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4. Gendered Citizenship Rights on the Peaceful Road to Socialism
- University of Pittsburgh Press
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|| || G E N D E R E D C I T I Z E N S H I P R I G H T S O N T H E P E A C E F U L R O A D T O S O C I A L I S M When I say “woman,” I always think of the woman-mother. . . . When I talk of the woman, I refer to her in her function in the nuclear family. . . . [T]he child is the prolongation of the woman who in essence is born to be a mother. President Salvador Allende Gossens, W L, a woman in her early twenties, talked about her experiences under President Allende’s government (–), she painted a picture markedly different from the established portrait of women’s roles.She recalled her initial plunge into politics in the late s,at which time she was involved in struggles for land that led to the foundation of Nueva La Havana (New Havana), a campamento on the outskirts of Santiago.₁The campamentos,she explained , were not like other shantytowns, because those who lived in them were politically conscious and militant, energized by the land occupations that had brought them together and by the need to defend their communities.New Havana was founded in November ,when three smaller campamentos were merged together as a result of eight prior land takeovers led by the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR,the Movement of the Revolutionary Left).² Laura knew that, in practice, the political structures in her campamento, and the tasks assigned to men and women, differed from the model of popular participation proposed by PresidentAllende’s coalition party.³ In New Havana, an elected high command of members directed a horizontal structure, con-|| || sisting of both cultural and health fronts as well as defensive militias that addressed the residents’most urgent needs.Often considered as replacements for state services,the fronts were organizations that promoted solidarity and social cohesion as they solved problems for the community.⁴The militias, for example , dealt with threats to the neighborhood and with internal security. Laura asserted that in New Havana “women were prominent in all . . . activities, whereas in other campamentos there were special women’s sections which precluded participation on equal terms. . . . [T]here was real integration; in the directorate, on the marches, even in the confrontations. . . .This weakened male chauvinism at a very basic level. Of course there was a lot of resistance to this—cases of husbands forbidding wives to go to the meetings,and drinking and beating them up if they did so.”₅ Quite different from Allende’s vision of the functions of the “woman-mother,” Laura envisioned herself as an integral part of the community where her political engagement was unrelated to her role in a nuclear family. Like many pobladoras, she also began to shift her sense of collective responsibility toward fellow women.₆ New Havana became“something of an attraction to intellectuals and artists” after .Laura recalled that these outsiders’interests seemed somewhat detached from local realities and often counterproductive to political collaboration . Intellectuals came to New Havana meetings and, in an effort to enhance the residents’ political knowledge, launched discussions on such topics as the global causes of underdevelopment and its implications on the national level. According to Laura, these interactions were uncalled for, since “local people already had a profound political education arising from their own experiences . . . [and], although many of them were politically active, they weren’t necessarily interested in political debates by intellectuals.”⁷ Local problems shaped pobladores‘ activism on the local front, but in practice gender relations and everyday life were not as harmonious as some distant observers assumed. For instance,many women were especially committed to fighting alcoholism,given that drunken confrontations often led to domestic violence. According to Laura’s experiences, “alcoholism was also a mainstay of male chauvinism . . . especially [as] . . . many women had social activities outside the home.. . .This new independence caused some really violent scenes, especially on paydays, when drinking was always at its heaviest.”⁸ Her take on women’s initiatives reflected an optimistic view of political participation across gender lines, but it also exposed the arduous realities of women’s lives.Clearly,the women who lived in campamentos or in other poor neighborhoods struggled with the everyGendered Citizenship Rights|| || [44.212.26.248] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 17:23 GMT) day challenges resulting from class and gender inequalities. Poverty and domestic violence did not disappear...