Writing the History of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Chile

Abstract

Three historical moments have, I believe, shaped the recent boom in historical literature on women and gender in modern Chile. First, the experience of the socialist Unidad Popular (UP) government of Salvador Allende has been critical in several ways. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Chile attracted scholars with a commitment to social reform, socialism, and the revolutionary projects of the 1960s. Histories of peasants and workers sought to shed light on the processes that produced the Western Hemisphere’s only explicitly marxist labor movement and democratic transition to a socialist economy and state. These studies built on the foundations laid by Chilean marxist historians and social scientists who wrote groundbreaking studies of mine workers, the early labor movement, and leading figures in the Left, such as Emilio Recabarren and Elías Lafertte, founders of the Chilean Communist party.1 Both Chilean and North American historians located their social-historical focus on (male) workers and peasants, ignoring working-class women, questions of gender inequality, and women’s political activism. This emphasis reflected both the politics and the historiography of the time, the subordination of women’s interests and feminist politics to the leftist revolutionary project of the UP, and the marginality of women’s history in the United States as well as in Chile. In addition, historians imbibed many of the prevalent assumptions, persistent to this day, about women’s political conservatism and passivity, and failed to see this image of the “traditional” Chilean woman as a contested ideological construct whose material conditions of historical production required analysis and unpacking.Nonetheless, the interest in social history, labor history, and the history of the Left inspired by the UP has shaped much of the gender history being written today. In Chile, many historians and social scientists began to write women’s history after participating in women’s movements and political movements tied to the Left, and turned to feminist history and activism as a response to their disenchantment with the often sexist politics and sometimes misogynist cultures of the labor movement and the leftist parties. A number of women’s historians sought to insert women into the history of the early labor movement in order to recover moments of feminist activism.2 While earlier social and labor historians examined male industrial workers, miners, and agricultural laborers to explain Chile’s unique history of a marxist labor movement and powerful socialist and communist parties, historians, such as Julietta Kirkwood, Cecilia Salinas, and Edda Gaviola, employed feminist theory to reexamine the historical relationship of women’s movements and activism with the Left and organized labor.Second, the 1973 military coup had a radical impact on the politics of writing Chilean history. The devastating defeat of the UP by the Chilean Right, the military, and the United States government provoked a profound rethinking of the history of labor and the Left. The disillusion of many leftist historians and social scientists (who were writing in exile or working for NGOs in Chile) led to new critiques of the Unidad Popular and a focus on social movements and social actors, the urban poor and women most prominently, that had been ignored by the labor/Left historiography’s definition of class in terms of industrial workers and miners. Consonant with, but not as a direct consequence of, second-wave feminism in the United States and Europe and the emergence of women’s history as legitimate disciplinary practice, historians and social scientists with ties to the women’s movement also began to produce a critique of the role of women and feminism in Chilean politics and the Left. In addition, as Peter Winn has pointed out, one of the results of the 1973 coup was the academic diaspora of Chilean intellectuals and historians who were exposed to new trends in Europe and the United States, including post-marxist cultural studies and women’s history.3Third, the central role played by women in the 1983–86 popular protests against the Pinochet dictatorship known as las protestas and during the campaign for the “No” in the 1988 plebiscite on Pinochet’s rule also led to a new concern with the history of women’s political activism.4 Under the military dictatorship, as in other Latin American countries experiencing authoritarian rule, women played a central role in the human rights movement early on, particularly in the Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos formed in 1975–76. In poor urban neighborhoods (poblaciones), women organized workshops (talleres) and soup kitchens (ollas comunes) in response to the high urban unemployment, deindustrialization, and cuts in public spending and services provoked by economic “shock therapy.” In addition, feminist activists began to in with the de de in to the for and activism on women’s de de and and the feminist political and in the on women and social movements in Latin During the early women’s social and economic in the the for feminist and the social movements of working-class In popular social has women’s interests with their gender the de for services and for human rights with a feminist critique of the economic and the of the of and of a historiography of women and gender during the was as much by the social movement of poor women and feminist women’s as by the of the of women’s history as a In Chile, the of women’s history the and women’s movements of the late and early the academic and disciplinary were by the of the protestas were particularly for many the political of written of the marxist of class and the political of the Left. women, and the urban poor industrial workers or the leftist to the of the social movements that sought to were central to the of women’s and gender historiography during this and Julietta Both reflected the academic of the literature on social inspired by and in the role of in the economic and and the history of the labor movement were by a concern with the of the of and and historical with the The focus of both on the and on reflected in the Chilean economy by the military of economic The by the organized male workers and new urban social movements in women and were on the of the of that both and women the and women into labor in the and examined the in the Pinochet economic a produced many of the by on number of women in and women into of as well as In this both and turned to the history of women in response to the radical economic that had urban and women into the and and of as well as to women’s activism. moments of economic and social during the late and late on the a groundbreaking social-historical of laborers in the and and the role of women in and The of on one of the social-historical of women in Chile, a of the as to the cultural to and as of of new of popular and cultural the of of the and in a popular The of women’s and to the of the economy