The Rights of Women in Chile

Human Rights and Wrongs in a Globalised World

With reference to cultural norms, critically assess the extent to which the rights of women are protected in Chile.

Abstract

Chile has been one of the handful of states where, up until the 21^st century, the rights of women were not protected their health when it came to abortion, nor their right as mothers, when it was about divorce laws (Shepard, 2000; Moenne, 2005). There is not much difference today, and there is a historical reason for that: The Catholic Church has been ruling in Chile over history, which have embedded a patriarchal cultural norms into the society, where women’s duty is exclusively the reproduction of the nation (Shepard, 2000; Blofield and Haas, 2005). Even though, in the civil and political realm significant changes took place to secure women’s rights (such as their equal political participation or vote), orienting towards the global norms Yet, on the level of economic, social and cultural rights, the cultural norms do not allow for significant developments. This essay will introduce this negative effect of cultural norms – resulted by the power of religion – on women’s rights, by discovering the rights on abortion, the subordinate role of the mother in society – which does not allow them to join the labour, or even if they do, their wages and conditions are not even close to equal to those of men –  and finally, the right to divorce. I will do so in order to discover the extent to which the rights of women are protected in Chile, focusing on the particular vulnerabilities of ‘the mother’ woman via these issues that mothers experience (Richards, 2005; Yuval-Davis, 2006; Baldez, 2011). Also, these examples are the most conspicuous in comparison to the global cultural norms around the rights of women, set up by the UN, as after the political rights (the right to vote, to participate in the political life equally) these were top priorities of the developed societies to resolve in the 20^th century. Yet, today’s Chile these are still unanswered, pending issues, but surprisingly, women do not seek that much of change as we would expect (Shepard, 2000).

In this essay I will analyse the extent to which the rights of women are protected in Chile, with reference to Chilean cultural norms. I will do so because Chile has been outstanding with its religious history of governance, which has long embedded patriarchy into Chile’s society. This history – and present – has a significant role in the implications of implementing the universal norms and rights of women. In my analysis, I will particularly focus on Chilean females who are mothers (and wives), because I have found that this intersectionality of vulnerabilities is particularly extraordinary, not only in the region but in the world – considering the rights to abortion, to labour equality during motherhood, and to divorce. In Chile, a woman becomes particularly vulnerable when it comes to becoming a mother (abortion), when she is already a mother – which means a drawback for her in the labour market and jobs – and when she, as a mother decides to end her (often abusive) relationship with her partner by divorce (Richards, 2005; Yuval-Davis, 2006; Baldez, 2011). Being a woman, itself is a factor of vulnerability as even if there are some Human Rights, those tend to be masculine and do not recognise the special needs of women (Bunch, 1990). Therefore, I would like to analyse these factors of motherhood, which create a particular weakness for individual women in Chile, where the religious-cultural norms – embedded in society over centuries – are not willing to recognise their disadvantaged status, which leads to a limited protection of the rights of women – mostly covering their civil and political rights only.

First of all, it is important to briefly look at the reasons why the patriarchal culture of the Catholic Church is – up to date – still so powerful. Religion is still a strong influencer because it has been holding the ruling, political power until the 1990s. As a result, there is no interest of those of the elite and members of the Church to provide more equality for women. That would result in further loss of their power, in addition to the democratisation of 1990, which have taken their political control away (Shepard, 2000). The Church – which still influences policies and especially, cultural norms – is liberal on social issues (like equal wages for women), yet it is strongly conservative on the roles of the family and sexuality (Blofield and Haas, 2005). As a result, in terms of civil and political rights, women can vote and participate in politics since 1934, they are also allowed to have paid jobs since 1952 (Murphy, 2012). Yet, we need to take this culture (influenced by religion) into account, in order to be able to understand why the rights of women in Chile are protected only to a very limited extent. (United Nations, 1948).

