"Nunca más sin nosotras": Chile's fight for women's rights

by Camille Saunders

TW: mentions of gender based violence, death and rape

In 2020, “Nunca más sin nosotras” (“never again without us women”) captioned the wave of unrest gripping Chile’s streets, with more than a million women protesting for equal rights.

La Coordinadora Feminista 8M, the country’s largest feminist advocacy group, explained that it was a defining year for women as they focussed on liberalising abortion, which was made legal in dangerous circumstances or rape in 2017[1], and cracking down on domestic violence. The anti-rape song ‘A Rapist in Your Path’ quickly became viral with protests taking place all over the Spanish-speaking world, and even being translated into other languages so that activists could participate no matter where they lived. The chorus repeats “it wasn’t my fault, nor where I was, nor what I wore”, a mantra that spoke directly to the heart of survivors of gender-based violence. The song blamed the police, the legal system and the state for their inaction against the patriarchy, and for many politicians, for actively upholding it.

In particular, only days before International Women’s Day, the president of Chile, Sebastian Piñera, said that “sometimes it’s not just that men want to commit abuse, but also that women put themselves in a position where they are abused.” These comments came less than two years after the nation was shaken by the cases of Fernanda Maciel and Nabila Rifo, which were defining illustrations of the violence women in Chile risk every day. Maciel had been abducted outside her house at 7 months pregnant and buried in her neighbour’s garage, and Rifo had been violently blinded by her partner. However, while Piñera’s comments were disrespectful and untrue, they are an accurate reflection of how much work needs to be done not just to change legislation, but also a social mentality.

Similarly, Karen Vergara, an anti-lesbophobia activist based in Quillota, said her community feels “under threat – as soon as you step out of your home you are in danger”. This was following a series of attacks on lesbian women across Chile, particularly against ‘camionas’, Chilean slang for women who reject archetypal femininity and prefer wearing traditionally masculine clothing. Testimonies[2]include camionas being verbally abused by local men and by the police, being beaten, abducted and tortured. In many cases of street violence against camionas, though the police had dismissed their beatings as a mugging or armed robbery, the victims were found with their wallets still full of money in their pockets, suggesting that the only reason for their deaths was their sexual orientation.

This paints a dark picture for the near future of Chile, as President Piñera continues to turn a blind eye to these injustices and maintains his views of women “putting themselves in [abusive] situations”. This stands in stark contrast to his predecessor, Michelle Bachelet Jeria. Having been elected as the first female Chilean President from 2006 to 2010 and then again from 2014 to 2018, Bachelet then became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Her legacy is fundamental to improving accessibility and equality in Chile, including education reform, tax reform, the Civil Union Act, establishing the Ministry of Women and Gender Equality and the adoption of political participation quotas. While Sebastian Piñera is the first conservative President in Chile since Pinochet, Bachelet’s legacy will be hard to shake.

Therefore, while it may seem like a step backwards for politics now, the millions of women protesting in 2020 suggest that they will continue defending their rights and pursuing equality until they can be satisfied with what the state provides them. Much like under the Pinochet regime when women led resistance groups and opened illegal centres for victims of state violence, the spirit of Chilean women has not broken in the face of adversity in the past, and will not in the future.

by Camille Saunders

Photo credit: https://regionalista.cl/a-un-ano-del-18-de-octubre-nunca-mas-sin-nosotras/

[1] ‘Abortion in Chile’, Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Chile#Move_towards_liberalisation_of_the_law

[2] 'The Red Zone - a place where butch lesbians live in fear', by Megha Mohan, 24th June 2019 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-48719453