Women’s History Review
Vol. 19, No. 4, September 2010, pp. 613–630
Forging Feminisms under Dictatorship:
women’s international ties and
national feminist empowerment in
Chile, 1973–1990
Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney
Focusing on the period of dictatorship, this analysis explores Chilean feminists’ empowerment through international ties when feminism gained legitimacy as a vehicle for social
change in the aftermath of the United Nations International Women’s Year in 1975.
Centering on three types of encounters that marked women’s coalition-building and their
international ties, both personal empowerment and institutional change in defense of
women’s rights are discussed. Chilean women participated in the United Nations International Women’s Conferences that accompanied the Decade of Women between 1975 and
1985. They also joined regional feminist conferences called Encounters, Encuentros, which
were explicitly aimed at convening women in the Americas. Chilean women’s experience
of international solidarity and exile encouraged many to reconsider their own roles in their
native society. In the course of military rule and re-democratization, Chilean feminists
connected these experiences to domestic feminist activism and set a path for empowerment
that fitted their national historical trajectory.
Women’s
10.1080/09612025.2010.502406
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We reconstructed the story of what had been invisible and we proposed to break with
the private; we were very brave: heretics by dint of shamelessly, openly turning everything around; … we discovered, discovered with passion, laughter, tough fights, difficult reflections, we kept going, we opened the Circle [of Women’s Studies], the House
[of the Woman, called ‘La Morada,’ the Dwelling], we opened books, even the Lila
Jadwiga Pieper Mooney holds a Ph.D. in History from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, and teaches Latin
American, Gender, and Comparative History at the University of Arizona. Her 2010 book, The Politics of Motherhood: maternity and women’s rights in twentieth century Chile, was published at Pittsburgh University Press. Correspondence to: Prof. Jadwiga Pieper Mooney, SSCI 133, Department of History, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
85721, USA. Email: [email protected]
ISSN 0961–2025 (print)/ISSN 1747–583X (online)/10/040613–18 © 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2010.502406
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J. E. Pieper Mooney
Women’s Bookstore; we were crazily daring, I can see it now. (Julieta Kirkwood,
recounting feminist activism under dictatorship)1
In 1915, Amanda Labarca, one of Chile’s most prominent feminists, founded a
pioneering feminine organization with the exclusive goal of advancing women’s emancipation.2 She had attended universities in France and the United States and then
returned to Chile with a particular admiration for North American women’s community service and social engagement through clubs. In her home country, Labarca set out
to improve women’s social and legal status and invited fellow-educated women of a
‘progressive spirit’ to form a Ladies’ Reading Circle. While the model of women’s
‘foreign reading clubs’ inspired participants who joined, they agreed on the need to set
up their own circle in a form ‘suitable for national needs and customs’.3 At the time,
Chilean feminists continued to insist on the importance of the family and of women’s
roles as wives and mothers, and they expressed their dislike of ‘the woman who adopts
the deportment of a man’.4
Labarca’s initiatives show not only that middle-class, educated feminists in Chile
responded to foreign feminists’ influences early on, but also that Chilean feminists set
a path of feminist activism that fitted their national historical trajectory. Educated
women like Labarca were very familiar with suffragist activism in Europe and in the
United States. Yet they deliberately advocated steps suitable to their own nationalcultural context, often at a pace that distinguished their own initiatives from the
actions of ‘radical’ foreign feminisms abroad.5 In the course of the twentieth century,
Chilean feminists with international ties continued to position themselves with regard
to changing international feminist paradigms. Under dictatorship, the impact of feminist mobilization changed radically when feminists, in the words of Julieta Kirkwood,
became daring, brave, and were ‘openly turning everything around’.6 Indeed, they
gained strength not only from a changed configuration of domestic feminist activism
in response to military violence, but also from new elements within feminists’ international networks.
This study explores feminists’ international ties under dictatorship (1973–90). I
adopt a global lens to show that Chilean feminisms, defined as multiple initiatives by
different groups of feminists who all mobilized for women’s rights, were empowered
when feminism gained legitimacy as a vehicle for social change in the aftermath of the
United Nations International Women’s Year in 1975. Here, I focus on three types of
encounters that marked women’s coalition-building and their international ties and
provide evidence of both personal empowerment and institutional change in defense
of women’s rights in Chile. First, Chilean women participated in the United Nations
International Women’s Conferences that accompanied the Decade of Women between
1975 and 1985. Second, starting in 1981, Chilean women also joined regional feminist
conferences called Encounters, Encuentros, which were explicitly aimed at convening
women in the Americas. Finally, I explore women’s experience of international solidarity and exile that encouraged many to reconsider their own roles in their native society.
This, too, often introduced them to feminism.
Because international networks often exclude working-class or shantytown
feminists with limited means to travel, the encounters discussed in this study
Women’s History Review 615
disproportionately reflect the voices of middle-class, professional, or well-educated
feminists.7 Middle-class feminists were also instrumental in the foundation of the
National Office for Women’s Affairs (SERNAM). This organization began to promote
gender equity and domestic change in Chile after re-democratization, employing an
international language of women’s rights to promote its ends.
The Rise of a Culture of Violence and a New Women’s Politics under Dictatorship
When well-known Chilean feminist Julieta Kirkwood told the story of feminist activism
under dictatorship, she rightly evoked the daring nature of women’s resistance to military rule. Kirkwood and other feminists walked dangerous grounds when they mobilized in desperate response to military violence, when they set up meetings in defiance
of curfew and discussed survival strategies in a nation under siege, and when they began
to organize protest-demonstrations in the streets of Santiago in the early 1980s.8 For all
women, rich and poor, life in Chile had changed dramatically after 11 September, 1973,
when a military coup terminated socialist President Salvador Allende’s Unidad Popular
left-of-center coalition government and instigated a rule of violence and human rights
abuses. Initially, the four-man junta that had led the coup governed the nation. By 1974,
General Augusto Pinochet had seized power and forged a personal dictatorship until
1989. Although leftist politicians and civilians were the first victims of the dictatorship’s
arrests, torture, and executions, state terror soon affected all members of Chilean
society and forced an estimated 200,000 into exile.
Women’s organizations, including self-help groups, human rights initiatives, and
feminist organizations, emerged in response to political repression and economic need.
