Good Wives and Unfaithful Men: Gender Negotiations and Sexual Conflicts in the Chilean Agrarian Reform, 1964-1973

On 14 February 1972 Hilda Gutiérrez Sánchez, described in judicial records as an "older housewife" living on a state-managed farm in rural Chile, charged a 25-year-old agricultural worker, Juan Pérez Hernández, of attempting to rape her while she was harvesting beans. She told the court that Pérez had passed under the barbed wire separating their places of work and sexually propositioned her while four of his male coworkers watched. She said that, although she had replied that she was a married woman, Pérez threw her to the ground and began ripping her clothes. Gutiérrez claimed she prevented the rape by screaming, at which point all of the men fled, but not before Pérez hit her and menaced, "You're lucky I don't have a knife!" ¹ All four of Juan Pérez's coworkers testified that Hilda Gutiérrez was lying. Despite their contradictory accounts (two men reported that she was not even working in the field that day; two others maintained that, while she had been, they had heard no cries of distress), all of the men, together with Pérez's father, defended the accused's innocence on the basis of his honor. One testified to Pérez's "shy and peaceful character," another to the fact that he was a "responsible and hard worker, a man without vices," and still another to Pérez being a man who "doesn't [sexually] play around and is incapable of this kind of behavior." ²

Hilda Gutiérrez also defended the veracity of her story on the basis of honor. She stressed her married status and attempts to resist even in the face of personal danger (Pérez's threat about what he would do with a knife); and she submitted a statement from a local women's organization testifying to her upstanding character. Marked with the thumbprints and signatures of 17 of her comembers, the document sternly condemned Pérez's depravity and called for his severe punishment in order to protect young girls from future attacks. Finally, the women challenged the integrity of the investigation:

We the undersigned, wish to leave it clear that Sra. Hilda Gutiérrez Sánchez, who we have known for a long time, whose life is without reproach, who is [an elected leader] in this Mothers' Center, and who is an exemplar mother, has never been seen with a man other than her husband. . . . We want to clarify that the drunk Juan Pérez Hernández attempted to rape her . . . and ask that justice be done as we consider [this man] a grave danger to all young girls who have to cut beans on this road or pass by it on the way to school. . . . It is clear that [the Pérez Hernández family] has very bad antecedents and we ask that they be expelled from the [county]. . . . We also have reason to believe that the official in charge of the investigation has been swayed by outside influential parties and ask for a new investigation. ³

Juan Pérez responded with an attack on Gutiérrez's sexuality. While finally admitting that he had crossed over the fence to see her, he insisted this had been at her request, that she had asked him if he had a girlfriend and insinuated that she wanted to have sex, and that she had challenged his manliness when he honorably declined:

When I refused, she insulted me for being unmanly and threatened me. I would not do such a thing because I am very Catholic, I'm a friend of her husband's, and she is not desirable. ⁴

This case began in 1972 on Valentine's Day, two years after Salvador Allende Gossens was elected president and began taking Chile...