Cambridge University Press 0521811503 - Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile Lisa Baldez Frontmatter More information Why Women Protest Why do women protest? Under what conditions do women protest on the basis of their gender identity? Lisa Baldez answers this question in terms of three concepts: tipping, timing, and framing. She relies on the concept of tipping to identify the main object of study – the point at which diverse orga- nizations converge to form a women’s movement. She argues that two condi- tions trigger this cascade of mobilization among women: partisan realignment, understood as the emergence of a new set of issues around which political elites define themselves, and women’s decision to frame realignment in terms of widely held norms about gender difference. To illustrate these claims, she compares two very different women’s movements in Chile: the mobilization of women against President Salvador Allende (1970–3) and that against General Augusto Pinochet (1973–90). Despite important differences between these two movements, both emerged amidst a context of partisan realignment and framed their concerns in terms of women’s exclusion from the political arena. Lisa Baldez is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Harbison Faculty Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis. © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521811503 - Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile Lisa Baldez Frontmatter More information Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics General Editor Margaret Levi University of Washington, Seattle Assistant General Editor Stephen Hanson University of Washington, Seattle Associate Editors Robert H. Bates Harvard University Peter Hall Harvard University Peter Lange Duke University Helen Milner Columbia University Frances Rosenbluth Yale University Susan Stokes University of Chicago Sidney Tarrow Cornell University Other Books in the Series Stefano Bartolini, The Political Mobilization of the European Left, 1860–1980: The Class Cleavage Carles Boix, Political Parties, Growth and Equality: Conservative and Social Democratic Economic Strategies in the World Economy Catherine Boone, Merchant Capital and the Roots of State Power in Senegal, 1930–1985 Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective Valerie Bunce, Leaving Socialism and Leaving the State: The End of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia Ruth Berins Collier, Paths Toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America Nancy Bermeo, ed., Unemployment in the New Europe Donatella della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State Gerald Easter, Reconstructing the State: Personal Networks and Elite Identity Roberto Franzosi, The Puzzle of Strikes: Class and State Strategies in Postwar Italy Geoffrey Garrett, Partisan Politics in the Global Economy Miriam Golden, Heroic Defeats: The Politics of Job Loss Jeff Goodwin, No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945–1991 Merilee Serrill Grindle, Changing the State Frances Hagopian, Traditional Politics and Regime Change in Brazil J. Rogers Hollingsworth and Robert Boyer, eds., Contemporary Capitalism: The Embeddedness of Institutions Ellen Immergut, Health Politics: Interests and Institutions in Western Europe Torben Iversen, Contested Economic Institutions Continued on page following the Index © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521811503 - Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile Lisa Baldez Frontmatter More information Why Women Protest WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS IN CHILE LISA BALDEZ Washington University © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521811503 - Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile Lisa Baldez Frontmatter More information PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org © Lisa Baldez 2002 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2002 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge Typeface Janson Text 10/13pt. System QuarkXPress [BTS] A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Baldez, Lisa. Why women protest: women’s movements in Chile / Lisa Baldez. p. cm. – (Cambridge studies in comparative politics) Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. ISBN 0-521-81150-3 – ISBN 0-521-01006-3 (pb.) 1. Women in politics – Chile – History – 20th century. 2. Protest movements – Chile – Case studies. 3. Women in politics. 4. Gender identity – Political aspects. I. Title. II. Series. HQ1236.5.C5 B35 2002 305.42¢0983 – dc21 2001052842 ISBN 0 521 81150 3 hardback ISBN 0 521 01006 3 paperback © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521811503 - Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile Lisa Baldez Frontmatter More information For John © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521811503 - Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile Lisa Baldez Frontmatter More information Contents List of Figures and Tables page xi Preface xiii 1 WHY WOMEN PROTEST: TIPPING, TIMING, AND FRAMING 1 2 MOTHERS OF THE COLD WAR, DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF WOMEN AND CHILEAN POLITICS 21 Part One: Women Against Allende 3 THE REVOLUTION HITS HOME: WOMEN ORGANIZE AGAINST ALLENDE 49 4 CATAPULTING MEN TO ACTION: THE MARCH OF THE EMPTY POTS 76 5 “FEMININE POWER” AND THE END OF THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION 98 Part Two: Women Against Pinochet 6 GENDERED NETWORKS AND THE REBIRTH OF CIVIL SOCIETY 125 7 WOMEN DEFEND LIFE: MASS PROTESTS AND THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT 146 8 DEMOCRACY IN THE COUNTRY AND IN THE HOME: WOMEN FOR AND AGAINST DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION 168 ix © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521811503 - Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile Lisa Baldez Frontmatter More information Contents 9 WHY WOMEN PROTEST: COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE 196 References 209 Index 227 x © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521811503 - Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile Lisa Baldez Frontmatter More information Figures and Tables Figures 2.1 Gender Gap in Chilean Presidential Elections (Percent of Female and Male Support for Winning Candidate). page 27 2.2 Results of 1952 Presidential Election. 29 2.3 Results of 1964 Presidential Election. 37 3.1 Results of 1970 Presidential Election. 53 3.2 Support for Salvador Allende, 1952–1970. 54 8.1 Results of 1988 Plebiscite. 175 8.2 Results of 1989 Presidential Election. 181 Table 8.1 Women’s Appointments to the Executive Branch, 1990–2000. 182 xi © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521811503 - Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile Lisa Baldez Frontmatter More information Preface On October 16, 1998, British authorities arrested Chile’s former military dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, as he recovered from back surgery at a private London clinic. Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón had requested that London police detain Pinochet so that he could be extradited to Spain and tried for human-rights violations. Just prior to the arrest, Pinochet seemed to be basking in glory and ease, symbolized by his friendship with Margaret Thatcher, Pinochet’s free-market heroine. Pinochet’s arrest focused the world’s attention on Chile. In Chile, the event galvanized the dictator’s old supporters into action. Scores of women flew to London on chartered jets to support the general. They held vigils to pray for Pinochet’s return to Chile. Their speeches invoked the same rhetoric they had used against Chilean President Salvador Allende nearly three decades earlier. “We women will fight until the end so that a Marxist government never returns to power in this country,” said Patricia Maldonado, leader of a group called “Women for the Dignity of Chile,” according to the Santiago Times (December 16, 1998). In Santiago, pro- Pinochet women burned British flags outside the British and Spanish embassies to demand his return. Women’s fervor for Pinochet provides a stark contrast to the view of Latin American women as supporters of democracy. Most of the news about women in Latin America in the past two decades has highlighted women’s efforts to promote the return to civilian rule and bring human-rights violators to justice. In Chile, for example, women formed a movement against the military in the late 1970s and 1980s. These two different per- spectives on women’s mobilization could not have been more clear to me than when I interviewed activists from both movements in the early 1990s. Before I left to do my fieldwork, I worried that activists from the xiii © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521811503 - Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile Lisa Baldez Frontmatter More information Preface anti-Allende movement would not want to