Chilean Women’s Resistance To The Pinochet Regime: How Unified Was Their Movement?

General Augusto Pinochet led a military coup on September 11, 1973 that effectively ended the democratically elected socialist government and enforced a dictatorship until 1990. Women across Chile rose up against the oppressive regime in whatever way they could. Some did so overtly, others unintentionally. The diversity within these female acts of resistance complicated the movement when considering it as a whole. Due to its multifaceted nature, I chose to analyze the movement in terms of types of resistance, socioeconomic classes of the female actors, and the role of gender identity. I also investigated how these three factors interacted. I argue that there is sufficient heterogeneity within the women’s movement to push against the classification of Chilean women’s resistance as simply a single women’s movement. Rather, the movement should be considered in all its complexity. The existence of unintentional resistance, intra-movement conflict, and elitism within the resistance merits a closer look at this so-called “unified” women’s movement.International Relations and Global Studie