After the coup, women joined to rally ‘in defense of life’ and to protect and save family
members and relatives. The Agrupación de Mujeres Democráticas (Association of
Democratic Women), for example, worked to locate missing family members in Santiago’s National Stadium, now transformed into a concentration camp, and supported
former detainees as they emerged from prison. One woman recalled:
You never knew when someone was going to be released. Sometimes they would let
someone out by 7 p.m. … with no money and no way to get home. If they didn’t get
home before the 8 p.m. curfew, the police would arrest them again … . So we organized the people with cars to be ready to pick up people at a moment’s notice.9
Women’s self-help and human rights initiatives often took place under the protective
umbrella of the Church and particularly with the support of the Vicaria de Solidaridad
(Vicariate of Solidarity), founded after the coup. Among other survival strategies,
women began to make arpilleras (quilts), covered with images depicting life under the
dictatorship, that were eventually sold all over the world.10 In 1975, the Vicariate’s
founder, Raúl Cardinal Silva Henríquez, added an academic branch to his organization, the Academia de Humanismo Cristiano (Academy of Christian Humanism). This
branch provided safe meeting spaces for human rights groups and study circles.
Founded in 1979, the Círculo de Estudios de La Mujer (Women’s Studies Circle) was
one of the first feminist organizations that started meeting at the Academy of Christian
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Humanism, and employed strategies of consciousness-raising to mobilize fellowwomen.11 Isabel Gannon, a founding member of the Círculo, recalled how:
I first became aware of feminism in the United States, where I was living, in California,
from 1967 to 1970. My experience with women’s lib changed my life and was a most
gratifying discovery. Once conscious of the issue … there is no turning back, and I was
more than willing to join the Círculo from its very beginning, always with the idea on
my mind that creating a movement needed consciousness raising groups—which I
proceeded to form as soon as it was possible.12
Gannon drew on what she personally experienced living abroad and shared it with
other women upon returning home. She valued collective consciousness-raising as a
tool not only for individual growth, but also for promoting the cohesion of a feminist
community that would join to share experiences and insights that inspired subsequent
mobilization for women’s rights.
In 1979, Círculo feminists in Santiago sponsored a first public gathering ‘to discuss
the situation of women in Chile’ and the response they received dramatically exceeded
their expectations: over 300 women answered the call.13 Most responded to word-ofmouth invitations. Círculo members had used wide-ranging feminist and human rights
networks, as well as friends with community ties. They came from different neighborhoods and thus brought diverse educational and personal experiences with them. Ema,
one of the participants, commented on the meeting and the shared feelings of solidarity
and collectivity that united the women in spite of their diversity:
When I left I had the worst argument with my husband; so when I came to the meeting
I felt very bad, guilty, that I had caused trouble again, that my marriage would end.
And the best thing was that the meeting started with everybody talking about how
difficult it had been to get there, everybody had encountered similar problems: those
who were married, with children, were feeling terribly guilty, felt that they had put the
family second place. And, at the same time, their fears were connected to the coup and
the dictatorship.14
Ema poignantly described the feelings of guilt familiar to many wives and mothers who
began to expand old limits of women’s domestic and dependent roles by taking on new
tasks for the sake for their families. Where male breadwinners were absent, incarcerated
or disappeared, they had to mobilize to document human rights abuses, and also to find
ways to feed their children. Meetings, discussions, and ongoing interactions with fellowwomen helped them not only to ease emotional stress, but also to share insights about
how to make ends meet. Some of the many participants at Círculo meetings adopted a
feminist approach, an active pursuit of gender equity in the nation and at home.
For the twenty or so professional women who sponsored the first official call of the
Círculo their initiative represented an explicit quest for women’s rights. Since its onset
the Círculo aimed at advancing the ‘struggle against all forms of discrimination and
oppression against women’.15 Academics and activists alike pressed this agenda.16 For
Círculo feminists, their mission was:
political, since it proposes to eliminate a form of domination that is strongly embedded in the social, economic and cultural spheres. The feminist commitment entails
revolutionary changes because the elimination of sexual oppression compromises all
Women’s History Review 617
forms of social relations. And it is necessarily democratic because only in conditions
of equality between the sexes is it possible to create a social project that is just and
libertarian.17
With arrests and disappearances of family members, women not only protested the
military state, but they also began to address domestic oppression in new ways. They
recognized that the regime’s authoritarian and patriarchal practices in the public
sphere resembled those that men employed in the private sphere.18
Feminist historian Alicia Frohmann and activist in Chile remembered the 1980s as
the most ‘heroic’ period of the women’s movement, marked by women’s contribution
to the dictatorship’s end.19 Braving violent streets, women with diverse ties to feminism and from diverse class backgrounds joined las protestas (the protests), an intense
period of women’s resistance and public demonstrations. In the 1980s, their massive
mobilization left little doubt about the seriousness of women’s protests as a powerful
political force. Chilean women, who mobilized under the banner of self-help, human
rights, or feminist groups, not only contributed to the end of military rule, but also
created a new understanding of citizenship rights. While navigating the dictatorship’s
repressive conditions, they placed gender equity and women’s rights at the center of the
re-democratization and citizenship discussions that unfolded in the 1990s. International ties mattered in these processes.
Indeed, Alicia Frohmann also remembered that ‘the women’s movement of the
1970s and 1980s was an international movement, and whatever happened concerning
women, both in the industrialized and the developing countries, influenced debates
and initiatives elsewhere’.20 Feminists participated in international conferences set up
by the United Nations (UN) and in regional conferences specifically geared to unite
feminists in the Americas. Like Isabel Gannon, who shared her feminist insights will
fellow-Chileans at the Circulo, many also brought back to Chile the individual
experiences with feminisms they gathered as exiles abroad.
