Of the 7 candidates running for president in Chile this Sunday, only one is a woman. However, there are several candidates for deputies with a strong feminist agenda. The next president of Chile will undoubtedly have to have a new Constitution written equally by women where they will try to capture and materialize the principles of the feminist movement that emerged with force in the country in recent years.
Lorena Fries, is one of the historical feminists of Chile, faithful fighter for human rights, Director of the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) during the second government of Michele Bachelet (2014-2018) and, subsequently, in charge of the Humanas Corporation, a key institution in the fight for equal rights for women and abortion, among others.
Now she sees the possibility of contributing to change in Chile as a deputy in Congress for the 10th district of Santiago, one of the most disputed.
“They should vote for me because I have been working in the world of feminist social movements and human rights for many years and it is clear that these two axes have been the epicenter of the social revolt of October 18,” he tells France 24 while distributing propaganda electoral in the busy market of the Persian Bio Bio of Santiago.
That role will be key for “a Constitutional Convention that, without a doubt, in terms of gender and human rights will be a step forward. For the same reason, because it is necessary to put into practice, implement that new Constitution that will have to defend those human rights and feminism tooth and nail in Parliament, ”she says fiercely.
Fries points out that there are key issues that the Convention will surely resolve, such as “parity in all public and private spaces, more equity in company and union boards,” the Caregiver State and the idea of generating a national system of care that recognizes the work that women have historically carried out ”, and thirdly“ sovereignty over life plans and over the body that means sexual and reproductive rights and eradicate gender violence in Chile ”, he lists.
For the candidate for deputy, the institutionality “is more backward than the advances and social practice,” she affirms in relation to abortion, and trusts that, with the arrival of the possible candidate of her coalition, Gabriel Boric, from the Frente Amplio, they will leave. to be able to promote laws such as free abortion.
His candidacy is produced “due to the political context that the registry expanded,” in relation to the effect of the October 18 revolt on Chilean society, “we are all more politicized today.”
Powerful Leaderships
“I had a time of feminism during the 80s where we were on the streets, but then the wave receded, that does not mean that we went home, but there were very few of us,” says Fries. Feminists “were niches and the truth is that May 2018 was a tremendous emergence of issues that had not been made visible.” In addition, with powerful feminist leaderships that “have succeeded in incorporating the feminist perspective into the projects that today seek transformation, something that my generation could not do in a context of protected democracy.”
Fries does not minimize the threat posed in the country by the advance of the far-right José Antonio Kast, one of the favorites to go to the second round. “For me it is to return to the dictatorship in terms of the gender model that Pinochet implemented, which is a unique, exclusive, traditional model of roles where women do not have a place, and sexual dissidents less, the right to decide on their life, but to follow what traditional values have been, is to be on the brink of fascism ”, he concludes.
For many, the hope of feminism is undoubtedly placed in that new Constitution that is beginning to be written in Chile, the first that will be equal in the world. Giovanna Roa is one of the 155 chosen to write the text destined to bury the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). With a track record as a feminist and student leader, you will ensure that laws can be translated into practice.
We are going to achieve equality “by writing verbatim the rights of women, which nowadays do not exist”, and also by advancing towards a social, democratic and rights state that is a “Caregiver State”, agrees with Fries. For Roa, a parity Constitutional Convention, that is, equal representation, is part of women’s rights, but it does not guarantee by itself that the new Constitution will be feminist.
“We are going to translate feminism into the conversation with social movements,” she says, “we are going to promote agendas of rights over our bodies, sexual and reproductive education, decent health, which can also allow us to exercise our rights. rights and of course substantive equality at work. Those agendas go beyond equality, they seek social justice, we believe in feminism as the social transformation that can help us get out of this neoliberal model, ”she explains loquaciously.
Heirs of the feminists of the dictatorship
Although abortion will not be explicit in the new Constitution, it indicates that, if “the right to the autonomy of our bodies” must be written, in order to exercise sexual and reproductive rights.
“We are heirs and we continue to work with the women who put their bodies in resistance to the dictatorship,” says Roa in tribute to the generations of historical feminists who fought before the current ones. Heirs of those “who had it much more difficult than us, and we also thank the students”, who in 2018 generated the first modern feminist wave and who laterIn 2019, in high school, by jumping the subway turnstiles, they lit the fuse of the social revolt October, he says.
“As a conventional I feel the duty, the popular mandate, to bring feminism to a feminist democracy, to a democratic depth, but never leave the street”, She declares, convinced.
For Roa, the elections this Sunday are very important, because the president and parliamentarians who are going to implement the New Constitution that the country has in 2022 will be elected (if it is approved in the exit plebiscite). Although not without threats.
“Kast’s program is terrifying”, she affirms, “it has proposed that women who are not married receive less social assistance than those who are not, even if they have children, destroying the Ministry of Women is in their written program,” he warns. . “We have a very serious fascist advance, we hope that the citizenry is with the transforming forces and not the conservative ones,” he concludes.
Although the conventional ones will be key, there are feminists who already occupy spaces of power. What the first communist mayor of Santiago, Iraci Hassler, also elected last May.
“I believe that Chile has had a very strong women’s and feminist movement in recent years, which is the one that has managed to have a parity Constitution today,” the mayor analyzes for France 24.
“We are in a time of change, women and the feminist and sexual diversity movement, we have been able to position an agenda that recognizes us as equals, that prioritizes jobs that historically have not been considered either economically or socially such as cared jobs”, She said while pointing out that the Santiago mayor’s office works to recognize care, train its security employees with a gender perspective in conjunction with the prosecution, so that women have equal access to justice and security.
Risk and hope
“I see with a lot of hope, but also with risk, without a doubt, that we face so that we achieve urgent changes that we can no longer wait in our country, which has a difficult situation for women, of systemic violence, of femicides,” he explains .
“I believe that Chile is in a new historical moment and I hope that we can have in the elections and in the processes that come profound transformations for the rights of women and of all people, something that has been under discussion in our country, especially the October 18 onwards ”, he evaluates.
Nor does it minimize the threat from the far right. “There is a risk with those hate speech that is installed, and I hope that the first thing is the hope of a movement that aspires to equality,” says the mayor.
“I see with great hope what may happen in this Chile of the future that we are beginning to build,” he concludes regarding the elections, with the hopeful gaze of a young woman who looks to the future, but already has in her hands the possibility of changing the Present.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/feminist-candidates-for-deputies-to-guarantee-gender-policies-in-chile/
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