Gendered Compromises: Political Cultures and the State in Chile, 1920-1950
With this book, Karin Rosemblatt presents a gendered history of the politics and political compromise that emerged in Chile during the 1930s and 1940s, when reformist popular-front coalitions held power. While other scholars have focused on the economic realignments and novel political pacts that characterized Chilean politics during this era, Rosemblatt explores how gender helped shape Chile's evolving national identity.

Rosemblatt examines how and why the aims of feminists, socialists, labor activists, social workers, physicians, and political leaders converged around a shared gender ideology. Tracing the complex negotiations surrounding the implementation of new labor, health, and welfare policies, she shows that professionals in health and welfare agencies sought to regulate gender and sexuality within the working class and to consolidate the male-led nuclear family as the basis of societal stability. Leftists collaborated in these efforts because they felt that strong family bonds would generate a sense of class belonging and help unify the Left, while feminists perceived male familial responsibility as beneficial for women. Diverse actors within civil society thus reworked the norms of masculinity and femininity developed by state agencies and political leaders—even as others challenged those ideals.
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Gendered Compromises: Political Cultures and the State in Chile, 1920-1950
With this book, Karin Rosemblatt presents a gendered history of the politics and political compromise that emerged in Chile during the 1930s and 1940s, when reformist popular-front coalitions held power. While other scholars have focused on the economic realignments and novel political pacts that characterized Chilean politics during this era, Rosemblatt explores how gender helped shape Chile's evolving national identity.

Rosemblatt examines how and why the aims of feminists, socialists, labor activists, social workers, physicians, and political leaders converged around a shared gender ideology. Tracing the complex negotiations surrounding the implementation of new labor, health, and welfare policies, she shows that professionals in health and welfare agencies sought to regulate gender and sexuality within the working class and to consolidate the male-led nuclear family as the basis of societal stability. Leftists collaborated in these efforts because they felt that strong family bonds would generate a sense of class belonging and help unify the Left, while feminists perceived male familial responsibility as beneficial for women. Diverse actors within civil society thus reworked the norms of masculinity and femininity developed by state agencies and political leaders—even as others challenged those ideals.
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Gendered Compromises: Political Cultures and the State in Chile, 1920-1950

Gendered Compromises: Political Cultures and the State in Chile, 1920-1950

by Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt
Gendered Compromises: Political Cultures and the State in Chile, 1920-1950

Gendered Compromises: Political Cultures and the State in Chile, 1920-1950

by Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt

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Overview

With this book, Karin Rosemblatt presents a gendered history of the politics and political compromise that emerged in Chile during the 1930s and 1940s, when reformist popular-front coalitions held power. While other scholars have focused on the economic realignments and novel political pacts that characterized Chilean politics during this era, Rosemblatt explores how gender helped shape Chile's evolving national identity.

Rosemblatt examines how and why the aims of feminists, socialists, labor activists, social workers, physicians, and political leaders converged around a shared gender ideology. Tracing the complex negotiations surrounding the implementation of new labor, health, and welfare policies, she shows that professionals in health and welfare agencies sought to regulate gender and sexuality within the working class and to consolidate the male-led nuclear family as the basis of societal stability. Leftists collaborated in these efforts because they felt that strong family bonds would generate a sense of class belonging and help unify the Left, while feminists perceived male familial responsibility as beneficial for women. Diverse actors within civil society thus reworked the norms of masculinity and femininity developed by state agencies and political leaders—even as others challenged those ideals.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780807848814
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 11/27/2000
Series: Chilean Politics Series
Edition description: 1
Pages: 368
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.82(d)
Lexile: 1410L (what's this?)

About the Author

Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt is professor of history at the University of Maryland.

Table of Contents

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Forging Agreements: Respectability and Rule
Chapter 2. Constructing a Family Wage System: Wage Work and Identities
Chapter 3. Autonomy and Alliance: Feminists, Socialists, and Citizenship
Chapter 4. Gender and State Building: Charity, Rights, and the Professions
Chapter 5. State Regulation, Morality, and Material Reform
Chapter 6. Socialist Morality, Gender, and Class Unity
Chapter 7. In the Interstices: Democracy, Representation, and the Women's Movement
Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

[An] important and welcome book.—Latin American Studies



Rosemblatt locates the gendered family as a source of both empowerment and constraint in the hands of both women and the state, illuminating both the uses and abuses of this model of male breadwinning and female domestic responsibilities.—Journal of Women's History



A solid and sophisticated book that should appeal not only to Chileanists but also to other students of social history. . . . Rosemblatt fills in the history of gender, women, and feminists.—American Historical Review



Labor history scholars and specialists in women's studies will welcome [Rosemblatt's] contribution to modern Latin American social history.—Choice



Clearly illustrates how the popular fronts cultivated the consent of the ruled not only through the promotion of class and political alliances . . . but also through gendered policies aimed at working men and their families.—Latin American Research Review



Rosemblatt's book joins a growing body of important feminist work on political culture and the modern state but truly stands apart from the pack for its theoretical sophistication. . . . A stellar model for feminist subaltern studies.—Feminist Studies



A brilliant demonstration of how critical gender was to state formation, national identity, and working-class politics during the popular front governments in Chile. . . . Offers new insights and challenges accepted assessments about this pivotal period in modern Chilean history. . . . This exciting and significant study redefines scholarly understanding of how politics really worked in Chile.—Journal of Social History



This is a pathbreaking study of Chilean politics and society during a crucial era in that nation's history. It will be invaluable to anyone doing research on gender, state formation, or working-class culture in Latin America, and it is a rich contribution to the growing comparative literature on women and the welfare state.—Barbara Weinstein, State University of New York at Stony Brook



A valuable and original contribution to our understanding of the history of Chile, the Popular Front, feminism, the Left, labor, professionals, and the state, and of the interactions amongst them. Written with intelligence and filled with interesting arguments and perceptive analyses.—Peter Winn, Tufts University

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