Mourning on the streets: Women, politics and human rights under the Chilean Dictatorship (1973-1989) Duelo callejero: Mujeres, política y derechos humanos bajo la Dictadura Chilena (1973-1989)

Abstract

The women of the families of the Chilean dictatorship's victims gathered together very early to find their loved ones and demand truth and justice. However, feminist studies have relegated them to the role of women-mothers who go out of their homes for the first time to fulfill a traditional role, such as caring for their families, without attributing a political character to their demonstrations. In this paper, we propose to call into question this analysis, suggesting that those women played an important role in the defense of human rights, as well as in the re-articulation of the social fabric destroyed after the coup. They became political frontline actors in the public space, to demand the truth about the fate of their loved ones, challenging the regime and its legitimacy, defending, in that way, the human rights that had been confiscated from all Chileans.