male the in of During the of women, were the and in the of and and pointed to of the in this was the of popular as well as the of the of social and the sought to write a social history of women of the popular Julietta Kirkwood, in Chile, to write a history of modern Chile the of both women’s history and feminist located the of project in the and that women’s during the late and early and the feminist movement that a powerful to the Pinochet by the literature on new social popular movements of and women and social movements tied to political parties. sought to the and feminist movements and and the project of human on class that had the Chilean Left and the Unidad Kirkwood, the for the women’s movement was to the of historical to popular social movements had the of women’s and to the historical of feminist a history of women’s political activism that the and and the by women to their political rights in the role of women in the and protests of the of women’s de in and the of a feminist politics tied to the and socialist labor movement of Chile’s the women’s de in the in the of women’s during the and the of the leftist de in Cecilia and the las the time, sought to recover women’s in the of the labor movement, Left, social and early feminist In addition, women’s for the UP and their political that this was not to the of Chilean women, but was in the by women of in the The of gender the Left and the labor movement as well as the to to women’s of women to the to against the the popular movements and political parties. that during the women’s role in movements for was by the feminist for the of gender as a for and movements for democratic and the of the political in the of the that a to the for feminism the of the women’s that had formed during the late and for the of the historical literature on women and gender in Chile. First, has inspired a social-historical literature on women of the during the late and early particularly by Chilean historians, feminist of Chilean history has a of and questions that historians of gender in a number of and of the history of the UP, the Left, and popular social movements the of and women’s of in feminist movements has been particularly in much of the by historians writing in the United The in this by and for a interest in the history of moments of social reform, and during the the of feminist theory and women’s history. historians in the United States examined the role of the feminist in politics during the and and women’s movements in to the history of has a social-historical literature on working-class women during Chile’s of economic and such as and to a written and studies of the of and urban women of the during the late and early These studies of women’s during the late and early in as as the of in the the of and the of the in working-class women the and of labor and economic in the to industrial and and urban often as during a of economic and Chile women by in and in of their the In addition, women and in their and their in the in or in in urban and also their and or as workers or In urban women also in workshops and and as the for women for much of the that during a of women for and had or with These women a social and economic that the of and with were not as by as and and often by women, of with and the of the and women to a central role in popular and in the central of for urban popular the and of working-class women, as of women of the women’s historians also the historical on women in terms of economic the of male and and the by social the and the to and order on their women in of economic their for labor to by a of labor that in and as economic as well as the conditions of urban examined and to the in women of the popular the for a of economic and social were not only by the economic and social by women, but also by the and of and by male and In addition, working-class women were to to the of and and to and the economy of popular and by social-historical literature on women of the in Chile a number of questions feminist theory about the writing of women’s history. The project of of women and the historical and of women has been to the feminist political project of the second-wave During the feminist by and began to of the of the and political project of women’s history. sought to the political of modern Chilean history the of and to the historical of feminist most for a women’s history to the history of the role of gender as historians and the in historical to recover women’s and The the of women’s and of women as a historical and experience the cultural and ideological and that historical experience and of this that as the of the or social and on and experience or of women, the in the and that the of and feminist that experience and not shaped by the in and write social of women that the in experience and produced in with of ideological and cultural production and social by and the feminist historical that women’s history in terms of the historical of gender and that both and The history of women of the by the of and by the disciplinary that both women and as as their labor and and as or This the of women’s the of and social and the working-class women their in this against the a of the social and cultural of women or of and in the of gender and response to feminist critical to the writing of women’s history has been a to radical of gender and in such as The of that and or the of or has inspired a number of historians to the and political project of the of women of the and their social and economic during the of economic in the late and early to a of the and that to women and order on their social and economic historians, on the of pointed to the in the social the and industrial women who and in and urban in their for social In addition, the emergence of new and and the of social and in terms of a disciplinary project women of the popular in the of and In a concern with the history of and to the historical project of women’s social and economic a of in the of for the in the de and the sought to social by and a of on working-class In the and of during the late led to the and of who had played a role in women’s particularly in for A history of and social in In addition, the de and in poor and with the of historians and on industrial women in by the de and the de a for working-class women, on their and their for While for women as for also in and in order to women to who the their and for their analysis of the in social were shaped by gender and the of working-class women’s social new and that to the social provoked by and also of the Chilean popular and on to the in the of the social built during the of the the of and to the of the Popular was shaped by a commitment to and in social that the of order on popular and the role of and the of in the of working-class or and social during the the role of feminist and socialist and and social workers, in that on this of social the of the of and the of in the of popular during the their in a to write the social history of working-class women and focus on the 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