Every so often, societies see new values enter the public domain, gain support and convert from marginal to mainstream. What accounts for such value shifts? Existing work suggests that value change happens gradually, via cohort replacement. This view comes at odds, however, with a growing realisation of a rather abrupt pattern of change, giving room within short time period to new moral paradigms. What accounts for such a quick turn in moral values?
We address this question by looking at how a specific ideology, feminism, can enter the public fray. How can public perceptions about feminism, and attitudes towards women in more general, change? To answer this question we point to the role of media in successfully transmitting new value benchmarks. We make use of Intrusos, a popular entertainment show in Argentina, which dedicated an entire week to inform its audience, typically Argentinian housewives, about feminism and abortion. The focus on feminism was sudden, unexplainable to close observers and participants of the show, and eventually short-lived—it only lasted a couple of weeks before Intrusos went back into its standard content, rich with women objectification. However, as feminist activists passed through their screens, we argue that Intrusos paved the way to the destigmatization and legitimacy of Argentinian women’s movement into households otherwise difficult to reach. Using a difference-in-differences design, we look at google trends, twitter data, survey data from Latinobarometro, household data on the internet connection, and TV ratings, to assess the Intrusos effect on Argentinian's attitudes about gender roles.