10 “Democracy in the Nation and in the Home”: The Fight Against Patriarchal Authoritarianism in Chile – Eliana Goldfarb

“Democracy in the Nation and in the Home”: The Fight Against Patriarchal Authoritarianism in Chile

Introduction: Contextualizing the Women’s Movement Within Chile’s Political and Gender Climate 

On September 11, 1973 armed forces, led by General Augusto Pinochet, staged a coup d’état which overthrew Salvador Allende’s socialist government in Chile. For the next seventeen years, civilians lived under an authoritarian military dictatorship in which the state incited terror on all members of Chilean society, forcing around 200,000 individuals into exile.^[1] This violent campaign took the lives of 3,196 civilians, and ‘disappeared’ an additional 2,000.^[2] However, in many ways, this regime mirrored the culture of patriarchal authoritarianism that already existed within Chilean homes.

In Chile, as with other Latin American countries, the “dominant cultural narratives of gender” are machismo and marianismo.^[3] Machismo is representative of male dominance in society and within the family. In this cultural context, men are considered autonomous actors in society and expected to provide for and control their children and female subordinates.^[4] Complementarily, marianismo is the ideal female embodiment of this patriarchal ideology, in which women are submissive and subordinate. Women are placed into the roles of mothers and wives, rather than autonomous actors in society and are expected to be passive and self-sacrificing.^[5] Within this structure, “aggression is often considered a valid method for men to achieve domination and control.”^[6] Therefore, it is accepted for women who do not adhere to their passive roles as ‘good wives and mothers’ to be punished through violence. In this context where “violence is the ultimate weapon of the patriarch within the family,” gender-based violence becomes normalized and its existence as a social problem rooted in unequal gender relations becomes invisible.^[7]

The legitimation of violence and prevalence of patriarchy at a cultural and societal level is also rooted in colonialism and patriotism. Beginning with the conquistadores, “heroic acts of violence” have been celebrated and legitimized as they are committed in the name of “love of la patria [fatherland/homeland].” This violence generally entails protecting la patria from otherness deemed threatening to “the unity of the nation,” this ‘other’ has historically been personified in “the foreigner, the terrorist, the marxist, the indian, the female.” Within the context of the family, the “woman is the ‘other’ who must be subjugated and controlled through violence.”^[8] However, within the context of Pinochet’s military regime, all civilians viewed as a threat to the dictatorship are the ‘other’ and therefore must be controlled using violence. Therefore, the same ideology of patriarchal authoritarianism is used to justify violence in control on the state level and within the home. Although feminist organizing existed in Chile long before the dictatorship, the climate of pervasive military violence and state authoritarianism greatly impacted the approaches of feminist mobilization. Consciousness-raising activism within Chile and internationally radicalized the movement to fight for the goal exemplified in their motto, “democracy in the nation and in the home.”

Theoretical Framework: Situating Chilean Feminist Mobilization Within Existing Frameworks of Social Change 

In the writing of renowned Chilean feminist Julieta Kirkwood, she highlights how the Women’s movement conceptualized authoritarian culture as existing at multiple levels of society. She describes authoritarian culture as a “matrix,” rather than a “vertical hierarchy,” in which “power relations [are] institutionalized in and by the state, the education system, the family and the workplace.”^[9] Therefore, the women’s movement was not fighting to obtain equal rights, they were mobilizing in an effort to reshape their social structures as a whole. This perspective is in alignment with the “gender and development” (GAD) approach, prevalent across Latin American feminist organizing during the 1980’s. Eva Rathgeber describes how “the GAD approach goes further than WID or WAD [previous approaches to gender development] in questioning the underlying assumptions of current social, economic, and political structures.”^[10] Feminist mobilization under the dictatorship coincided with a period of coalition building amongst women and feminists on the international level. Sonia E. Alvarez writes in Latin American Feminisms “Go Global”: Trends of the 1990s and Challenges for the New Millennium that during international conferences like the Latin American Encuentros, “feminists…came to understand women’s oppression as profoundly cultural, crosscutting all public and private discourses and spaces…the boundary between feminists and non feminists came to be identified with this dual emphasis on both the ‘general’ and the ‘specific,’ the ‘political’ and the ‘cultural,’ with the feminist refusal to privilege one struggle over the other.”^[11] Therefore, this alignment between the approach of Chilean feminists and international trends of female mobilization demonstrates the profound influence of international feminist cooperation.