The Decade of Women and Global Paradigm Shifts: legitimizing women’s rights
In 1975, Chilean women joined over 5,000 fellow participants from all over the world
who came to Mexico City to the first United Nations International Women’s Year
Conference or to the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) Tribune that
convened simultaneously.21 They participated in global networking initiatives and
mobilization for women’s rights, a development closely intertwined with the initiatives
of the UN. In Mexico, conference participants drafted a World Plan of Action that set
the agenda for eliminating discrimination against women. Affirming that equality had
to begin in the family, the plan demanded a more equitable division of labor between
men and women, or fathers and mothers, in household settings. It also extended International Women’s Year to a Decade of Women (1975–85).22
While many women, including Chilean participants at the NGO Tribune, criticized
the tone and content of the official UN Mexico Conference as anti-feminist, women
with a clear quest for rights improved the conservative UN machinery through grassroots initiatives at parallel events.23 The official Chilean delegate, Alicia Romo Román,
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for example, upset members of her audience when she praised Chile’s military government as a much-needed alternative to the previous socialist leadership under Salvador
Allende’s Popular Unity coalition party. To the dismay of many listeners, she made no
mention of violence and abuse, and promised her audience that the military ‘will
restore the order destroyed by the treason committed by Salvador Allende’.24 Other
Chilean women, nonetheless, spoke at the parallel NGO Tribune and exposed this official misrepresentation, vigorously denouncing human rights violations committed by
the regime. Among them were former president Allende’s widow Hortensia Bussi de
Allende, his sister Laura, and his niece Isabel Allende. All received an affectionate
welcome from Chilean exiles—in fact, an ‘interminable line’ of women greeted Bussi
de Allende in solidarity.25 The tribune also brought them together with compañeras
who were suffering under military dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and
Uruguay. They came together and produced a joint communiqué that denounced the
abuses those regimes were inflicting upon them and others.26
The tribunals and NGO activities also helped shape later UN conferences in Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985), thus encouraging network building in support of
human rights and women’s rights struggles. In the course of the Decade of Women,
the number of global advocacy networks among women exploded, providing women
with new opportunities to assume leadership roles in their struggle for gender
equity.27 In a parallel explosion of research, women documented, exchanged, and
applied information regarding the conditions of women’s lives. In Latin America
alone, they founded over 150 periodicals with a feminist or women’s-liberationist
perspective between 1980 and 1988.28
Feminists’ pioneering research and enhanced visibility contributed to their growing
political clout worldwide, just as new international legal norms added legitimacy to
specific quests for rights. The 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) served as a standard bearer by setting
international legal norms, providing a basis for the efforts of feminist organizations to
pressure their governments to strengthen their commitment to gender equity and
women’s rights. National leaders could choose to ratify CEDAW as it was or to renegotiate a modified version. In 1980, at the second World Conference in the United
Nations Decade for Women held in Copenhagen, sixty-four states signed the convention and two ratified the document. In 1981, CEDAW was enacted after twenty
nations ratified it.29
These developments also led to more outspoken affirmations of women’s rights. The
Declaration and Program of Action of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights
held in Vienna officially acknowledged that ‘women’s rights are human rights’.
Women’s human rights ‘should form an integral part of the United Nations human
rights activities’.30 In 1994, the UN World Conference on Population and Development in Cairo also defined and recognized the reproductive and sexual rights of both
men and women, specifying that ‘reproductive health … implies that people are able
to have a satisfying sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when, and how often to do so’.31 Women in Latin America and the
Caribbean, meanwhile, set up parallel women’s meetings to enhance the dialogue
Women’s History Review 619
among feminists in the Americas, particularly regarding violations of human rights and
women’s rights under dictatorial rule.
Global Encounters, Regional Feminisms, and Women’s Empowerment in Chile
Parallel to the ongoing global meetings that drew on participation by representatives of
all UN-member states, feminists in the Americas established their own sites for the
exchange of knowledge regarding specific, regional challenges to women’s rights.
Beginning in 1981, and roughly every two to three years thereafter, they came together
at international Encuentros Feministas (Feminist Encounters). The initiators, again,
often middle-class, professional women with a history of feminist activism, attempted
to create regular forums for an exchange of experiences, ideas, and strategies for
change. These meetings produced experiences of solidarity, inspired consciousnessraising, and set in motion a state of network-building that moved women from the
‘logic of solidarity’ to organized ‘advocacy networks’ that pressured individual governments, including Chile, to protect women’s rights.32 In the words of participants, the
gatherings served as markers of shifting feminist priorities and as ‘springboards for the
development of a common Latin American feminist political language.33 This new
feminist language also led to action.
In 1981, many women who lived under dictatorship experienced the first Encuentro
in Bogotá, Columbia, as a space free of censorship and fear, where they not only spoke
openly about the disturbing human rights violations at home, but also took action to
increase awareness of such violations. Participants discussed the different strategies of
patriarchal institutions at the center of military regimes, and identified violations of
women’s rights, including their reproductive rights. They exposed both state-led
violence and family violence as practices that supported male dominance. In a collective effort to diminish gender-based violence, they declared November 25 as the International Day of Nonviolence against Women.34
For some, like prominent Chilean feminist Julieta Kirkwood, Bogotá symbolized the
restoration of power by and for women. In her writings, she describes the meeting as a
‘(re-)conquest of space’: women gained access to an international realm that had until
then been pervaded by patriarchal culture.35 Other Chilean participants learned to
connect the domestic violence against women in patriarchal societies to the political
violence against women that military regimes inflicted. They translated this understanding into specific demands for ‘democracy in the nation and democracy at home’
and, subsequently, into the motto that guided their mobilization against dictatorship
back in Chile.
At subsequent Encuentros in Lima (1983), Brazil (1985), México (1987), Argentina
(1990), El Salvador (1993), Chile (1996), the Dominican Republic (1999), Costa Rica
(2002), and again in Brazil (2005), women negotiated both agreements and disagreements concerning feminist priorities. The gatherings continued to promote consciousness-raising, solidarity, and collective learning. But the meetings also highlighted
conflicts among participants with different experiences and expectations. At the
Brazilian Encuentro, for example, academics, labor leaders, union organizers, and
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political activists lamented a ‘lack of resolutions, strategies and theories’ and left dissatisfied. Others felt that extensive discussion over theories and resolutions interfered
with spontaneity and creative freedoms, and ‘would handicap the dynamic thought
process which is the very nature of an Encuentro’.36 The disagreements showed that all
participants needed to learn to negotiate diversity—of class backgrounds, levels of
education, ethnic identities, rural–urban divides, and generational differences.
Diversity, they learned to appreciate, should strengthen rather than weaken feminist
activism.
As feminists continued to negotiate the effectiveness of specific feminist strategies,
the Encuentros provided inspiration and support. Women initiated advocacy networks
that developed long-term strategies to combat violence, to strengthen women’s citizenship rights, and to defend reproductive rights. After the 1981 Colombian Encuentro,
they met in Argentina in 1990, and declared 28 September the Day of Decriminalization
of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean.37 They thus raised awareness of the
high maternal mortality rate resulting from women’s self-induced abortions, which
still characterized a brutal reality for women in the region. The Encuentros stimulated
ongoing dialogues among women from different countries in the Americas—and yet
another group of women who experienced the force of international solidarity movements, Chilean exiles, contributed to this dialogue.
International Solidarity, Experiences of Exile, and Individual Feminist Encounters
In November 1975, the Chilean secret police arrested Sheila Cassidy, an English doctor
who practiced medicine in Santiago’s poor neighborhoods. She was brought to one of
the notorious concentration camps set up by the military regime after its takeover in
1973, where they held her incommunicado for days, and tortured her. They arrested
her after she had treated a young ‘subversive’ Chilean who had sustained injuries in a
shoot-out with the military.38 Cassidy later managed to leave Chile alive, and after her
ordeal gained international attention. The British government withdrew its ambassador from Santiago and cancelled arms sales to Chile.39
Sheila Cassidy’s story not only documented her own experience of state-sponsored
violence and human rights abuses under military rule in Chile, but also shed light on
the force of emerging solidarity movements that had begun to resist this regime.40 Her
case helped inspire transnational solidarity, and it particularly contributed to Britain’s
Solidarity Campaign. It also contributed to the extension of solidarity networks in
other European countries that helped Chilean exiles who often followed more cumbersome pathways as they left Chile to seek refuge abroad. In exile Chilean women often
developed ties to women’s groups, including feminists.
