The lives, roles, and rights of women in Chile have gone through many changes over time. Chilean women's societal roles have historically been impacted by traditional gender roles and a patriarchal culture, but throughout the twentieth century, women increasingly involved themselves in politics and protest, resulting in provisions to the constitution to uphold equality between men and women and prohibit sex discrimination.
Women's educational attainment, workforce participation, and rights have improved, especially since Chile became a democracy again in 1990. Chile legalized divorce in 2004 and is also one of the few countries to have elected a female president. However, Chilean women still face many economic and political challenges, including income disparity, high rates of domestic violence, and lingering patriarchal gender roles.
History of Women
Women were granted the right to vote in 1931 and 1949 during Chile's presidential era. Also during the era, thousands of women protested against socialist president Salvador Allende in the March of the Empty Pots and Pans. While under Augusto Pinochet's authoritarian regime, women also participated in las protestas, protests against Allende's plebiscite in which women voted "no." During Chile's time under dictator Pinochet, the state of women's legal rights fell behind most of Latin America, even though Chile had one of the strongest economies in South America. Chile returned to democracy in 1990, leading to changes in women's lives and roles within society. Chile's government has committed more political and financial resources than ever before to enhancing social welfare programs since the country's return to democracy.. The Concertación political party has been in power since the end of Pinochet's dictatorship, and from 2006 to 2010, Michelle Bachelet of the party served as the first female President of Chile.
Women in society Chile has been described as one of the most socially conservative countries of Latin America. In comparison to the United States, Chile did not have so many feminists among its evolution of women's intrusion to the political sphere. Chilean women esteemed Catholicism as their rites of passage, which initiated women's movements in opposition to the liberal political party's eruption in the Chilean government. The traditional domesticated setting that women were accustomed to was used as a patriarchal reasoning for women's restriction of women's votes. However, Chileans religious convictions as devout Catholics initiated their desire to vote against the adamant anticlerical liberal party.
In 1875, Domitila Silva Y Lepe, the widow of a former provincial governor, read the requirements deeming "all adult Chileans the right to vote", and was the first woman to vote. Other elitist Chilean women followed her bold lead, which resulted in the anticlerical liberal party of congress to pass a law denying women the right to vote. Despite this set back, Ms. Lepe and other elite women expressed their religious standings to the conservative party. The conservative party were favorable of the women because they knew their support would influence the conservative party's domination in politics.
In 1912 Social Catholicism began to erupt. Social Catholicism- upper-class women's organization of working-class women-was led by Amalia Errázuriz de Subercaseaux. She introduced the Chilean Ladies League amongst 450 other upper-middle-class women with intentions to "uphold and defend the interests of those women who worked for a living without attacking the principles of order and authority". Following this organization, many other elite women began socially constructed women's institutions. Amanda Labarca was also an elitist, but disagreed with the privileged women's subjection of working-class women and founded the Círculo de Lectura (ladies reading club) in 1915. She believed women should be educated, regardless of their socioeconomic status to have a more influentially productive role in society.
Gender roles Traditional gender role beliefs are prevalent in Chilean society, specifically the ideas that women should focus on motherhood and be submissive to men. A 2010 study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reported that 62 percent of Chileans are opposed to full gender equality. Many of those surveyed expressed the belief that women should limit themselves to the traditional roles of mother and wife. However, the 2012 World Development Report states that male attitudes toward gender equality are that "men do not lose out when women's rights are promoted."
