
for so long. And something that's been used for so long,
go back and read our book about the different movements
and protests throughout the years. And she continues with a practical,
detailed approach, saying the feminist strike as an ongoing, evolving
practice involves assemblies and meetings, work stoppages and blockades, encounters
between women and other forms of being together, and practices
(05:02):
of care and of invention among women. As such, the
strike involves diverse forms of collective and embodied knowledge production
that challenge clear divisions between scholars and activists. Not knowledge
in the abstract. This feminists know how based on situated
knowledge practices in concrete territories and bodies, implies other ways
of knowing, valuing the knowing bodies, sensibilities and intuitions. This
(05:27):
knowing from the body challenges the colonial, capitalist, patriarchal unconscious
by questioning pre established identities and reactionary fears and creating
new forms of desire and subjectivities. Rivera Koshinkanki also speaks
of the importance of the body of weaving together manual
tasks with intellectual ones, thinking with the hands, heart and
brain at the same time in everyday collective practices. As
(05:49):
an important feature of these new waves of movements. And
I know we've talked about this before with previous people
who were starting movements protests, about how that is so important,
about being able to do it intellectually and with passion. Oh,
this is like to do know how? Yeah, she has
(06:09):
three different books about y'all. Within these published articles, she
talks about roles these actions play, political tactic, and research methodology,
and how those processes have to be large picture, including
(06:30):
the entirety of the groups affected, so we have to
understand intersectionality. But with that she digs deep into areas
where it's characterized as feminized economy, meaning that the area
is made up and largely ran by women, migrants, and
other marginalized communities, but they are not given equity or equality.
(06:52):
So feminized economy, I feel like that needs to be
a phrase that we hear more often, so this would
continue in her later works with the question of the
backlash against women. From a Georgetown University's look into Gogo's book,
Britique Ascan writes this of Gogo's book, Feminist International, a
work of political analysis and self reflection, it was written
(07:13):
from within the massive feminist mobilizations that swept Latin America
from twenty seventeen onwards. Gago presents the seemingly inexorable rise
of gender violence across the continent as a conservative backlash
led by disenfranchised men against the appearance of women in
the workplace, specifically in the informal sector, as in the
Mechilidores and Quidad Warrez and other towns along the US
(07:35):
Mexico border. And on the broader scope, Gago addresses the
already existence of a large network of feminist movements. She writes,
it is an internationalism that requires alliance in every possible place,
with strawberry picking day laborers, Morocco women working during harvest
times in Andalusia and the peasant unions and activist collectives
of the towns and cities, Between women laid off from
(07:57):
textile factories and students fighting against education cuts, Between indigenous
women in rebellion and community organizers in each neighborhood of
the urban peripheries. So again, this kind of is that
larger question of the pushback versus the entire entity of
those marginalized and those who were oppressed, And how big
of a part that does play in movements like these,
(08:21):
and with that talking about one of the biggest forces
of oppression on women around the world, debt and finances,
which we talked about before, which she expands upon in
her latest book, A Feminist Reading of Debt, which she
co wrote with Lucy Cavillerro. A bit more from Asakan's article,
they write she focuses on how the patriarchal financial APPARATUSUS
(08:41):
renew the colonial pact in the present, combining it with
forms of domination and exploitation. In her argument, the patriarchal
financial apparatus are revealed to be fundamental for understanding the
counterinsurgent dimension of war against women and feminized bodies. This
requires that feminism be international too. Yeah, yeah, Like I know,
(09:03):
there are so many conversations where we talked about how
feminism is so weaponized and so looked down upon. But
this type of conversation is why that word is so important,
so important. Obviously, when you have a feminist giant like Gotcks,
we're only skimming the vast amount of knowledge and research
that Gogoes has laid out. But one thing that did
catch my eye was her response to the US's Roe
(09:25):
v Wade overturning, and she was quick to speak up
about the importance of mobilization. So she actually wrote this
for The Guardian, and it's titled What Latin American feminists
can teach American Women about the Abortion Fight. She writes,
an important element for understanding the massiveness of these mobilizations
was precisely the way in which the struggle for abortion
was woven together with other feminist struggles. This allowed for
(09:49):
cognitively and politically connecting the different forms of violence against
women and feminized bodies as systemic violence. The violence of
often deadly and costly, clandestine abortion was thus connected to
domestic violence, sexual harassment, and the gender pay gap in
the workplace, and to the murders of female environment and
indigenous activists in the rural areas. In turn, this enabled
(10:12):
constructing the demand of abortion in terms that go beyond
merely individual right, challenging the conception of the body as
private property. The green Tide flooded spaces everywhere, including schools, slums,
union squares, and soup kitchens. Through this transversality, the body
that had been put up for debate took on a
collective and class dimension. This occurred because discussion about the
(10:34):
clandestine condition of abortion directly referred to the costs that
make it differentially risky according to one's social and economic position.