Recalling the years of dictatorship, some Chilean feminists suggested that ‘exile
constituted the most important link between national and international expressions of
the feminist movement—and a vehicle for the diffusion of new ideas and forms of
organization in the country’.41 Indeed, many women who left the familiar environment of home found that life in a foreign country encouraged them to re-examine
previously unquestioned relationships and gender stereotypes.42 Unfamiliar customs,
Women’s History Review 621
new languages, and new relationships inspired profound introspection. A woman from
Santiago, long active in party politics back in Chile, experienced her first encounter
with feminism while exiled in Germany. She described herself as ‘a typical example of
a woman who begins to think about her domestic work and about motherhood’.
Initially isolated at home during the day, she had only her three-month-old child for
company, and spent the day impatiently awaiting her husband’s return from work. Her
need for human contact drove her to participate in organizing meetings with other
exiles from Latin America and with German feminists, who all began to share experiences and insights. She recalled ‘that was when I began to notice the division of roles …
I had never asked myself about it before, and had accepted it’. In the process, she began
to define herself as a feminist.43
Some solidarity groups specifically focused on working with women, arguing that
women often bore the brunt of human rights abuses and military violence. A Chilean
women’s group in Hamburg, Germany, for example, suggested that women not only
felt more pressure than men as they tried to protect their families, but that women were
also ‘subjected to the most brutal sexual tortures’.44 Organizations of the German left
published translations of Chilean underground journals and pamphlets like ‘Women’s
Voice’ and exhibited photographs and drawings by women who had been imprisoned
in military concentration camps. They often featured prominent exiles, such as the
leader of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria—MIR), Carmen Castillo, who met with women’s groups in Hamburg and
Berlin. In numerous interviews, Castillo also addressed specific gendered concerns and
shared her views on the role of women in revolutionary struggles.45 Chilean exiles, side
by side with women of the German left, explored women’s roles in leftist politics and
discussed the obstacles to gender equity posed by traditional male-led political
parties.46
German women of the left made great efforts to build on Frauensolidarität, solidarity
among women, and also discovered difficulties of translating cultural difference and
filling gaps among women’s diverse experiences.47 As they set up seminars to address
topics like partnership and sexuality, they touched themes that, in the words of one
Chilean participant, were better left to close friends and private settings.48 Even as all
participants made the effort to work ‘with women for women’,49 German women
reported that ‘behind the difficulties in their interaction lay different experiences in the
process of socialization and understandings of the meaning of being a woman’.50
Violence against women was a topic that was particularly hard to address. This became
clear as German women listened to the testimony of former political prisoners like Luz
de las Nieves Ayress, who came ‘from the concentration camp to exile in Berlin’,51 or
of a woman they referred to only as Cecila, who shared experiences of violence and
torture. They listened to each other and learned intimate details about each other’s
lives, but they also discovered the limits of mutual empowerment through solidarity.52
Many women, after all, remained in Chile and still lived under the threat of arrest,
torture, disappearance, or death.
The acquisition and production of new knowledge by and for women, nonetheless,
provided an element of strength and continuity to feminist causes. This became evident
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in the work of yet another group of exiles who focused on the production and distribution of new knowledge about women’s rights and gender relations abroad, and eventually, upon their return home. Adriana Santa Cruz and Viviana Erazo, exiled in Mexico,
began to work with local feminists.
In the process, they identified themes of gender discrimination that affected women
throughout Latin America and published Compropolitan, a small book with a big
message that became a transformative tool of feminist consciousness-raising in the
early 1980s.53 Its title was derived from the Spanish verb comprar, to buy, and the title
of the well-known glamour-magazine, Cosmopolitan. Compropolitan exposed mediamarketing strategies of publishers who earned dirty money by (ab)using women. The
authors provided a feminist critique of the media and deconstructed the transnational
model of femininity that reduced women to consumers and sex objects. They revealed
that advertisers manipulated Latin American women, teasing them into buying products for their supposed ‘mission’ to conquer men. Products like perfumes, stockings,
and undergarments were high on the list of tools that allowed women to ‘take charge’,
the feminine way.54 Finally, Santa Cruz and Erazo also helped found a new journal,
Mujer/fempress, a constructive alternative to mainstream magazines tailored to
women—published in Santiago after 1986, when Adriana Santa Cruz had returned
home from exile.55
Santa Cruz and others followed one of the mandates of the UN Decade for Women
when they produced and spread information about women, including gender-specific
information about health and the body, and continued to learn from feminists abroad.
Chilean feminists also learned from feminist activists in the United States. When I
asked Dr María Isabel Matamala about international influences that inspired a
women’s health movement in Chile, she recalled that ‘yes, there was a group in Boston,
the Boston Women’s Health [Book] Collective, that we all knew about’.56 Founded by
participants of a 1969 women’s liberation conference, the Boston Women’s Health
Book Collective (BWHBC) grew from grass-roots initiatives into an organization
known all over the Americas. Its initial publication, Women and Their Bodies, became
an ‘underground success’ due to its open exploration of women’s health, life cycle, and
sexuality. In 1973, BWHBC published Our Bodies, Ourselves, a landmark book and tool
for women’s empowerment. It fostered understanding of women’s bodies, health, and
sexuality in order to give women increased control over their own lives. In 1979, Our
Bodies, Ourselves, was translated into Spanish. Nuestros Cuerpos, Nuestras Vidas,
inspired transnational advocacy networks among women who spoke similar
‘languages’ of women’s rights and health.57 Dr Matamala’s engagement as a physician
and feminist activist in general, and her interests in gender equity and women’s health
in particular, explained her early ties to the BWHBC. But the collective also provided
others with the raw data for awareness-building campaigns and for transnational activism aimed at protecting women’s health.58 Chilean activists were among those who
built ties to an international women’s health movement that was, in the words of one
participant, ‘bursting into worldwide bloom’.59
In 1977, the BWHBC published the first edition of an International Women and
Health Resource Guide in collaboration with Isis International, a new advocacy network
Women’s History Review 623
of women’s health with headquarters based in Rome.60 An international group of feminists founded Isis, named for the goddess of knowledge and creation, in 1974.61 In
1979, a small group of Chilean women exiled in Rome joined Isis and helped develop
a Spanish edition of Isis’s bulletin, Women in Action, Mujeres en Acción. Ximena
Charnes, one of the Chilean coordinators, recalled that:
Isis has been a space for many women of diverse origins, nationalities and experiences,
where we have been able to work and contribute to the women’s movement. [It is] a
space where we have learned to respect the varied opinions within our organization
and within the movement in general. [Here, we feel] that all women share a point of
view, information, a new sensibility, and that we all are enriching our selves in the
process.62
The cooperation among the members of Isis, female contributors, and readers of Isis
publications furthered international advocacy among women. In 1984, two of the Chilean women in Rome helped set up Isis headquarters in Santiago63 and coordinated the
Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network (LACWHN) that continued
to function and even expanded its international activism after re-democratization.
