Representing Women’s Interests in Post-Dictatorship Chile: Tensions and Conflicts

This paper discusses the conflicts arising from the institutionalization of gender policies and the professionalization of feminism in the Chilean post-dictatorship (1990 to now), having to do with defining and representing women’s interests. After showing how the Chilean transition to democracy is a unique and limited process, the paper explores these conflicts by analyzing the relations between the State’s gender policies and institutionalized feminism, and on the other hand the marginalized and dissident voices of protest (feminists, poor women or indigenous women). Finally, the discussion focuses on accounting for the interactions of different social relations of domination to perfect democratic pluralism.