Meaghan Beatley is a journalist and author of Sex and Dissent: Stories of Feminist Resistance in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Spain, out August 4. She specializes in gender, feminist movements, and political backlashes across the Spanish-speaking world, with an eye to illuminating similar issues in the US.
About the book
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 the country’s most prestigious university for months 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 them, 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.
You can preorder Sex and Dissent from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, Bookshop.org, Hudson Booksellers, Powell’s, Target, or Walmart.
Praise for Sex and Dissent
“A remarkable debut… a galvanizing compendium of furious feminist activism.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Timely and heartening, packed with inspiration and lessons.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“An eye-opening, compulsively readable primer about contemporary feminist resistance movements… At a time when political leaders like Donald Trump and Javier Milei are using their positions to reinforce many of the old misogynies, the stories told by Beatley offer inspiring examples of redemptive action taken by women who have faced some of the worst cruelties that men are capable of. Sex and Dissent is an important book for our time — please read it.”
—Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che: A Revolutionary Life
“A revelatory account of recent feminist protest and activism in four Spanish-speaking countries, where the courage and actions of the women who spoke up, spoke out, and changed laws shines through in incisive investigative reporting and prose that gets to the beating heart of the matter. 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
“A clear-eyed, rigorous, and consistently fascinating exploration of feminist movements, spanning both intimate portraits of activists and sweeping accounts of transformative social movements. This book gave me heart in this exceedingly difficult political moment — there’s so much to learn from, and be inspired by, here.”
—Rachel Monroe, author of Savage Appetites
“What an extraordinary book this is! Meaghan Beatley has the rare ability to combine deep and rigorous reporting with elegant storytelling and profound analytical smarts. Sex and Dissent is a sobering and inspiring work, grounded in history, bursting with heart.”
—Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Way to the Spring
“Essential reading while women’s rights are under attack in the U.S. and elsewhere, for those who wish to learn from the Latin American feminists notching legal, cultural, and political wins under seemingly impossible circumstances.”
—Rachel Nolan, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Until I Find You
“Written in elegant, celebratory prose and grounded in meticulous reporting, this book vividly brings Latin American feminist movements to life. It is high time for these stories of struggles and breakthroughs to travel North and inspire US audiences or anyone who cares about democracy.”
—Mariane Pearl, author of A Mighty Heart
About me
I am a French & US journalist who has worked from the US, France, Spain, Mexico, Argentina and Chile, breaking stories and writing longform features for outlets including TIME, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Foreign Policy and The Nation.
I began my journalism career as editor in chief of The Santiago Times in Chile, then as managing editor of the Buenos Aires political news site The Bubble, before going freelance. In addition to my longform credits, I have worked as a frequent contributor to Public Radio International’s “Across Women’s Lives,” Vice’s “Motherboard,” and the Fuller Project’s “The Full Story,” a column in partnership with Foreign Policy.
Having spent the first third of my life living in Belgium speaking French, the second living in the US toggling between French and English, and the third across Latin America and Spain adding Spanish to the mix, my life and work have been steeped in translation and interpretation. My journalism endeavors to not only translate words but stories and ideas as well. You can see more of my work here.
I am also a ghostwriter and editorial collaborator, working with writers and non-writers alike to develop concepts, structure manuscripts, and bring their vision to the page. You can read more about that here.
Photo by Sandra BlánquezHunting the men who kill women: Mexico’s femicide detective — The Guardian Long Read
(Winner of the One World Media award for best feature article in 2022)
The shocking rape trial that galvanised Spain’s feminists – and the far right — The Guardian Long Read
The women who spoke out about Andres Roemer’s alleged abuse — TIME Magazine
Inside the Far-Right Fake-News Nexus — The Atlantic
Betting on Anti-feminism as a Winning Political Strategy — The Atlantic
America’s Guns Fuel Mexico’s Domestic Violence Epidemic — Fuller Project/Foreign Policy
France is in denial about domestic violence — Fuller Project/Foreign Policy
Who’s afraid of a sex workers’ union? — The Nation
Is Mexico’s ‘Mayan Train’ a Boondoggle? — The Nation
How a rape trial in Spain ignited a feminist movement — The Nation
Twitter Rallied to Find a Missing Woman — And Then Turned On Her — One Zero
A feminist revolution in porn? There’s still a long way to go — Huck Magazine
Meet the Argentine women behind Ni Una Menos — Remezcla
How one woman’s murder made Argentina rethink the idea of ‘crimes of passion’ — New Statesman
Journalism
Speaking
I recently had the pleasure of speaking about Sex and Dissent at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, as part of its “Feminism in Theory and Practice” series.
I am available for speaking engagements on a range of topics, including but not limited to:
The rise of feminist movements in Latin America and Spain, and what they can teach us about gender politics in the US
How the Spanish-speaking world became a laboratory for both feminist organizing and the conservative backlash
Reproductive rights from Argentina to the US: victories and rollbacks
How countries legislate (and fail to legislate) femicide and sexual violence
Comparing gender policy across Latin America, Spain, and the US
Reporting on feminist movements in the Spanish-speaking world as an outsider
Writing the political as personal: longform narrative and feminist reporting
I am an experienced ghostwriter and editorial collaborator working with writers and non-writers alike. I bring the same skills to this work that I bring to my journalism: exhaustive, carefully crafted interviews to capture a client's voice and story, and the instincts to shape raw material into a rich and compelling narrative.
I work with clients across the full arc of a project: sharpening concepts, finding the right structure, writing proposals for literary agents and publishers, and writing or editing full manuscripts. Whether you're self-publishing or pursuing a traditional deal, or figuring out which path is right for you, I can guide you through it.
I'm particularly drawn to projects with an element of memoir - personal stories that open outward onto larger social forces, historical moments, or cultural shifts.
If you have a story worth telling, I'd love to help you tell it.
Ghostwriting
Contact
For projects, collaborations, or speaking engagements - or just to say hi - you can reach me at: meaghan.beatley[at]gmail.com.
My agent is Maria Cardona Serra at Aevitas Creative Management: mcardona[at]aevitascreative.com