1. Motherhood, Social Policies and Women’s Activism in Latin America: An Overview
Jasmine Gideon and Alejandra Ramm
2. Latin America: A Fertile Ground for Maternalism
Alejandra Ramm
3. “Taking the Nature Out of Mother”: From Politics of Exclusion to Feminisms of Difference and Recognition of Rights
Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney
4. Constructing Maternalism from Paternalism: The Case of State Milk Programs
Jael Goldsmith Weil
5. To Not Die in Childbirth: Maternal Health and State Policy, 1930–1980
María Soledad Zárate
6. Resistance to Sexual and Reproductive Rights: Maternalism and Conservatism
Gabriela Alvarez Minte
7. “Las madres del plomo”: Women’s Environmental Activism and Suffering in Northern Chile
Evelyn Arriagada
8. Technocracy and Strategic Maternalism: Housing Policies, 1990–2014
Alejandra Ramm
9. LGBTQ-IPV and the Case for Challenging Maternalist Family Violence Paradigms
Hillary Hiner
10. Women Miners: Motherhood, Labor Integration, and Unionization
Nicolás Angelcos
11. The Persistent Maternalism in Labor Programs
Catalina de la Cruz
12. Economic Modernization and Redefining Womanhood: Women, Family and Work in a Center Right Wing Government
Carmen Gloria Godoy and Paula Raposo
Alejandra Ramm is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Universidad de Valparaíso and Associate Researcher at the Social Sciences Research Institute (ICSO) at the Universidad Diego Portales (UDP), Chile.
Jasmine Gideon is Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
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.
Alejandra Ramm is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Universidad de Valparaíso and Associate Researcher at the Social Sciences Research Institute (ICSO) at the Universidad Diego Portales (UDP), Chile.
Jasmine Gideon is Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, UK.