Those who were most harmed by the criminalization of abortion
were the women and people with the capacity to just
state with the fewest economic resources, those who could not
pay for safe abortions. Therefore, the right to abortion was
considered inseparable from the demand that it be guaranteed in
(10:57):
the public healthcare system. In turn, the demand for a
comprehensive sexual education in the public education that's curriculum allow
for deepening debates about sexualities, corporalities, relationships, and effects, displacing
the question in a radical way. So there was a lot.
It was very obviously, very thorough, But I feel like
there's so much in this conversation we don't we haven't
(11:19):
talked enough about what it looks like to come together today.
I don't get me wrong. There's a lot of protests,
and we know there's a lot of protests happening in
LA and all over the country today that we're not
seeing news about because of course they want to hide that.
And we love that and we want to talk more
about it. But this is the understanding of what it
looks like, what it's a mass movement with the understanding
that this is intersectional. It has to be intersectional for
(11:42):
it to be mobilized and to actually open up into
an entire national movement, it has to be intersectional. So
I found her works to be really fascinating, and I
think we have to dig more into her words for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yes, yes, absolutely, and listeners. If you have any thoughts
on any of this or what works we should delve
into next of what she has done, please let us know.
You can email us at Hello at Stuffwenevertold You dot com.
You can find us on Blue Skype, Momstup podcast, or
on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You.
(12:15):
We're us on YouTube and we have a book you
can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always,
Tarry super Duce, Christina or executive producer My and your
contributor Joey. Thank you and I'm sorry and thanks to
you for listening. Stuff I Never Told You is picture
of my Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio,
you can check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this and Samantha and welcome to stuff I Never
told you, a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And welcome to today's activists around the world. And today
we're talking about an icon and the feminist anti fascist
movement and research. She's a professor, an advocate, writer, leader,
and so much more. We are talking about Veronica Gago.
And Gago is a published author and professor of social
(00:39):
science focusing on feminism and overall governmental policies and economy.
So she's a professor for the Faculty of Social Science
at the University of Buenos Aires and the National University
of San Martin. Yes, this is also going to be
a test into my high school Spanish apologies and advance,
but here we go. So in addition to her research
(01:00):
and published works, which she has several, she also has
been an active member and co founder of the ni
Unamentos movement or not One More in English, which hosted
strikes throughout Argentina to protest the sexist and inhumane treatment
of women in the country and anti abortion laws. They
were part of that green movement, and we've talked about
we praised and we wish for our own. But all
(01:22):
of that to say she was one of the big
centers and focuses of that. She grew up in Argentina
during a time that caused a lot of financial and
economic crisis in the country, so it's not surprising to
know that her family were active within political discourse and
this kind of like pushed her into activism as well,
and she has put it into practice the different types
of activism that pushed Argentina to step forward in their
(01:45):
feminist movement. She is a force, and I will say
after I was reading it all about her, there's so
much information, of course, because she is a professional writer
a researcher, that we couldn't focus on everything. So we
were giving tidbits here and there, include some of the
books that she has written. She has had many lectures,
she is on YouTube, she's on different podcasts. We probably
(02:07):
should have her on. I feel like that about many
of our activists, but just so you know, we're just
kind of dwindling it down to our fifteen minutes or
less episode in this one. So apologies if I miss
something that you think is important, and if you do,
let me know, because I know, again she's an icon
in this community. So here's a bit more about her.
