Urban Pioneers: The Role of Women in the Local Government of Santiago, Chile, 1935-1946

Introduction

When Socialist Ricardo Lagos assumed the presidency of Chile in January 2000, he named five women to his 16 -member cabinet. While these five appointments were primarily to ministries that dealt with "women's issues" such as education and health care, he also named Christian Democrat Soledad Alvear to the prestigious post of minister of foreign affairs.¹ Two months later, he also appointed lawyer Patricia Carrasco as a kind of "super mayor" (alcalde mayor) to oversee social development in the largely urban province of Santiago.² Soon thereafter, former first lady Marta Larraechea de Frei, the wife of ex-president Eduardo Frei Jr. (1994-2000), announced that she would run for the office of mayor of Santiago.³ At the same time, Gladys Marín Millie served as the head of the Communist Party and had been a first-round presidential candidate herself in 1999.⁴ Countless other women occupied important positions throughout the nation's local and national administrations. In January 2002, Lagos named Michelle Bachelet as his minister of defense—the first woman to assume that post in Latin America—making her, along with Alvear, a potential presidential candidate for 2006.⁵

The prominence of women in Chilean political life reflects, in large part, their electoral influence. In 1949 Chilean women achieved the right to vote in national elections, and they have been crucial in both right- and left-wing campaigns (although more the former than the latter) ever since. Half a million more women than men voted in the 2000 presidential election, and it was incumbent upon both major candidates to make special appeals to their female constituencies.⁶ In the democratic transition following the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), all political parties have paid increasing attention to women's issues and to women's participation in the political arena.⁷ Chilean women have been important actors at the local level as well. Legislation enacted in 1934 granted them the right to vote in municipal elections, and they were also allowed to run for local administrative positions starting in 1935. From that time forward, women made their presence felt in various municipal governments, serving most commonly as elected members of city councils or, on occasion, appointed or elected as mayors of several major Chilean cities.⁸

There is a recent and growing literature on the role of women in Chilean national life in general, and in the political sphere in particular.⁹ While much of this literature examines women's suffrage and political role at the local and national levels, no one has yet studied female elected officials' actual performance in office.¹⁰ I aim to fill this gap by examining women's initial participation both as voters and as city council members and administrators in Santiago, the nation's capital and largest city. In the process, I will address particular questions with larger implications.

What were the constraints and challenges that women faced in this form of political participation—not just as voters, but as elected officials? On the one hand, as the first women to participate in municipal government—in a sense, as "urban pioneers" for their gender—they faced a more intense scrutiny than did their male colleagues in order to prove their ability to function effectively in a highly competitive and partisan arena. While it was rarely stated openly, undoubtedly many skeptics believed that women would not be up to the task. On the other hand, some argued that the presence of women in municipal government would mean sweeping change. Repeating a familiar trope of Southern Cone feminism, this camp alleged that women's innate virtue (especially as wives and mothers) would bring a badly needed morality to city governments notably lacking in this regard.¹¹ Moreover, as Margaret Power has argued, Chile's male-dominated political...