This book is a critical resource for understanding the relationship between gender, social policy and women’s activism in Latin America, with specific reference to Chile. Latin America’s mother-centered kinship system makes it an ideal field in which to study motherhood and maternalism—the ways in which motherhood becomes a public policy issue. As maternalism embraces and enhances gender differences, it has been criticized for deepening gender inequalities. Yet invoking motherhood continues to offer an effective strategy for advancing women’s living conditions and rights, and for women themselves to be present in the public sphere. In analyzing these important relationships, the contributors to this volume discuss maternal health, sexual and reproductive rights, labor programs, paid employment, women miners’ unionization, housing policies, environmental suffering, and LGBTQ intimate partner violence.

"This is a very exciting collection that will fill an important gap in what has emerged in comparative studies of women and Latin American democracies. Maier and Lebon provide provocative overview essays, and the chapters trace a range of cases from Argentina and Brazil to Nicaragua and Venezuela, showing how institutions. leaders and culture all shape the opportunities and challenges women face."---Jane Jaquette, editor of Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America --

Mothers Making Latin America utilizes a combination of gender scholarship and source material to dispel the belief that women were separated from—or unimportant to—central developments in Latin American history since independence. Presents nuanced issues in gender historiography for Latin America in a readable narrative for undergraduate students Offers brief, primary-source document excerpts at the end of each chapter that instructors can use to stimulate class discussion Adheres to a focus on motherhood, which allows for a coherent narrative that touches upon important themes without falling into a “list of facts” textbook style

An upsurge in women's activism across Latin America over the past decade has provoked vigorous discussions about feminism, machismo and the whole process of social change in this diverse continent. The 25 essays in Compañeras: Voices from the Latin American Women's Movement present a unique overview of current debates amongst Latin American women activists.--Back cover.

Women's grassroots activism in Latin America combines a commitment to basic survival for women and their children with a challenge to women's subordination to men. Women activists insist that issues such as rape, battering, and reproductive control cannot be divorced from women's concerns about housing, food, land, and medical care. This innovative, comparative study explores six cases of women's grassroots activism in Mexico, El Salvador, Brazil, and Chile. Lynn Stephen communicates the ideas, experiences, and perceptions of women who participate in collective action, while she explains the structural conditions and ideological discourses that set the context within which women act and interpret their experiences. She includes revealing interviews with activists, detailed histories of organizations and movements, and a theoretical discussion of gender, collective identity, and feminist anthropology and methods.

Mothers Making Latin America utilizes a combination of gender scholarship and source material to dispel the belief that women were separated from—or unimportant to—central developments in Latin American history since independence. Presents nuanced issues in gender historiography for Latin America in a readable narrative for undergraduate students Offers brief, primary-source document excerpts at the end of each chapter that instructors can use to stimulate class discussion Adheres to a focus on motherhood, which allows for a coherent narrative that touches upon important themes without falling into a “list of facts” textbook style

With the 2006 election of Michelle Bachelet as the first female president and women claiming fifty percent of her cabinet seats, the political influence of Chilean women has taken a major step forward. Despite a seemingly liberal political climate, Chile has a murky history on women's rights, and progress has been slow, tenuous, and in many cases, non-existent. Chronicling an era of unprecedented modernization and political transformation, Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney examines the negotiations over women's rights and the politics of gender in Chile throughout the twentieth century. Centering her study on motherhood, Pieper Mooney explores dramatic changes in health policy, population paradigms, and understandings of human rights, and reveals that motherhood is hardly a private matter defined only by individual women or couples. Instead, it is intimately tied to public policies and political competitions on nation-state and international levels. The increased legitimacy of women's demands for rights, both locally and globally, has led to some improvements in gender equity. Yet feminists in contemporary Chile continue to face strong opposition from neoconservatism in the Catholic Church and a mixture of public apathy and legal wrangling over reproductive rights and health.

Revolutionizing Motherhood examines one of the most astonishing human rights movements of recent years. During the Argentine junta's Dirty War against subversives, as tens of thousands were abducted, tortured, and disappeared, a group of women forged the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and changed Argentine politics forever. The Mothers began in the 1970s as an informal group of working-class housewives making the rounds of prisons and military barracks in search of their disappeared children. As they realized that both state and church officials were conspiring to withhold information, they started to protest, claiming the administrative center of Argentina the Plaza de Mayo for their center stage. In this volume, Marguerite G. Bouvard traces the history of the Mothers and examines how they have transformed maternity from a passive, domestic role to one of public strength. Bouvard also gives a detailed history of contemporary Argentina, including the military's debacle in the Falklands, the fall of the junta, and the efforts of subsequent governments to reach an accord with the Mothers. Finally, she examines their current agenda and their continuing struggle to bring the murderers of their children to justice.

Even though in most nations women are at least almost half of the population, in very few countries do they occupy a similar space in the formal institutions of political power. They are said to lack a key element for a successful career in public life: time. From this perspective, no one is worse off than women who are mothers. From another perspective, however, motherhood is thought to help politicize women, as this life-changing experience makes them aware of the limitations of some specific public policies (such as child-care, parental leave, gendered labor practices etc.) as well as more conscious of the centrality of more encompassing public policies, such as education, health care, and social assistance. This book explores the challenges, obstacles, opportunities and experiences of mothers who take part in political and/or public life.