Organization ni Una Menals from her article titled violence of
(02:31):
Feminist struggles against victimization to set fear on fire quote
the nie Una Menals not one woman less movement emerged
in response to the multiple and specific forms of violence
faced by women, lesbian's, transtravistis and non binary people by
occupying the streets at a mass scale in Argentina and Abiyayella.
More broadly, the question of violence has escaped from its
(02:53):
enclosure under the concept of domestic violence and the mode
of its domestication through the response attempted by institutions, NGOs
and philanthropic and paternalistic forms of management. So she has
really dug deep into the connections of the multifaceted ways
of striking against violence or protesting against violence and violations
(03:14):
against the marginalized communities. She talks about using these tactics
as a way of radicalizing a movement, not allowing for
a single prong strategy, but more of a large scale response.
So I think something is really important that we should
be learning more about because we don't do this well.
We don't do this well in the US, I think.
But in another article published for the Journal of Latin
(03:35):
American Geography for the University of Texas Press. She writes,
Argentina's massive, popular and radical feminist movement has revitalized political
struggles in the country, building a transversal movement capable of
challenging multiple forms of violence that have differential impacts on
women and feminized bodies. It has done so by opening
up new forms of knowing and inventing new political tactics,
(03:56):
by weaving together different no hows and knowledges based on
multiple sus of heterogeneous concrete bodies and experience. Writing from
this feminist movement and situated within the experience of feminist strike,
we know how the strike as the process calls into
question hegemonic forms of knowing and assumptions about the subject
of that knowing through embodied an embedded process of investigation
(04:17):
and knowledge creation that produce new subjects, new concepts, and
new internationalists and plorer national alliances. That's a lot, but
she does talk about the fact that it opens up
so many things. Essentially, it brings in new ways of protests,
of counter protests, of tactics of political movements, and how
it does revitalize and revolutionizes something that has been needed
(04:40):
for so long. And something that's been used for so long,
go back and read our book about the different movements
and protests throughout the years. And she continues with a practical,
detailed approach, saying the feminist strike as an ongoing, evolving
practice involves assemblies and meetings, work stoppages and blockades, encounters
between women and other forms of being together, and practices
(05:02):
of care and of invention among women. As such, the
strike involves diverse forms of collective and embodied knowledge production
that challenge clear divisions between scholars and activists. Not knowledge
in the abstract. This feminists know how based on situated
knowledge practices in concrete territories and bodies, implies other ways
of knowing, valuing the knowing bodies, sensibilities and intuitions. This
(05:27):
knowing from the body challenges the colonial, capitalist, patriarchal unconscious
by questioning pre established identities and reactionary fears and creating
new forms of desire and subjectivities. Rivera Koshinkanki also speaks
of the importance of the body of weaving together manual
tasks with intellectual ones, thinking with the hands, heart and
brain at the same time in everyday collective practices. As
(05:49):
an important feature of these new waves of movements. And
I know we've talked about this before with previous people
who were starting movements protests, about how that is so important,
about being able to do it intellectually and with passion. Oh,
this is like to do know how? Yeah, she has
(06:09):
three different books about y'all. Within these published articles, she
talks about roles these actions play, political tactic, and research methodology,
and how those processes have to be large picture, including
(06:30):
the entirety of the groups affected, so we have to
understand intersectionality. But with that she digs deep into areas
where it's characterized as feminized economy, meaning that the area
is made up and largely ran by women, migrants, and
other marginalized communities, but they are not given equity or equality.
