중남미

The purpose of this article is to analyze the process of political changes including women's political participation as well as women's policies by Chilean governments since the early 1900s. For this purpose, it first reviews changes of women's political participation and governmental policies on women until 1989. It also examines changes of those policies focusing on participation and roles of women since 1990 when democratic transition began in Chile. Traditionally the level of women's political participation in Chile was very low. It did not rapidly change even after women got their suffrage in 1949. Those governmental policies on women before the democratic transition mainly focused on social-welfare perspectives. Ironically enough, women's participation activated under the dictatorial Pinochet's rule. In fact, those women's anti-Pinochet protests started the way to the end of dictatorial rule and led to the democratic transition in Chile. Nevertheless, isolation of women from politics reappeared after the transition had begun. There were reasons for the reappearing isolation. First and the most important was the high barrier into politics dominated by men. Second is the still widely accepted traditional thinking in Chilean society during democratizing period that women are not fit for politics. The victory of Bachelet in the Presidential election of 2005, however, meant a great change in Chilean politics. There were two important reasons of her winning. One was her personal ability proved through her previous job as a minister within the Lagos government. The other was Chilean voters' belief in her promise that she would be different from an ordinary and stereo-typed politician even after being elected as the next president of the country.