Anti-Gender Campaigns and Abortion: Feminist Strategies Against Reactionary Biopolitics in Chile

Abstract

Attacks against ‘gender ideology’ and feminism have reshaped not only the discussions around abortion and sexual and reproductive rights (SRR) in most Latin American countries but also feminist strategies, discourses and articulations aimed at counteracting these conservative narratives. This chapter critically explores the response of conservative groups to recent cultural and legislative changes in sexual and gender issues. In particular, it examines their response to the advances of SRR in the context of recent social revolts in Chile, including the discussion and approval of the law that allows abortion on three grounds, and the possibility of expanding these in ongoing discussions to change the current constitution, one of the last legacies of Pinochet’s dictatorship. All these events triggered strong reactions from anti-gender groups, along with the articulation of feminist strategies and discourses aimed at resisting their ideological tenets, particularly those that co-opt feminist struggles and frames. The author contends that feminist organisations have shown the importance of resisting the biopolitics of anti-gender activism in the name of the body’s vulnerability, challenging both the liberal paradigm of choice that relates to the body as private property and the essentialist ideologies that conceive womanhood as tied to biology, the family and natural reproduction.