As you can imagine
women are not born feminist.
I wasn't born a feminist myself.
I will tell you how I became one.
I lived in Brazil,
exiled because of the military dictatorship
in 1979,
and a tragedy happened.
A wonderful woman from Minas Gerais, were I used to live
was shot to death on the beach by her partner
who said she was cheating on him.
One day, I was going to a TV show
and I found out that a journalist
was interviewing the murderer's attorney.
The attorney was well known in Brasil's criminal law.
The journalist asked
how was he going to face the murderer's defense.
He answered that it was very simple
-- of course, he said this in Portuguese --
very simple,
it was a legitimate defense of the murderer's honor.
That's why he killed her.
As you can imagine, that shocked me;
I was a justice seeker in every sense of the word
fighting for equality for all people,
and I realized I was missing a very special chapter,
so I made myself study and think about
what had happened to women.
What had happened to women in history?
And there I met the patriarchal system
which is an excluding system.
Not only for women.
The system also excludes
others who don't have the same level of masculinity.
In that search I found, most of all,
what had happened during the 19th century --
a century in which women were mostly excluded --
So we went to Napoleon's Code of Law, from 1804,
which was completely imitated by most of the countries
that placed women on a lower place regarding civil rights;
women couldn't study or work,
or administrate their own property.
However, I want to bring up
that even we have a system so full of exclusion,
lots of men started to join women's claims;
feminism was born.
In 1848 took place probably the first feminist council
in Seneca Falls,
close to New York,
and there were 30 percent of men, joining women
in their claims for equal rights.
The 19th century was specially hard for women;
it was very usual to think
that women were less intelligent than men.
I will use Gustave Le Bon's words, he was a French sociologist that said
that women's intelligence was similar to a gorilla's intelligence
and that had to be checked.
So, I think
that we have walked a long way
but there are still plenty of things to do
to achieve complete gender equality.
I will present four dimensions, that for me are basic
to achieve equality.
First of all, we need to stop
violence against women.
In Argentina, we have had three big marches:
the "Ni una menos", Not one less, movement has been very important;
and during the last few days we had
(Applause)
we had the first, maybe historical, women's strike.
Yes, there were some in the past, and also in literature
but this one was remarkable.
I also would like to say
that is absolutely fundamental
to have equal participation, from both women and men
in different tasks.
Why are there tasks exclusively for women?
Why men can't take care of the kids,
or the house?
Why women can't perform
typically masculine work?
Labor market is
really harsh to women;
Women's total payroll represents 70 percent of men's total payroll.
The third item I want to mention
is that we need equality.
Equality of representation in government's areas
and in every institution.
Women can barely reach the highest positions.
Today, only 30 percent of CEOs are women,
the same happens with all high levels.
Not even universities have been a place to develop equality.
And finally, I would like to give you some food for though
about the idea
of autonomy of our own bodies.
Men's bodies and women's bodies.
Women have to be owners of their bodies
they can decide to become mothers,
go through a pregnancy,
or not carrying on with pregnancies they don't want.
(Applause)
We need to have legal abortion in Argentina.
(Applause)
Finally, I would like to share a really intimate belief;
a feminist belief,
that it's a better future for human beings.
It's about people's dignity
men, women, and other sexual identities,
it's about sexual diversity that requires, for each of us,
a life full of dignity.
That's my main goal.
(Applause)