Motherhood Catholicism is embodied wholly among Chilean family identities. Virgin Mary is the idolized example of motherhood. Her pure and sacrificial acts are to be embodied by Chilean mothers. Traditionally, women are supposed to be the picture of endurance like the Virgin Mary. The biblical significance is portrayed through the traditional government of Chile. In the early 1900s, the gendered examples among Catholicism were embodied by the patriarchal government and suffrage of women. Women were domesticated and confined to the home. In the late 1940s women's issues were embraced by First Lady Rosa Markmann de González Videla in acknowledgement of Mothers centers, women gaining access to resources to fulfill their role as housewives, encouraged women as consumers to fight against high living costs, and to raise their interest in partaking in other avenues of public life within the country, such as work and political participation. The First Lady's efforts to advocate the evolution of women reform led to the modern techniques of the women reform. In the 1960s, campaigns for the Christian democrat, Frei, emphasized women and women's issues. Voting had just become mandatory for all Chileans and was the first time in history registration for female voters increased from thirty-five percent to seventy-five percent. The Christian democratic change of government opened women's access to birth control. However, the government's emphasis on the modernization of women institutions and underlying issues of gender hierarchy, women in poverty were neglected. Restrictions within the women's institutions, mother centers, restricted mothers under 18. To further structurally cripple Chilean women, first lady Maria Ruiz Tagle de Frei supervised "proper functioning" of feminist organizations. The Central Organization for Mothers (CEMA) was created as a formal structure to advise the underprivileged Chilean mothers. Carmen Gloria Aguayo revolutionized the mother's centers during the period of conflict between change and tradition during the Christian democrat campaign. Ms. Aguayo also headed the party's women's departments amongst forty-eight men and reflected the political direction of the initiatives: policies to protect the family- defending women's rights to work, to maternity leave, to equitable pay and occupation, a new opportunities for training and learning in the promised department for female labor studies. Because familial welfare was deemed important within the Chilean society, mothers have served as a political representation to have a voice in amongst the government.
Legal rights Currently, women have many of the same rights as men. The National Women's Service (SERNAM) is charged with protecting women's legal rights in the public sector.
Marriage Until 2020, women lost their right to manage their own assets once they were married and husbands received all of the wealth, but that law has since changed and women can now administer their own assets. A couple can also sign a legal agreement before marriage so that all assets continue to be owned by the one who brought them into the marriage.
The Chilean Civil Code previously mandated that wives had to live with and be faithful and obedient to their husbands, but it is no longer in the law. A married woman cannot be head of the household or head of the family in the same way as a man; however, married women are not required by law to obey their husbands.
Divorce Chile legalized divorce in 2004, overturning an 1884 legal code. The law that legalizes divorce is the New Civil Marriage Law which was first introduced as a bill in 1995. There had been previous divorce bills before, but this one managed to secure enough conservative and liberal support to pass.
With divorce now being legal, four marital statuses exist within Chile: married, separated, divorced, and widow (er). Only the divorced and widow (er) statuses allow a new marriage. Before the legalization of divorce, the only way to leave a marriage was to obtain a civil annulment which would only be granted by telling the civil registrar that the spouse had lied in some way concerning the marriage license, thereby voiding the marriage contract.
Property In marriage, there are three types of assets: those of the husband, those of the wife, and the common assets that pertain to both. Land and houses in a marriage continue to be the property of the person who brought them to the marriage, but in order to sell them, both the husband and wife must sign. In the case of divorce, both the man and woman are entitled to ownership of the marital home. In the case of the death of a spouse, the surviving spouse, regardless of gender, has equal inheritance rights to the marital home. If there is no will when the husband dies, the wife is given an equal category as the children for inheritance. Before marriage, a couple can sign a legal document separating all assets so that the woman and man each administer her or his own; in this case, the husband cannot control his wife's assets.
If women work outside the home independent of their husbands, acquire personal assets, and can prove that they came by these assets through their independent work, then these working women can accumulate these assets as their own, unable to be touched by husbands.
Sons and daughters have equal inheritance rights to moveable and immovable property from their parents. Unmarried men and women have equal ownership rights to moveable and immoveable property.
In rural Chile, inheritance is the principal way in which land is acquired by both men and women, whether the land has titles or not. Sometimes women and men cannot claim their inheritance to land without titles because the cost of legal documents is too high.
Suffrage Women were granted the right to vote in municipal elections in 1931 and obtained the right to vote in national elections on January 8, 1949, resulting in their ability to vote under the same equal conditions as men and increasing women's participation in politics.
Family law Both Chilean men and women qualify for a family allowance if they have dependent children under the age of eighteen (or twenty-four if in school). There are differences in entitlement requirements for the spouse-related family allowance since a man qualifies for a family allowance if he has a dependent wife, but a woman only qualifies for a family allowance if her husband is disabled. Until a reform of paternity laws in 1998, children born outside marriage had less right to parental financial support and inheritance than children born within marriage. A bill was passed in 2007 to give mothers direct access to child support payments.