Testing the Strengths of Women’s Empowerment under
Re-democratization: conclusions
In the words of scholar-activist Verónica Schild, the new elements within feminists’
international networks and their specific configuration deserve attention even as the
very existence of such links remains ‘an old phenomenon’.64 In this study I have
explored the international links that Chilean feminists, most of whom were middleclass and professional women, built under the dictatorship, and the empowerment
these women experienced through a new international paradigm of women’s rights.
The end of dictatorship and the beginning of re-democratization encouraged women
to apply new global norms, such as those evident in the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to secure gender equity
under the new democracy. Their activism produced mixed results.
In the 1980s las protestas, women’s intense resistance and public demonstrations,
helped pave the way toward re-democratization in Chile. In December 1983, over
10,000 women of different political and class backgrounds came together at the
Caupolicán Theatre in Santiago to participate in what was the largest gathering since
the military coup. Linked together under the motto of unity, they proclaimed that
‘freedom has a woman’s name’.65 In subsequent public marches, protesters called for
‘Democracia en el país y en la casa’—democracy in the country and at home. Women
also met, marched, and mobilized in preparation of the 1988 plebiscite proposed by
General Pinochet to secure the longevity of his regime. Chileans voted Sí or No to the
question of ongoing support for the military. Over 1.9 million women, or 51%,
supported the No campaign, as did 58% of male voters.66 Their victory signified the
first official step toward the return to democratic elections in 1990. From that moment
on, women’s demands for rights appeared in a new light, connected to the right of
equal citizenship under an elected, democratic government.
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J. E. Pieper Mooney
The open political environment brought opportunities, but it was also marked by
new challenges. Under re-democratization, women experienced first-hand the contradictions between two final acts of the Pinochet dictatorship—and the limited reach of
the global paradigm of women’s rights: before leaving office, the military signed the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW), yet, simultaneously, ended therapeutic abortion.67 Just as the dictatorship
paid lip service to the international norms of women’s rights defined in the Convention, it violated women’s rights to bodily integrity at home. In August 1989 the military
replaced Article 119 of the Chile Health Code with Act No. 18.826, stating that ‘no
action may be executed that has as its goal the inducement of abortion’.68 Jaime
Guzmán, lawyer and influential ideologue under the regime, was adamant about the
need to outlaw abortions and to prosecute those who violated the law.69 In his own
words: ‘The mother must give birth to her child, even if it will be born abnormal, if she
did not plan it, if it was conceived as a result of a rape, and even if giving birth will kill
her’.70 Guzmán also succeeded in having a right-to-life clause added to the
Constitution.
As feminists took a stand to defend gender equity in the midst of old and new challenges, it became clear that moderate middle-class feminists had a stronger influence
on the nature of change than their politically radical or working-class sisters. The
former group first came to the fore when they founded the Concertación Nacional de
Mujeres por la Democracia (National Coalition of Women for Democracy) in
December 1988, thereby building an autonomous political coalition aimed at shaping
the political direction of the Coalition of Parties for Democracy, the Concertación. As
part of this initiative, middle-class feminists set up eleven commissions of women who
drafted recommendations for specific areas, such as health, work, family, and education. In the process of these negotiations, coalition-members set political priorities not
shared by all women’s groups. Negotiating moderate propositions, they excluded
‘radical’ demands, for example, those that called for changes in abortion and divorce
legislation.71 The coalition alienated those feminists who had insisted on the importance of such legislative change. But it won the approval of a politically conservative
opposition that had initially rejected their demands. In 1991, the goal to promote
women’s rights became an official part of government policy through the National
Office for Women’s Affairs (Servicio Nacional de la Mujer, SERNAM).72
While the potential gains of state-led feminism have remained the subject of ongoing
debate,73 SERNAM successfully supported a number of feminist campaigns, for example, a mobilization to end violence against women. The office sponsored research on
domestic violence and lobbied for legislative changes to help victims.74 In October
2005, the Chilean government passed a new law on family violence, which facilitated
police intervention and efforts to prevent domestic violence. The following year the
Chilean newspaper El Mercurio reported that sixty family courts with over 250 judges
were prepared to tackle the issue. SERNAM minister Laura Albornoz acknowledged
that, even though the new system was not without flaws, women were given some
semblance of legal support to combat domestic violence. Victims of violence could also
access information on legal procedures on the website, Tramite Facil (Simple
Women’s History Review 625
Procedures), where links led to a network of Regional Domestic Violence Prevention
and Services Centers that provided psychological counseling.75
Relying on the global paradigm of reproductive rights, SERNAM-backed feminists
have also lobbied for consciousness-raising initiatives to address the lasting problem of
teenage pregnancies. In 2006, 17% of all pregnancies occurred among women between
fifteen and nineteen years of age.76 Feminists linked the problem of teenage pregnancy
to women’s right to health and reproductive freedom. Chilean health activists successfully lobbied for the legalization of ‘emergency contraception’, a pill that women could
use if other birth control measures had failed. Women above the age of fourteen will be
able to get emergency contraception free of charge in public health centers, without
parental consent.77 The new policy will significantly reduce the risk of unwanted pregnancy, and access to emergency contraception free of charge will protect all women,
regardless of resources. Women can also use emergency contraception to avoid
unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions.
Chilean feminists have been empowered through ties to international feminism,
although they have also learned not to assume that the causes and manifestations of
women’s oppression are the same in every national context. In international conferences, participants often set different priorities, and were sometimes divided by
regional and cultural differences, as well as by class, religion, race, sexual orientation,
and experience with feminism. In Chile, the history of women’s rights violations and
the rise of a movement in defense of gender equity were connected to a very specific
history of political negotiations that encouraged women’s temporary cross-class alliances, and also brought solidarity from abroad. The history of Chilean feminist activism showed that the success of feminist mobilization was not an experience of linear
progress. Successes, such as the new attention to violence against women, were accompanied by setbacks, such as the end of therapeutic abortion. But although the new
global norms that set higher standards for gender equity and women’s rights have not
been totally realized in practice, these norms have guided the new government and
feminists as they work to develop policies in these areas.