Unfortunately, these promising trends are not yet so true in the economic, social and cultural rights area. Compared to the international norms – which have formed the United Nation’s (UN) Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW; 1979) –, Chile’s cultural norms – which rely on Catholic grounds – do not allow that much protection of women’s rights. Moreover, even though those universal norms on women’s equality and rights have been set out by the UN in the CEDAW, the convention is not yet universally implemented. Some scholars even argue, that CEDAW is not gendered and is focusing exclusively on women, which leaves all other genders vulnerable – including female individuals with different gender identities – but that is a topic for another analysis (Riddle, 2002; Baldez, 2011). Yet it is important to see, that the UN convention is not impartial and can even exclude some women, even if it would be implemented.

For Chile itself, not CEDAW but the end of the military regime and the first female president elected in 2006 brought some developments – such as SERNAM, The National Women’s Service, which is a department for promoting women’s equality. Yet those have only affected their political and civil rights and their rights as mothers (healthcare and abortion, motherhood and work or divorce) stayed off the agenda. Some scholars even argue that the rights of the collective and cultural norms – which have also emerged in the Human Rights era after the World Wars – justify the oppression of women, creating an infinite unresolvable contrariety between cultural rights and women’s rights – which meant to be equal (Richards, 2005; Irarrázabal, 2012). In Chile, as we will see, this means the dominance of the former on the latter.

Secondly, we can look at to what extent the rights of women are protected when it comes to their decision whether they want to become mothers or not, regardless of the reason behind that choice. Women’s choice regarding this is controlled by religious pro-birth cultural norms, seeing abortion as unnatural. In the Chilean mentality women’s duty to deliver children at home. Abortion is an enemy to the nation and those women rejecting their duty, which then allows (to punish them with painful pregnancy) for ‘punishments’ like rape (Moenne, 2005). As a result, in Chile abortion – up until 2017 – had zero tolerance and has been a crime since 1874, even in cases where its purpose would be to save the mother’s life (Human Rights Watch, n.d. 2010, 2013, 2014; Casas-Becerra, 1997). Therefore, we can see, the right to life of the unborn overrules the right to life of the mother, which is a hierarchy between Human Rights which were originally meant to be equal (United Nations, 1948; Human Rights Watch, 2010). This means that in Chile, the religious-cultural norms limit the protection of the rights of pregnant women by subordinating their right to life to that of the foetus.

Even though, it has been illegal, Chile had the highest number of abortions in Latin America, for many different reasons including being single, separated, poor or considering their own health and safety as women. Hospitals were ordered to report these women who needed treatment as a result of illegal abortion (Casas-Becerra, 1997). Even if it is legalised in the case of rape, violence against women has not been recognised as violence before CEDAW, which have resulted that women – even if have been – do not think they were raped, therefore they do not take any legal action against their violator, which may also disqualify them from the right to abortion (United Nations, 1979; Htun and Wetdon, 2012).

Also, analysing the short period when the abortion pill was legalised for certain cases, the conservative, religious chemists – who were members of the pro-birth elite – still refused to cooperate in ‘interfering the nature’ (Flynn, 2007; Mooney, 2009). In addition, the Human Rights Watch argues ‘[t]he law in its current form allows doctors, as well as private institutions, to refuse to provide abortions on moral ground’ (2019). We should, therefore, expect this after the reforms of 2017, that the cultural norms – that of chemists and doctors as well – do not change by policies and reality may differ.

Surprisingly enough though, 70% of women in Chile would not even wish for legal abortion (Shepard, 2000). This can be also related to their religious pro-birth culture, where women accepted their duty to deliver the successors of the nation (Shepard, 2000; Mooney, 2009).

