Women

Abstract

In relation to women, the Frei government engaged in extensive attempts at modernisation, which intended at the same time to preserve many of the traditional attitudes and roles. Its policy objectives could well be represented by the slogan A cada mujer chilena una máquina de coser (‘we will give a sewing machine to each woman in Chile’, Bradshaw, 1990). It was going to take twenty years, the failure of the first Christian Democratic experiment, the Allende period of ‘transition to socialism’, a military coup, and the Pinochet regime, for Chilean women to offer a coherent, independent response. To a large extent this response can be condensed into a message often seen in street demonstrations during the 1980s: Democracia en el país y en la casa (‘democracy in the country and at home’).