While recent statistics have shown that poor women continue to resort to induced
abortion to end unwanted pregnancies, it is unclear what impact the legacies of dictatorship and the historical legacy of social conservatism have had on the views and
behaviors of all Chileans.78 In 1991, a survey reported that only 22.4% of the population supported the legalization of induced abortions. A later survey that focused on the
larger Santiago area showed that public opinion on abortion divided almost equally:
51% rejected the legalization of therapeutic abortion altogether, but 49% believed it
needed to be legalized. Only 23% of those in favor of legalization felt strongly or very
strongly about the need for legal changes, suggesting a degree of ambivalence among
proponents of decriminalization.79 Other indicators of change show less ambivalence.
Chile’s social conservatism has not prevented an increase of women’s political participation—and of women in political positions. Some women—who have an interest in
promoting gender equity—have now become decision-makers at the highest level, and
have made real what was once unimaginable. In 2006, Michelle Bachelet made history
by becoming Chile’s first female president. She ran as a Socialist Party candidate, and
626
J. E. Pieper Mooney
remained outspoken about her goals of addressing the needs of women and the poor.
Some of her political weight stemmed from real and symbolic connections to military
rule, from her personal experience of prison, torture and exile, and from her loss of
family—the dictatorship killed her father.80 Today, President Bachelet can claim credit
for an increase in women’s access to political positions that has risen from a slow start
to a remarkable high in some sectors of government.81
We should continue to investigate evidence that sheds light on the specific consequences of women’s awareness raising and advocacy initiatives in Chile. It will be
important to see to what extent feminists can shape future changes in public opinion,
and, thereby, increase the state’s attention to women’s rights. The 2006 death of former
dictator Pinochet could help lift some of the weight of the military legacy. In the long
run, it could ease the struggle of women’s rights activists who work for constitutional
and legal changes in support of gender equity. Much work is needed to identify and
analyze the specific options activists have on local and national levels as they attempt
to defend global norms of gender equity and women’s rights.
Notes
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
[1] Julieta Kirkwood (1990) Ser política en Chile los nudos de la sabiduría feminista (Santiago,
Chile: Cuarto Propio), pp. 10–11, as cited in Marjorie Agosín (1995) Visions and Transgressions: some notes on the writing of Julieta Kirkwood, in Doris Meyer (Ed.) Reinterpreting the
Spanish American Essay: women writers of the 19th and 20th centuries (Austin: University of
Texas Press), p. 208.
[2] Amanda Labarca (1934) A donde va la mujer? (Santiago de Chile: Talleres Letras), p. 144.
[3] Labarca, A donde va la mujer, pp. 144–145 [italics mine]. See also Ericka Verba (1995) The
Círculo de Lectura de Señoras [Ladies’ Reading Circle] and the Club de Señoras [Ladies’
Club] of Santiago, Chile, Journal of Women’s History, 7(3), pp. 6–33; and Ericka Verba (2003)
Catholic Feminism and the Social Question in Chile, 1910–1917: the Liga de Damas Chilenas
(New York: Edwin Mellen Press).
[4] Labarca, as cited in Asunción Lavrin (1995) Women, Feminism, and Social Change in
Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, 1890–1940 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press), p. 38.
[5] Also referred to by Corinne Pernet (2000) Chilean Feminists, the International Women’s
Movement, and Suffrage, 1915–1950, Pacific Historical Review, 69(4), p. 667.
[6] see n. 1.
[7] Verónica Schild makes this point in reference to working-class activists’ exclusion from the
loops of intellectual production and circulation in transnational feminist links. See Verónica
Schild (1999) Transnational Links in the Making of Latin American Feminisms: a view from
the margins, in Alena Heitlinger (Ed.) Emigré Feminism: transnational perspectives (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press), p. 68.
[8] Many excellent studies have documented the force of women’s resistance and their contributions to the decline of dictatorship. See Patricia Chuchryk (1984) Protest, Politics and Personal
Life: the emergence of feminism in a military dictatorship, Chile, 1973–1983 (Ph.D., York
University, Toronto); Lisa Baldez (2002) Why Women Protest: women’s movements in Chile
(New York: Cambridge University Press). For insights into the variety of women’s groups, see
also Sandra Palestra (1991) Mujeres en movimiento, 1973–1989 (Santiago: FLACSO); and
Teresa Valdés & Marisa Weinstein (1993) Mujeres que sueñan las organizaciones de pobladoras:
1973–1989 (Santiago: FLACSO).
[9] As cited by Baldez, Why Women Protest, p. 129.
Women’s History Review 627
[10] Eliana Moya-Raggio (1984) ‘Arpilleras’: Chilean culture of resistance, Feminist Studies, 10(2),
pp. 277–290; Baldez, Why Women Protest, p. 130.
[11] Women formalized their institutional affiliation in 1979, but had to overcome prejudices
against women’s mobilization. Reminiscent of traditional gender systems, they were deemed
trustworthy only after they submitted personal data on their families. Academy representatives requested a list of names and occupations from Círculo members, and it was not until
women identified themselves through their husbands that they were seen as acceptable affiliates. See Chuchryk, Protest, Politics and Personal Life, footnotes 28 and 29, pp. 360–361.
[12] Isabel Gannon, Personal Communication with the author, February 2007.
[13] Rosa Bravo, María Isabel Cruzat, Elena Serrano & Rosalba Todaro (1986) Y así va creciendo
… el feminismo en Chile, in Movimiento feminista en América Latina y el Caribe: balance y
perspectivas (Santiago: Isis Internacional), p. 26.
[14] As cited in Edda Gaviola, Eliana Largo & Sandra Palestra (1992) ‘Si la mujer no está, la
democracia no va’, Proposiciones, 21, p. 81.
[15] Círculo de Estudios de la Mujer (1983) Reflexiones sobre la práctica feminista, paper
presented at the III Encounter for Popular Education, Santiago, as cited in Marcela Ríos
Tobar (2003) ‘Feminism is Socialism, Liberty and Much More’: second-wave Chilean
feminism and its contentious relationship with socialism, Journal of Women’s History, 15(3),
pp. 129–134.
[16] Bravo et al., Y así va creciendo, p. 26.
[17] Círculo de Estudios de la Mujer, ‘Reflexiones sobre la práctica feminista’, pp. 129–134.
[18] Julieta Kirkwood (1986) Ser política en Chile (Santiago: FLACSO), p. 180.
[19] Alicia Frohmann & Teresa Valdés (1995) Democracy in the Country and in the Home: the
women’s movement in Chile, in Amrita Basu & C. Elizabeth McGrory (Eds) The Challenge
of Local Feminisms: women’s movements in global perspective (Boulder: Westview Press),
p. 283.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Judith P. Zinsser (1990) The United Nations Decade for Women: a quiet revolution, The
History Teacher, 24(1), pp. 19–29.