Manuel Castells’ work on the social construction of identity is another valuable framework for understanding the character of this feminist mobilization. In The Power of Identity, Castells examines two manifestations of identity in relation to social movements. The first of these identities is a “resistance identity,” which “constructs forms of collective resistance against otherwise unbearable oppression.” He notes that the formation of this identity occurs “in the terms of dominant institutions/ideologies, reversing the value judgment while reinforcing the boundary.”^[12] In the context of social mobilization against Pinochet’s regime, all civilians organizing for the end of state authoritarianism and military terror held this identity. While resistance identity reacts against a structural change that has occurred, it usually falls back on some sort of historical legacy. Therefore, the actors in question challenged the oppression they experienced under the regime without necessarily addressing other forms of social inequality also at play.

However, the nature of feminist mobilization against the regime exhibits the second identity Castells describes, which is “project identity.” This “project of identity” occurs through the “transformation of individuals into subjects” through the realization of “two affirmations: that of individuals against communities, and that of individuals against the market.” As “individuals reach holistic meaning in their experience,” they “build a new identity that redefines their position in society and, by so doing, seek the transformation of overall social structure.”^[13] Feminist mobilization transformed resistance identity into project identity by going beyond mere opposition to authoritarianism and instead re-examining its existence in relation to greater systems of oppression. Their means for doing this also align with the theorization surrounding the creation of the identity described above; a large part of female mobilization against the dictatorship took the form of consciousness-raising, a form of activism where people gather and discuss their experiences.

This strategy is also in accordance with assertions made at the international feminist conferences as described by Alvarez where women declared that the “feminist struggle…must also be pursued at the level of daily life, of interpersonal and social relations… of consciousness…Hence, strategies aimed at ‘conscientización’ were…deemed crucial to the struggle against women’s oppression.”^[14] Actions like regular meetings of consciousness-raising groups, as well as continuous participation in international conferences helped to facilitate a deeper understanding amongst Chilean women about their subordinate position in society and empowered them to mobilize against the “matrix” of authoritarianism.^[15]Women’s organizations played a crucial role in ending the authoritarian dictatorship through direct actions such as protests, however their larger fight for democracy across both public and private institutions continued through the re-democratization process and persists today. Work on the types of state-society relations, done by Marina Brito Pinheiro (2010), Rebecca Abers, Lizandra Serafim, and Luciana Tatagiba (2014), and included in Marlise Matos’ Gender and Sexuality in Brazilian Public Policy, function as a valuable framework for understanding the stages of feminist work in relation to the state. During the dictatorship, the relationship between the state and the movement was one of “protest and direct action.” The Women’s Movement, along with others, “pressured…state actors… into negotiating through a demonstration of the movement’s capacity for mobilizing.”^[16] These actions took the form of public protest-demonstrations, widely referred to as “las protestas.”

However, they also took other diverse forms such as the arpillera movement where women made “arpilleras (quilts), covered with images depicting life under the dictatorship, that were eventually sold all over the world.”^[17] In the post-dictatorship era, feminists participated in “institutional engagement” through taking part in the “state sponsored project” of re-democratization.^[18] A primary way in which they did this was through the formation of the “Concertación Nacional de Mujeres por la Democracia” in December 1988, a political coalition “aimed at shaping the political direction” of La Concertación (the primary actors in the re-democratization process). This initiative was primarily made up of moderate, middle-class women and was successful in achieving many of their demands. However, their priorities did not align with those of all women as they “excluded ‘radical’ demands” like abortion and divorce.^[19] This was largely due to continuous opposition to the movement for cultural change in the interest of women, particularly from powerful actors like “right-wing parties, the Catholic Church…and the media.”^[20] Taking a hard stance on issues such as abortion and divorce would leave La Concertación “vulnerable to criticism…for advancing the cause of women at the expense of the unity of the family,” and could therefore put “the transition process at risk.”^[21]

