In her interview with Evrim Kepenek, Associate Professor Kumru Toktamış, reflects on the role of women pushing for political change in Chile.
In Turkey and around the world, women’s movements are triggering crucial political transformation. Chile is one of these countries.
Three years ago, the protests that spread all over the country after the initial demonstration of students reacting to the hikes in metro fares in Santiago, triggered the wind of change in the country. During the uprising, women were the most devoted advocates of a constitutional amendment that would guarantee equal rights and participation in the public sphere.
With a referendum held after the protests, a yes vote passed for a Constituent Assembly that would draft a new constitution, whose members were elected by the people. The new constitution is the first in the world to be written by an equal number of men and women. Moreover, there are 14 women in the cabinet of Gabriel Boric, the youngest president in the history of Chile. All of these advancements led us to turn our lenses to the country.
Kumru Toktamış, Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies at Pratt Institute, reflected on the recent advancements for women in Chile by also sharing her experiences from a recent trip. We translated the highlights from her interview with Evrim Kepenek.
Kepenek: Eight of March, International Women’s Day was celebrated more enthusiastically in Chile. You were there the very next day. Can you tell us a little bit about International Women’s Day in Chile?
Yes, we saw all effects of the March 8 march the next morning.
The posters I saw along the roads leading from the Pride Square, which Chilean activists have renamed after 2019, and its closeness to the government center and the presidential palace, shook me emotionally. This was due to both in terms of understanding the present and being able to see the continuity and the relationship with the past.
Kepenek: What was impressive about those posters?
The women’s movement had a very crucial march. The movement, which brought Boric to power, almost made a show of strength, stating “we are still here” four days before the government took office.
It was that march that impressed me at first, and then the posters. There were demands of women on those posters. Posters on topics ranging from the right to abortion to unemployment… Also, the posters of women who have been in prison since 2019 impressed me a lot. The streets were filled with posters demanding their release.
Encountering the posters of female militants killed by the military dictatorship in 1973 was also very important for me. This obviously affected me a lot. There were posters everywhere, showing where and how revolutionary militant women disappeared or were killed, and to which organization they belonged. A memory of 50 years stood before me. This was not a state of not forgetting, it was an expression of political continuity.
Among all these complex polyphonic demands, the women who were destroyed in the tortures half a century ago were also given a voice. This affected me deeply, both emotionally and politically.
Kepenek: Looking at this image, how would you interpret the women’s movement in Chile?
There is something very dynamic and very embracing about the women’s movement in Chile. On September 11, 1973, Allende said, “I trust my people. There will come a day when these roads will be reopened to free men,” before he committed suicide. On March 11, 2022, in the same place, in the front door of the presidential palace, Boric made a sentence that shook people like an earthquake.
“We are now opening these roads so that free women and free men can walk freely,” he said. At the moment, I am not able to provide a translation that can capture the poetry of these words.
By adding the phrase “free women” Allende’s last words half a century later, Boric embraced the achievements of the women’s movement. This was a very emotional moment. The ground moved. Because at this turning point, the women’s movement has made a very important contribution.
Kepenek: What are the general lines of the feminist movement in Chile?
There is a very fragmented structure in both the feminist movement and the women’s movement. This multi-part structure reveals itself not only on March 8, but also in many political formations. It also maintains itself in the student movement. And therefore, it becomes a very important pillar of the transformation in Chile. One of these movements is families searching for their disappeared. Among the 14 women ministers in Boric’s government, there are children from families searching for the disappeared.
Kepenek: How do you see the women’s movement today? What were the demands of the women?
It is a very pluralistic structure. I had the opportunity to talk to young women from many different backgrounds. All the women I interviewed are actually women from organisations whose parallels can be seen all over the world: the environmental movement, the LGBT+ movement, the student movement… but no matter who I talk to, the first thing they talk about is unemployment.
Now, there is great unemployment in the country, especially after the pandemic. And because of this unemployment, the informal economy has become visibly widespread. Street peddling is very common. You know, peddling has always been very common in South America, but there is more widespread peddling than ever before.
Almost all of the people who undertake the peddling business are women. This is the informal economy. And the security, safety and poverty of women in this informal economy were also at the forefront of Boric’s election program. Therefore, both the established parties, the street movement and the women’s movement, are aware of the importance of the survival of women in the informal economy.
Violence against women is still very important. In other words, some said that violence against women was never talked about, and that it was still not properly talked about. It’s not just a problem experienced in traditional Catholic families.
The right to abortion is still a serious problem. In a country where the social health system has already been trimmed, a woman can have an abortion only if the life of the mother or fetus is in danger or if the pregnancy has resulted from rape.
To read the whole interview click here.