(06:52):
So feminized economy, I feel like that needs to be
a phrase that we hear more often, so this would
continue in her later works with the question of the
backlash against women. From a Georgetown University's look into Gogo's book,
Britique Ascan writes this of Gogo's book, Feminist International, a
work of political analysis and self reflection, it was written
(07:13):
from within the massive feminist mobilizations that swept Latin America
from twenty seventeen onwards. Gago presents the seemingly inexorable rise
of gender violence across the continent as a conservative backlash
led by disenfranchised men against the appearance of women in
the workplace, specifically in the informal sector, as in the
Mechilidores and Quidad Warrez and other towns along the US
(07:35):
Mexico border. And on the broader scope, Gago addresses the
already existence of a large network of feminist movements. She writes,
it is an internationalism that requires alliance in every possible place,
with strawberry picking day laborers, Morocco women working during harvest
times in Andalusia and the peasant unions and activist collectives
of the towns and cities, Between women laid off from
(07:57):
textile factories and students fighting against education cuts, Between indigenous
women in rebellion and community organizers in each neighborhood of
the urban peripheries. So again, this kind of is that
larger question of the pushback versus the entire entity of
those marginalized and those who were oppressed, And how big
of a part that does play in movements like these,
(08:21):
and with that talking about one of the biggest forces
of oppression on women around the world, debt and finances,
which we talked about before, which she expands upon in
her latest book, A Feminist Reading of Debt, which she
co wrote with Lucy Cavillerro. A bit more from Asakan's article,
they write she focuses on how the patriarchal financial APPARATUSUS
(08:41):
renew the colonial pact in the present, combining it with
forms of domination and exploitation. In her argument, the patriarchal
financial apparatus are revealed to be fundamental for understanding the
counterinsurgent dimension of war against women and feminized bodies. This
requires that feminism be international too. Yeah, yeah, Like I know,
(09:03):
there are so many conversations where we talked about how
feminism is so weaponized and so looked down upon. But
this type of conversation is why that word is so important,
so important. Obviously, when you have a feminist giant like Gotcks,
we're only skimming the vast amount of knowledge and research
that Gogoes has laid out. But one thing that did
catch my eye was her response to the US's Roe
(09:25):
v Wade overturning, and she was quick to speak up
about the importance of mobilization. So she actually wrote this
for The Guardian, and it's titled What Latin American feminists
can teach American Women about the Abortion Fight. She writes,
an important element for understanding the massiveness of these mobilizations
was precisely the way in which the struggle for abortion
was woven together with other feminist struggles. This allowed for
(09:49):
cognitively and politically connecting the different forms of violence against
women and feminized bodies as systemic violence. The violence of
often deadly and costly, clandestine abortion was thus connected to
domestic violence, sexual harassment, and the gender pay gap in
the workplace, and to the murders of female environment and
indigenous activists in the rural areas. In turn, this enabled
(10:12):
constructing the demand of abortion in terms that go beyond
merely individual right, challenging the conception of the body as
private property. The green Tide flooded spaces everywhere, including schools, slums,
union squares, and soup kitchens. Through this transversality, the body
that had been put up for debate took on a
collective and class dimension. This occurred because discussion about the
(10:34):
clandestine condition of abortion directly referred to the costs that
make it differentially risky according to one's social and economic position.
Those who were most harmed by the criminalization of abortion
were the women and people with the capacity to just
state with the fewest economic resources, those who could not
pay for safe abortions. Therefore, the right to abortion was
considered inseparable from the demand that it be guaranteed in
(10:57):
the public healthcare system. In turn, the demand for a
comprehensive sexual education in the public education that's curriculum allow
for deepening debates about sexualities, corporalities, relationships, and effects, displacing
the question in a radical way. So there was a lot.
It was very obviously, very thorough, But I feel like
there's so much in this conversation we don't we haven't
(11:19):
talked enough about what it looks like to come together today.
I don't get me wrong. There's a lot of protests,
and we know there's a lot of protests happening in
LA and all over the country today that we're not
seeing news about because of course they want to hide that.
And we love that and we want to talk more
about it. But this is the understanding of what it
looks like, what it's a mass movement with the understanding
that this is intersectional. It has to be intersectional for
(11:42):
it to be mobilized and to actually open up into
an entire national movement, it has to be intersectional. So
I found her works to be really fascinating, and I
think we have to dig more into her words for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yes, yes, absolutely, and listeners. If you have any thoughts
on any of this or what works we should delve
into next of what she has done, please let us know.
You can email us at Hello at Stuffwenevertold You dot com.
You can find us on Blue Skype, Momstup podcast, or
on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You.
(12:15):
We're us on YouTube and we have a book you
can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always,
Tarry super Duce, Christina or executive producer My and your
contributor Joey. Thank you and I'm sorry and thanks to
you for listening. Stuff I Never Told You is picture
of my Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio,
you can check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!