The goal of advancing women’s rights officially became part of the new government in 1991 with the foundation of El Servicio Nacional de la Mujer (SERNAM).^[22] Many women working in this organization experienced a relationship of “hybrid relationships and multiple affiliations” in which they “enter[ed] the state [to] advance their agendas.”^[23] Some feminist activists working outside SERNAM noted how “opting for formal politics…limited their ability to criticize and act as a relatively autonomous political force” and were “less able to represent the diverse interests which the movement had brought together.”^[24] This is analogous with broader international criticisms of “femócratas” (a term used by some activists to “refer to feminists from the movement who have entered the state”) described by Alvarez when she writes “diverse (and sometimes divergent) practices; growing power imbalances; uneven access to…resources of subjects differently situated within the field represent serious contradictions and new challenges [to] Latin American feminism.”^[25]

However, it is relevant to also acknowledge how opting into formal politics placed elite women in a better position to make political decisions and to promote policies [to] benefit women.^[26] Promptly after its founding, SERNAM created the Information Centres of Women’s Rights (CIDEM) which functioned to “empower women by making them aware of their rights.”^[27] This effort served to extend the rights being established by elite women to the broader population, combating the barriers to ending inequality that exist within Latin America. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) the specific context of socio-economic and gender inequality in Latin America infringes on women’s ability to become autonomous actors in society and exercise their rights. ECLAC defines autonomy as “people’s, particularly women’s, capacity ‘to take free and informed decisions about their lives, enabling them to be and act in accordance with their own aspirations and desires’.”^[28] Through the creation of CIDEM, SERNAM functioned to cultivate autonomy within all women in Chile in order to enable them to exercise the full extent of their rights.

The Case: “Reconstructing the story of what had been invisible” and Igniting a Feminist Consciousness

In a societal context where patriarchal authoritarianism and gender-based violence are normalized, a process of building consciousness of these social issues must occur in order to effectively mobilize for change. In Julieta Kirkwood’s book “Ser política en Chile: los nudos de la sabiduría feminista” she writes:

“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 Women’s Bookstore; we were crazily daring, I can see it now.”^[29]

^[30]

This powerful description of the nature of the feminist movement during the dictatorship depicts the bravery and passion that was necessary in understanding and combating patriarchal and authoritative oppression in Chile. Organizing under the dictatorship was incredibly difficult and dangerous, especially for women. Yet, despite state-enforced curfews and the risks of military violence, the Círculo de Estudios de La Mujer was founded in 1979. Círculo met regularly in the safe-space provided by the Academia de Humanismo Cristiano and functioned as a “consciousness raising group” to “mobilize fellow women.” The group held the “first public gathering to ‘discuss the situation of women in Chile’” in 1979, to which over 300 women attended. The sizable group brought with them “brought diverse educational and personal experiences” which, in the words of participant Ema, fostered “shared feelings of solidarity and collectivity that united the women in spite of their diversity.”^[31]

The acquisition of a feminist consciousness amongst Chilean women was also facilitated by the greater movement to foster an international feminist coalition during the 1980’s. In 1975, Chilean women were among the over 5,000 women from around the world who convened in Mexico City for the first UN Women’s conference. The event functioned as an opportunity for networking initiatives and to incite a global mobilization for women’s rights. However, this event also brought together women suffering under military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Uruguay. This conference marked the first of many in what was to become the UN Decade of Women, an era which sparked an “explosion” both in the creation of global advocacy networks and research by women, in an effort to secure equal rights.^[32] Parallel to these conferences, Latin American women began to hold their own Encuentros Feministas to “enhance the dialogue among feminists in the Americas, particularly regarding violations of human rights and women’s rights under dictatorial rule.”^[33] The first Encuentro, which occurred in Bogotá, Colombia in 1981, was particularly powerful. Kirkwood described the meeting as symbolizing a “re-conquest of space” where “women gained access to an international realm that had until then been pervaded by patriarchal culture.” For women living under dictatorships in Chile and elsewhere, the Encuentro was a space “free of censorship and fear” where they could speak “openly about the disturbing human rights violations at home” and work together to create strategies for mobilization.^[34] In this way, international conferences played a key role in consciousness-raising efforts and the greater task of understanding the complex systems of power under which these women suffered.

