Knowledge and the Gender System in Chile: A Political and Pragmatic Expertise in a Context of Democratization

Since the transition to democracy, a politicization of gender has been developing in Chile, in state agencies devoted to women’s rights as well as in feminist groups. The concept of gender, issued from both activist and academic knowledge, has seen its meaning (gender as category, as identity, as normative concept, and as pragmatic tool) profoundly altered by the three major modalities of the exercise of public responsibility by the so-called institutional feminists: a reflection on the ways women are excluded from public space, participation in the creation of social normativity, and vigilance towards institutions and state apparatus. The political proposals concerning women’s rights, already put forward by feminist groups during the dictatorship, after the return to democracy led to public discourses that reflect a naturalization, a politicization, or a sociologization of gender relationships.