Sex and Dissent

**"Revelatory. . . . At a time of great backlash and regression, North American women should indeed look to Latin America for a new way forward.”—Sarah Weinman, author of Without Consent

Four electrifying and hopeful accounts of feminist uprising that have swept through Latin America and Spain in the wake of #MeToo—and what we can learn from these protest cultures in a fraught moment for democracy in the US**

As women’s rights have faced alarming rollbacks in the United States over the past decade, mass feminist movements beyond our borders have achieved historic victories. Award-winning journalist Meaghan Beatley takes us to the frontlines to tell inspiring stories of resistance and political imagination that will be a vital roadmap in the years to come. 

In Argentina, a national reckoning over abortion—sparked, in part, by an unholy alliance with a popular gossip show—ignited a nationwide movement that led to the legalization of abortion. Across the Andes, young feminists in Chile fueled a constitutional rewrite to confront deep structural inequality. In Spain, a high-profile sexual assault case cracked open a fierce public debate, redefining the meaning of consent. And in Mexico, balaclava-clad student protesters occupied a government building to force the epidemic of femicide into the national spotlight.

The product of a decade of immersive reporting, Beatley captures the urgency and creativity of these movements and the women who led a motley crew of former guerrilla fighters, student occupiers, and mothers standing down narco violence. At once intimate and politically electric, Sex and Dissent reframes the global struggle for equality—and offers a model for building power, solidarity, and radical democratic change.