During the dictatorship, many Chilean women were forced into exile, which provided them the opportunity to build ties to women’s groups, and feminists, abroad.^[35] One woman, who was exiled in Germany and had a long history of involvement in politics in Chile, attributed the creation of her feminist consciousness to her experience in exile. Prior to this experience she described herself as “a typical example of a woman who begins to think about her domestic work and about motherhood.” However she recalled how through participation in “organizing meetings with other exiles from Latin America and with German feminists,” “‘I began to notice the division of roles … I had never asked myself about it before, and had accepted it’ [and consequently she] began to define herself as a feminist.”^[36] This experience of feminism growing out of experiences abroad was one held by many women in this period. In discussing the years of dictatorship years later, “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’.”^[37]

To continue the process of consciousness-raising surrounding the pervasiveness of patriarchal authoritarianism in the nation after the fall of the military regime, women had to extend their efforts outside of the movement. In order to do this, they had to make previously invisible social problems visible through quantitative and qualitative information, thus framing it as a problem which requires action from the state. Consequently, the first large-scale study of gender-based violence in Chile was conducted in 1992. The study revealed that 26.2 per cent of the sample stated had suffered physical violence, 33.5 per cent had suffered psychological violence, and only 40 percent had suffered no violence in their relationship with their partner. The study “clearly [demonstrated] for the first time that domestic violence was a widespread social problem in Chile which affected all members of the family and which was prevalent in all social classes.”^[38] This study was complemented by the founding of the Program for the Prevention of Violence in the Family which operated under the premise that “although domestic violence occurs in the home, its effects extend far beyond and require a response from the health service; the legal system; social services; the police force; the non-governmental sector; and the community at large.” The program worked through a network of organizations, institutions, and individuals who aimed to “raise awareness of domestic violence among participating individuals and organizations; to establish effective mechanisms for intervention to rehabilitate victims and aggressors; to create channels for dialogue and debate to communicate and learn from the experiences of others.”^[39] During the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2007, it was formally recognized that “parity is one of the key driving forces of democracy…[as] its aim is to achieve equality in the exercise of power, in decision-making…and in…Women’s autonomy…in social, economic, political and cultural relations.”^[40] Therefore, while all the aforementioned efforts at mobilization fought to dismantle authoritative and patriarchal relations within the personal lives of women, they also greatly contributed to the realization of democracy within the state and civil society in Chile.

Analysis: The Fight to Convert La Conciencia Into Societal Change

Consciousness-raising activism facilitated a mobilization amongst Chilean women to break cultural gender roles and fight for democracy. However, as described by Ema, the initial Círculo gatherings were shrouded in negative feelings.

“When I came to the [first] meeting I felt very bad, guilty… the best thing was that the meeting started with everybody talking about how difficult it had been to get there, everybody [was] 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.”^[41]

Participants at Círculo meetings shared similar feelings and experiences brought on by the harsh conditions of the dictatorship, as many of them were shifting from their previous “dependent roles” in the absence of male breadwinners who had been “incarcerated or disappeared.” Although guilt was initially the feeling that prevailed amongst the women, a logical result of the societal pervasiveness of marianismo, these feelings soon turned into a collective passion to “mobilize to document human rights abuses.”^[42] As consciousness was raised about the throughlines in their experiences, both in regards to their own treatment within their families and the treatment of their families by the regime, women began to recognize that the “regime’s authoritarian and patriarchal practices in the public sphere resembled those that men employed in the private sphere.”^[43] This consciousness resulted in what was described by Chilean Feminist historian and activist Alicia Frohmann, as the “most heroic period of the women’s movement.” Throughout the 1980’s, women all over Chile flocked into the violent streets.^[44]
Las protestas represented an intense period of female resistance and widespread mobilization, which “left little doubt about the seriousness of women’s protests as a powerful political force.^[45] By asserting themselves as influential and autonomous public actors, women broke the boundaries of their previous role as submissive housewives bound to the private sphere. This period of resistance subsequently placed gender equality and women’s rights at the center of the discussions regarding citizenship and democracy that occurred after the fall of the regime.^[46]

The experiences of Chilean women internationally, both at conferences and in exile, played a key role in the acquisition of la conciencia feminista. The extent of this influence is embodied in the motto that guided female mobilization against the dictatorship. As discussed above, the first Encuentro in Bogotá allowed women living under similar authoritarian conditions across Latin America to come to a collective understanding of the human rights violence they were experiencing. It was in this space that “they translated this understanding into specific demands for ‘democracy in the nation and democracy at home’.^[47]