[22] United Nations (1976) World Plan of Action for the Implementation of the Objectives of the
International Women’s Year: a summarized version (New York: United Nations, Centre for
Economic and Social Information); see also Arvonne S. Fraser (1999) Becoming Human: the
origins and development of women’s human rights, Human Rights Quarterly, 21(4), p. 906.
[23] See, for example, Diana E. H. Russell (1977) Report on the International Tribunal on Crimes
against Women, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 2(1), pp. 1–6; for UN interactions with
Chile and the difficulties of the Commission of Human Rights to make official claims, see
Louis B. Sohn (1979) The Improvement of the UN Machinery on Human Rights, International Studies Quarterly, 23(2), pp. 186–215.
[24] El Universal (Mexico City, 23 June 1975) Mujeres de 5 países en pro del militarismo, p. 1, as
cited in Jocelyn Olcott (2008) Star Power: disarming Cold War politics at the 1975 International Women’s Year Conference, paper presented at Peace Movements in the Cold War and
Beyond: An International Conference, London School of Economics, UK, 1–2 February, 2008.
[25] They ‘greeted her with flowers and embraces’, as documented by Jocelyn Olcott, Star
Power, n.p.
[26] El Universal (Mexico City, 2 July 1975), p. 15, as documented by Jocelyn Olcott, Star Power,
n. 68.
[27] Margaret E. Keck & Kathryn Sikkink (1998) Activists beyond Borders: advocacy networks in
international politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp. 168–169.
[28] Francesca Miller (1991) Latin American Women and the Search for Social Justice (Hanover:
University Press of New England), p. 227.
[29] ‘Short History of CEDAW Convention’. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/
history.htm
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12
13
14
15
16
17
18
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20
21
22
23
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[30] Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, U.N. GAOR, World Conf. on Hum. Rts., 48th
Sess., 22d plen. mtg., U.N. Doc. A/CONF.157/24 (1993). Reprinted in 32 I.L.M. 1661 (1993) ¶
18, as cited in Fraser, ‘Becoming Human’, p. 903.
[31] As cited in Center for Reproductive Law & Policy, and Foro Abierto de Salud y Derechos
Reproductivos (1998) Women Behind Bars. Chile’s Abortion Laws: a human rights analysis
(New York: Center for Reproductive Law & Policy), p. 25.
[32] Shepard and Alvarez point to these stages and assert that the second stage began in the 1990s.
See Sonia Alvarez (1999) Thoughts on Distinctive Logics of Transnational Feminist Activism,
unpublished paper, University of California Santa Cruz, as cited in Bonnie Shepard (2006)
Running the Obstacle Course to Sexual and Reproductive Health: lessons from Latin America
(Westport: Praeger), p. 42.
[33] Nancy Saporta Sternbach, Marysa Navarro, Patricia Chuchryk & Sonia E. Alvarez (1992)
Feminisms in Latin America: from Bogota to San Bernardo, Signs, 17(2), p. 396.
[34] Testimonio (1981) Boletín No. 6 (Sept.–Oct.), p. 5.
[35] Kirkwood, Ser Politica en Chile, pp. 233–249; Marysa Navarro (1982) El primer encuentro
feminista de Latinoamérica y el Caribe, in Magdalena Leon (Ed.) Socieded, Subordinación y
Feminismo (Bogotá: Asociación Colombiana para el estudio de la población), pp. 261–267.
[36] Eliana Ortega & Nancy Saporta Sternbach (1986) Gracias a la Vida: recounting the third Latin
American feminist meeting in Bertioga, Brazil, July 31–August 4, 1985, Off Our Backs, 26(1),
p. 1.
[37] For ongoing activism on 9/28, see http://www.reddesalud.org/english/sitio/info.asp?
Ob=1&Id=541
[38] Mark Ensalaco (2000) Chile under Pinochet: recovering the truth (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press), pp. 80–81; James R. Whelan (1989) Out of the Ashes: life, death, and
transfiguration of democracy in Chile, 1833–1988 (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway),
pp. 754–755, and p. 774.
[39] See John Hickman (1998) News from the End of the Earth: a portrait of Chile (New York: St
Martin’s Press), pp. 157–159; Also see Sheila Cassidy (1978), Audacity to Believe (London:
Collins), for an autobiographical account of her life in Chile.
[40] In January 1980 the Thatcher government restored diplomatic relations; see Robert
Graham (1989) British Policy towards Latin America, in Victor Bulmer-Thomas (Ed.)
Britain and Latin America: a changing relationship (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), pp. 62–63.
[41] Virginia Guzmán, Amalia Mauro & Kathya Araujo (2000) La violencia doméstica como
problema público y objeto de políticas (Santiago: Centro de Estudios de la Mujer), as cited in
Marcela Ríos Tobar, Lorena Godoy & Elizabeth Guerrero (2003) Un nuevo silencio feminista?
La transformación de un movimiento social en el Chile posdictadura (Santiago: Centro de
Estudios de la Mujer).
[42] The memories and personal experiences of exiles varied enormously. In some cases, the sense
of having been condemned vied with feelings of betraying those left behind. For some, exile
was akin to death, while others found it introduced them to new worlds. For an excellent
discussion of the many dimensions of the exile experience, see Loreto Rebolledo (2006)
Memorias del desarraigo: testimonios de exilio y retorno de hombres y mujeres de Chile (Providencia, Santiago de Chile: Catalonia); for testimonial accounts and historical context, see also
Thomas Wright & Rody Oñate (1998) Flight from Chile: voices of exile (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press).
[43] See her account in Ríos Tobar, Godoy & Guerrero, Un nuevo silencio feminista, pp. 195–196.
[44] Kommunistischer Bund & Chile-Frauengruppe Hamburg (1976) Frauen in Chile (Hamburg:
Verlag Arbeiterkampf), p. 7.
[45] Komitee für die Freiheit der Politischen Gefangenen Frauen in Chile (1977) Frauensolidarität
Möglichkeiten und Probleme emanzipatorischer Politik: Erfahrungen am Beispiel Chile (Westberlin: Selbstverlag Das Komitee), p. 3.
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
Women’s History Review 629
[46] For the voice of some Chilean exiles on the subject matter, see Gladys Diaz (1979) Roles and
Contradictions of Chilean Women in the Resistance and in Exile: collective reflections of a group
of militant prisoners (New York: Women’s International Resource Exchange Service).
[47] See, for example, the contributions in Komitee für die Freiheit der Politischen Gefangenen
Frauen in Chile, Frauensolidarität.
[48] Ibid., p. 79.
[49] Ibid., passim.
[50] Ibid., p. 79.
[51] Ibid., pp. 54–69.
