Guerra psicosocial, género y populismo: las ‘voluntarias’ de la Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer durante el régimen militar chileno. 1973-1980

Abstract

The chilean military regime, in its earlier stage, used the repression in order to dismantle the Unidad Popular’ socialist project. Additionally, it waged a strong psychosocial fight, based on the “counter-subversive war” logic, in order to generate adhesion and to mobilize the popular sectors in its favor. Women were an important component of this psychosocial war, since a planned social and ideological politic was focused on them, through the development of institutions such as CEMA-Chile and the Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer (SNM). This research project is based on the links between the Augusto Pinochet’s military regime and the SNM women “volunteers”, particularly those that worked at the local levels, coming from medium and lower classes. It has been proposed that the relationship established between the military government and the lower class women through the “volunteerism” is concordant with certain features shared by the neo-populist regimes. This observation is based on the following elements: the women “volunteers” were mobilized in networks, personal and paternal bonds were developed between the women “volunteers” and the General Pinochet, and the disseminated anti-political rhetoric that was assimilated by the women “volunteers”.  However, these elements adopted particular characteristics, since they were affected by social and historical gender constructions, which the regime used as instruments to make them functional to the populist bonds. The social and historical gender constructions facilitated the women awareness of the war doctrine against the Marxism and the military messianism.