The shared experiences of these women functioned as a powerful tool to help them understand their oppression, however life in exile allowed Chilean women to gain new insights from feminist movements abroad. German women’s groups, in particular, went to great lengths to work in solidarity with Chilean women living in exile. German women organized workshops to discuss “topics like partnership and sexuality” but later described how these spaces brought about difficult interactions between the two groups of women as a result of “different experiences in the process of socialization and understandings of the meaning of being a woman.”^[48] As outlined previously, aggression and violence were normalized forms of punishment within Chile’s gender climate, which resulted in the silencing of survivors of domestic violence and the invisibility of this systemic issue. Once in exile, it was difficult for Chilean women to break this deeply ingrained cultural pattern by discussing issues “better left to close friends and private settings.”^[49] However, the insights gained from working through these transcultural differences clearly had a profound impact, as mitigating domestic violence became a flagship of the Chilean feminist mobilization after the dictatorship.

Hybrid state-society relationships, specifically those of feminists working within SERNAM and its affiliated programs, played a critical role in converting la conciencia into societal change in the direction of achieving ‘democracy in the nation and in the home’. A significant example of this is the creation of a strand of the Programme for the Prevention of Violence in the Family focused on the police force, a “primary point of assistance for the victim and prevention.”^[50] Officers participated in workshops in 1992, and again in 1993, where they examined their own positionality and opinions in regards to gender issues and domestic violence. Through their own experience with conscious-raising, these vital state actors began to “perceive domestic violence not as a private problem but as a social issue.”^[51] Then, they designed initiatives to help prevent domestic violence across the nation which included, “introducing material on violence and gender roles into the education system, pre-marital consultations to prepare young people forming sexual relationships; the creation of refuges for women; and work[ing] with the media to challenge gender stereotypes and the portrayal of violence.”^[52] This program contributed to bringing democracy to the home by creating avenues to shift the cultural narratives about gender and violence. Simultaneously, this program also contributed to the greater process of re-democratization by “alter[ing] the general public’s perception of the police force as oppressors,” a fear which rose out of the intense state-sanctioned violence of the regime and posed a threat to the development of democracy.^[53]

Withstanding with Rathgeber’s claim that the GAD approach is rarely “fully articulated” as it “demands a degree of commitment to structural change and power shifts that is unlikely to be found within national or in international agencies,” the fight to dismantle patriarchal authoritarianism and achieve true democracy within all spheres of society in Chile continues today.^[54] In 2019 “Un Violador en tu Camino”, an anthem created to protest rape culture in Chile, became an “international feminist phenomenon.”^[55] The lyrics of the anthem demonstrate the longevity of the rhetoric used during the feminist mobilization under the dictatorship, as they call out state institutions for violating women’s rights, “The rapist is you/ It’s the cops/ The judges/ The state/ The president”. The largest performance of the song was held outside Santiago’s National Stadium, the site of a “notorious” concentration camp from the regime, and brought together “thousands of women,” including older feminists who had bravely participated in similar protests during the dictatorship. One of these women, Victoria Gallardo, stated “they held prisoners here, women who were harassed and sexually tortured…I cried the first time I heard Un Violador en Tu Camino. I’m so proud of the young women of today…and this performance represents us all.”^[56] While the fight for ‘democracy in the nation and in the home’ is far from over, the widespread feminist consciousness that developed out of the harsh conditions of Pinochet’s authoritarian regime persists today as Chilean women continue to fight fearlessly for their human rights.

Conclusion

The case of feminist mobilization against patriarchal authoritarianism in Chile serves as a fundamental example of the power of consciousness-raising as an incendiary for change. Rather than merely falling victim to pervasive violence at the hands of both the state and the household patriarch, women gathered, analyzed, organized, and advocated for democracy. They worked across national boundaries and collaborated with other women fighting against similar oppressive systems across Latin America and the world. Through vulnerability and bravery, these women broke the bounds of marianismo and developed a radical feminist consciousness of the matrix of power relations around them, a consciousness that persists today. After the dictatorship, many of these women entered the state to continue fighting to transform the nation’s social, cultural, economic, and political structures. They created new government institutions dedicated to realizing these democratic goals, as well as programs to continue the spread of their critical consciousness of power relations. While the fight to achieve true democracy is ongoing, the work and dedication of these women laid the groundwork for the dismantling of the oppressive matrix of power.

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