To sum up, abortion has been a crime against law since 1874 in all cases including rape or risking the mother’s life. It has been legalised for special cases to preserve the life of the mother between 1931 and 1989 (therapeutic abortion), and since 2017. Yet, it is still very limited to the following cases: if ‘the life of the pregnant woman is at risk, the foetus is unviable, or the pregnancy is due to rape’, but even in these cases we cannot guarantee that those women will have the guidance, help and support of doctors and chemists to end their pregnancies, as pro-birth thinking and the ‘duty of women’ are embedded in the society’s cultural norms (Human Rights Watch, n.d., 2017, 2018, 2019).

Thirdly, women’s subordinate role as mothers at home (or housewives) is also reinforced by the patriarchal cultural norms of the society which again, are the result of the power of religion in Chile. Although Chile has not yet ratified CEDAW, some Human Rights have been applied, but these only cover civil and political rights, which leaves women vulnerable in the social, cultural and economic sphere, where they face the violations (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 2009; Richards, 2005). This is why this essay is focusing on mothers, as their status is related to these areas where they are being left with low protection of their rights.

The cultural norm of lingering gender roles not only prevents women to join the labour force but even if they do, the ‘machismo’ ethics at the workplace subordinate women and they also face income disparity (Human Rights Watch, n.d.; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 2009). We can connect this to the fact that less than 50% of those women who could work actually do, which then helps us to understand why Chile has the lowest female employment in Latin America (Murphy, 2012; FCI Staff Writer, 2014). Similarly, the authoritarian structure of the Chilean society can explain the lack of gender quota (that each case must be represented and none can fulfil more than 60% of the party candidates) until 2015, and the low number of women in positions of power (Roemhildt, 2016). We can see, the Chilean society’s cultural norms subordinate women and render them to a role of delivering children, disadvantaging them to join the labour.

Finally, it is worth to mention that Chile has only legalised divorce in 2004. Women’s choice to leave their partner had no legal support, which again can be argued to have been so for the purpose of keeping the family together, which is also a cultural norm of Christian societies. Even if it harms the mother’s or the child(ren)’s health, safety or rights, there was no guarantee that the mother left alone with the child can get any support after a divorce (Shepard, 2000). CEDAW had no point of universal norms on divorce, and as Chile had no law on it either, it has remained unanswered for a long time (United Nations, 1979). Although, it has now changed, there is no guarantee that the judges’ practice will support the procedure of the divorce and the mother, nor that the mother with the child will be informed about her right to divorce or to get legal protection and support from a lawyer, which then questions the implementation of a new policy like that (Murphy, 2012). Even though, there are many more issues – including domestic violence, sexual harassment, rape and discrimination – this essay has covered the particular issues of mother women, as they are an intersectionally vulnerable group of the female population (Richards, 2005; Yuval-Davis, 2006; Baldez, 2011). We have discovered that even though, women are formally equal, their rights in their motherhood – particularly on abortion, divorce, and in leaving the housewife role behind to join the labour – are not yet well secured.

In a conclusion, this essay has been analysing the extent to which the rights of women are protected in Chile by focusing on a particularly vulnerable group within: mothers. Even though in the political realms the rights of women are now ensured, we can now see how the long embedded religious, patriarchal social norms prevent mother women’s rights to be well protected. In Chile, women rights are not secured when it comes to their equal position in the market (working), nor in their marriage (divorce), or their health (abortion). The particularly disadvantaged position of the women who are mothers and wives have been proved to be the result of cultural norms, due to the significant position of religion in Chile’s society.

Yet, if we look at it from an economic, social and cultural rights perspective, is it not the case that Chile’s culture involves the oppression of women? Then, it becomes the case of cultural rights over the rights of women, and who is in the position to decide, which one worth more? We could assess how poorly the rights of women are protected in Chile due to their cultural norms, but then, who are we to judge that the rights of women are more important than the cultural rights of Chile which is based on this patriarchy? Therefore I have found that there is a need for further investigation on this conflict between rights, because if ‘all rights are equal’, it is not possible to provide both, cultural rights and rights for women at the same time, as the two clearly are clashing in Chile (United Nations, 1948).

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