Milei and the Davos 2025 gender agenda: an analysis from the rhetoric of Quintilian

Abstract

This article analyzes Javier Milei's speech at Davos 2025 from a rhetorical-critical perspective, integrating Quintilian's classical theory with contemporary approaches to cognitive metaphors and performativity. It demonstrates how Milei uses classical rhetorical devices (ethos, pathos, logos) and polarizing metaphors ("cancer," "crusade") to legitimize neoliberalism under an anti-establishment guise. The speech, aimed at global economic elites but amplified digitally, attacks "Wokism" and radical feminism as existential threats, which translates into concrete policies that roll back gender rights in Argentina, such as the elimination of the Ministry of Women and budget cuts. The proposed unified methodology (temporal, formal, functional, and critical dimensions) allows us to unravel how performative language constructs social realities, reproduces power structures, and polarizes public debate. This study concludes that Milei's discourse exemplifies the reinvention of neoliberalism through discursive strategies that fuse rhetorical tradition with media innovation, negatively impacting the gender agenda. The research underscores the urgent need to develop analytical tools that deconstruct the performativity of power in populist discourses to defend democratic rights