Hard times for citizenship: Women's movements in Chile and Mexico

Abstract

This article comparatively analyses the cases of Mexico and Chile to understand how women's movements contest the meaning of citizenship in various national contexts. We also assess the consequences that different movement strategies, such as ‘autonomy’ versus ‘double militancy’, have for movements' citizenship goals. To explain the different outcomes in the two cases, we focus on the nature of the democratic transition, the internal coherence of women's movements, the nature of alliances with other civil society actors, the ideological orientation of the newly democratized state, the form of women's agency within the state, and the nature of the neoliberal economic reforms. We argue that a serious problem for women in both Chile and Mexico is the fact that governments themselves are deploying the concept of citizenship as a way to legitimate their social and economic policies. While women's movements seek to broaden the meaning of citizenship to include social rights, neoliberal governments employ the rhetoric of citizen activism to encourage society to provide its own solutions to economic hardship and poverty. While this trend is occurring in both Chile and Mexico, there are some features of the political opportunity structure in Chile that enable organized women to contest the state's more narrow vision of democratic citizenship. In Mexico, on the other hand, the neoliberal economic discourse of the current government is matched by a profoundly conservative ideological rhetoric, thereby reducing the political opportunities for women to forward a gender equality agenda.

Notes

Laura Macdonald, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada; e‐mail: [email protected]

Susan Franceschet, Department of Political Science, Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada; e‐mail: [email protected]

Susan Franceschet, Department of Political Science, Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada; e‐mail: [email protected]

Lamas states, ‘An alliance with panistas was impossible for me, since the dogmatic and moralizing ideology of the PAN is totally opposed to feminism’ (Lamas, 1998, p. 108). Of course President Fox himself is not particularly conservative on social matters as witnessed by his own divorce and recent remarriage; he is also relatively independent from the traditional PAN machine. Nevertheless, the conservative nature of the governing party poses clear problems for Mexican feminists.

We do not wish to conflate the aims of SERNAM with the aims of individuals (who may or may not consider themselves feminists) who work within SERNAM. We are aware that feminists within SERNAM may hold views that go well beyond what could reasonably be promoted from within the confines of a state agency. That being said, however, SERNAM itself can still be considered to represent one segment of a broader women's movement.

In one document, an important women's organization of the period stated: ‘We value our maternal role and exercise it with great commitment and responsibility, but our realization as persons is not exhausted by it’. (‘Demandas de las mujeres a la democracia’, reproduced in Gaviola et al., 1994, pp. 251–56.)

These demands are found in Movimiento Feminista's ‘Manifesto Feminista’, Mujeres Por la Vida's ‘Pliego de las Mujeres’, and in MEMCH ‘83’s ‘Principios y Reivindicaciones que Configuran la Plataforma de la Mujer Chilena’. All of these documents are reproduced in Gaviola et al. (1994, pp. 234–47).

The extremely bitter partisan conflicts that helped to create the conditions for the 1973 coup also helped to keep an effective pro‐democratic opposition from forming. Indeed, the divisions among the pro‐democracy forces were a key motivation for the formation of Mujeres Por la Vida, a cross‐party alliance of women to protest human rights violations and to struggle for democracy (Valenzuela, 1991; Baldez, 2002).

The Chilean Constitution was revised by the military in 1980 and contained a clause specifying a plebiscite on Pinochet's rule in 1988.

Both features were put in place by Pinochet prior to the transition to democracy. The binomial majoritarian electoral system divides the country into two‐member districts in which winning both seats requires that a party double the votes of the second highest vote‐getter. Where it does not, the second seat goes to the second‐placed party. This system replaced the proportional representation one in place prior to the dictatorship.

Lagos' ‘Plan AUGE’ would prioritize certain medical conditions and guarantee universal access to health care (http://mujer.tercera.cl/2002/05/11/plan‐auge.htm). However, it has come under very heavy criticism from the private sector and from the political right.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan Franceschet

Laura Macdonald, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada; e‐mail: [email protected] Susan Franceschet, Department of Political Science, Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada; e‐mail: [email protected]