[52] Ibid., pp. 46–53.
[53] Gabriele Küppers (1992) Feministamente: Frauenbewegung in Lateinamerika (Wuppertal: P.
Hammer), pp. 232–233; Adriana Santa Cruz & Viviana Erazo (1981) Compropolitan, el orden
transnacional y su modelo femenino un estudio de las revistas femeninas en América Latina
(México: Editorial Nueva Imagen).
[54] Santa Cruz & Erazo, Compropolitan, pp. 100–101.
[55] Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Transnacionales & Fempress (1986) Mujer/fempress
(Santiago: ILET).
[56] María Isabel Matamala, Interview with the author, August 1998.
[57] The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (n.d.) Mission Statement; also see Judy Norsigian
et al. (2000) The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective and Our Bodies, Ourselves: a brief
history and reflection, Women’s Health Journal, 2, pp. 72–77; For its new edition, see Boston
Women’s Health Book Collective (2005) Our Bodies, Ourselves: a new edition for a new era
(New York: Simon & Schuster).
[58] Resource Centers and Information Program (n.d.) Objectives and Background; see also
informal interview with Jaimie Penney (BWHBC), June 9, 2000.
[59] See Leti Boniol & Annie Calma Santoalla (1999) Coming a Long Way Together: Isis and Marilee
Karl, Women in Action, 2, p. 44.
[60] The Guide presented information on international resources for women’s health, including a
list of non-governmental organizations, books and films. In addition, it provides background
information on, of example, the ‘control of women by medical institutions’ and ‘Self-Help’,
health and the environment, and reproductive issues. See International Women and Health
Resource Guide (1980) Preliminary Draft Edition.
[61] Ximena Charnes (1991) Seventeen Years Later [Diecisiete años despues], Women in Action,
(1), p. 54.
[62] As cited in Ana María Portugal (1999) Moving around With Our Feet Firmly on the Ground,
Women in Action, 2, p. 72.
[63] Boniol & Calma Santoalla, Coming a Long Way Together, p. 44.
[64] See Verónica Schild, Transnational Links, p. 68.
[65] Teresa Valdés (1987) Las mujeres y la dictadura militar en Chile (Santiago: FLACSO), p. 35.
[66] La Epoca (Santiago, Chile, 7 October 1988), p. 9.
[67] The end of therapeutic abortion violates a number of basic women’s rights, including reproductive rights. See José Barzelatto, María Cristina Calderón, Stephen Isaacs & Lidia Casas
(1996) El aborto en Chile elementos para el debate (Santiago: CORSAPS).
[68] Anon. (1989) Annual Review of Population Law 16, p. 28.
[69] Lidia Casas (1997) Women Prosecuted and Imprisoned for Abortion in Chile, Reproductive
Health Matters, 5(9), p. 29.
[70] Actas Oficiales de la Comisión Constituyente (1974) Sesión 87 del 14 de noviembre de 1974,
as cited in Claudia Lagos Lira (2001) Aborto en Chile el deber de parir (Santiago: Lom
Ediciones), p. 11.
[71] Sonia Montecino & Josefina Rossetti (1990) Tramas para un nuevo destino: Propuestas de la
Concertación de Mujeres por la Democracia (Santiago: Concertación de Mujeres por la
Democracia).
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
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69
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[72] Georgina Waylen (1997) Women’s Movements, the State, and Democratization in Chile: the
establishment of SERNAM, in Anne Marie Goetz (Ed.) Getting Institutions Right for Women in
Development (London: Zed Books), pp. 90–103.
[73] In theory, SERNAM represented the government’s commitment to incorporate a gender
perspective into public policy and to uphold the principle of women’s equal rights with men.
In practice, SERNAM had to prove its effectiveness. Some feminists claimed that the agency
isolated women’s demands from mainstream politics and lamented that gender-specific legislation received varying degrees of attention depending on the changing interests of the state.
For views on the role of SERNAM see, for example, Merike H. Blofield & Liesl Haas (2005)
Defining a Democracy: reforming the laws on women’s rights in Chile, 1990–2002, Latin
American Politics & Society, 47(3), pp. 35–68, and Susan Franceschet (2005) Women and Politics in Chile (Boulder: Lynne Rienner), pp. 111–115.
[74] See Carlos A. González (1998) Ley de violencia intrafamiliar (Santiago: Ediciones Publiley).
For references to the problem of sexual violence, see Verónica Oxman (1995) La Violencia
sexual en Chile (Santiago: SERNAM). For a study of domestic violence and police response,
see Uca Silva & Ximena Ahumada (1994) Sensibilización sobre violencia intrafamiliar a carabineros de Chile SERNAM, 1992–1993 (Santiago: SERNAM).
[75] See Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa (13 March
2007) Chile: the protection, services and recourse available for women victims of domestic violence
(2005–February 2007). http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/research/rir/?action=record.viewrec&
gotorec=451149
[76] Jen Stange (2006) Chile and Emergency Contraception, Planned Parenthood. http://
www.plannedparenthood.org/news-articles-press/politics-policy-issues/birth-control-accessprevention/chile-ec-11184.htm
[77] Ibid.
[78] In 1995, the Chilean CEDAW representative reported ‘that although abortion was illegal in
Chile, in 1990 one out of every three pregnancies had ended in abortion’. See Committee on
the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1995) Concluding Observations: Chile,
U.N. Doc. A/50/38, paras. 105–159. http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cedaw/cedaw-chile.htm
[79] Five years later, doctors documented that abortion remained one of the main causes of maternal mortality in the nation. See Jorge Szot & Cristina Moreno (2003) Mortalidad por aborto
en Chile: analisis epidemiologico, 1985–2000, Revista chilena de obstetricia y ginecología, 68(4),
pp. 309–314.
[80] William M. Lies (2006) A Clash of Values: Church–State relations in democratic Chile, in
Silvia Borzutzky & Lois Hecht Oppenheim (Eds) After Pinochet: the Chilean road to democracy
and the market (Gainesville: University Press of Florida), pp. 64–90, ref. to opinion polls p. 73.
[81] Lois Hecht Oppenheim (2007) Politics in Chile: socialism, authoritarianism, and market democracy (Boulder: Westview Press), p. 28; see also Peter Winn (2006) Americas: the changing face
of Latin America and the Caribbean (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 360–361.
[82] In 2006, Bachelet elevated the presence of women in Parliament to 15% (slightly below the
Latin American average) and female senators to 50% (the highest percentage in Latin
America). About 18% of the seats of national legislatures in Latin America and the Caribbean
were held by women. See Pamela Marie Paxton & Melanie M. Hughes (2007) Women, Politics,
and Power: a global perspective (Los Angeles: Pine Forge Press), pp. 228–229.
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