«Activism and politics need each other»

As a student in high school and college, you were actively engaged in various protest movements. Today, you hold a ministerial office. What prompted you to go into politics? Was it any specific events or experiences?

I come from a center-left family, so I was no stranger to political protest. I was born in 1989, and I remember my family taking part in the 1992 protests against the war in Iraq. I also protested against the Chilean government’s CAE student loan, which plunged students in deep debt. But these were all not really conscious decisions. It came naturally.

You joined student protests very early on – how did that come about?

At the end of 2006, I ran for a student government position at my high school. However, in contrast to the large student protest movement of 2011 and 2012, the one in 2006 was rather apolitical. None of my female classmates engaged in political activism afterwards, although they were very motivated at the time. So I became involved in the student movement early on, but I was really a student like everyone else.

You then went on to study journalism. What specific projects did you pursue at university?

At the time, we founded an organization called the «School for Popular Communication». That was before everything went digital. We basically developed and deployed very simple social media tactics for social movements and press organizations. When digitalization really took off, I worked for several organizations. But I became really active around 2014, after Melissa Sepúlveda was elected president of the Federation of Students of the University of Chile (FECH). I was part of her campaign team and later her operative team, and from then on, I have been more or less active in the spectrum I just described.

Was this your first step towards organized representation of interests, towards institutional politics?

I think so, after all, it is a federation of students. The university has precise rules on how, where and by whom students are represented, for example on the University Council, but also in the administration. Yes, I think that my path was already foreshadowed there, especially regarding my commitment to feminism.

What role did feminism play for you during this time?

It was always a kind of dilemma, because back then, it wasn’t very common to be a feminist and a party member at the same time. Political parties had no feminist committees. At some point, you had to choose between the movement or the party. I chose the party, and then, I was one of only a few feminists who decided to pursue this path. There were, of course, women’s rights activists, for example in the Red Chilena network, but they were no longer really active. Or they were, as some say, «dormant» members of the Movement of Unified Popular Action, MAPU, or the Socialist Party PS.

Did you face difficulties because of this decision, or did you receive support?

Paulina Weber Ubilla was a mentor to me back then. She herself was a left-wing activist and until her death in 2020, a member of MEMCH, the Chilean women’s emancipation movement that was founded in 1938. At the time, she encouraged me to stick with active party politics. But there were tensions, especially during the election campaigns. Of course, I was associated with Red Chilena, which the network members didn’t like at all, if only because it was an assembly of politically highly diverse voices. That meant we had to be very careful.

How do you view your development today - away from rather autonomous grassroots activism towards institutional politics?

Well, in my opinion, it wasn’t a conventional transition. In fact, my colleagues and I did not join a traditional party, but founded a new political force, the party Social Convergence, or short CS. And we wanted many feminists to get involved in it. Incidentally, I have always been reluctant to bring up the age of politicians and activists of the Frente Amplio (the «Broad Front» of Chilean left-wing parties and movements), or generally to reduce the whole discussion to a generational issue, as has been the case time and again. Of course, we are a young cabinet, but we represent all of society. Our main approach is to change the concept of the subsidiary state, which outsources basic public services to private companies. And this is a project for society as a whole.

You specifically wanted to bring in feminists. Has anything changed in the relationship between activism and institutional politics in Chile now?

Social organizations have always shown a high degree of political committment. Almost all feminist members of the MEMCH movement were communists. The famous feminist silence on political issues began with what is known as the «Damned Law» (Ley Maldita), which banned the Chilean Communist Party in 1948. Many MEMCH members stayed home – not because there were no feminist causes left to fight for, but because they knew that under Pinochet’s dictatorship, they would end up in the Pisagua concentration and torture camp. On this point, I think we in the feminist movement are wrong to assume that our story was highly exceptional. In fact, the entire social movement had been shattered: the trade union movement, and also the student movement, which only regrouped in 1997-98.

You went from activism to institutional politics at an early age. Based on your experience, how would you describe the limits and opportunities of each avenue?

Both have their advantages. Activism is, of course, something very fluid, very self-governed. You decide the direction you want to take. The advantage of a political organization is that it voluntarily places collective decisions above individual ones. In this sense, activism and party politics are very different avenues, of course, but I think they need each other. I don’t see how anything could be achieved without activism. But I don’t think we can do without political parties, either.

What was it like for you to be appointed minister - to suddenly be in the limelight, to be part of a large apparatus?

As a journalist and working for the presidency of the University of Chile, I had interacted with authorities before. So it wasn’t my first contact with public administration. I was also aware of the problem of being exposed to public opinion. But one thing people don’t fully appreciate is the impact on the family. Because it’s different when you’re as young as I am. At 35, I’m not that young, but all my sisters and cousins are more or less my age. They are in the middle of their professional lives and do not have secure careers yet.

What specifically has your family experienced as a result of your ministerial post?

For example, the fact that my sister, who is a film producer, has no access to public funding because of Chile’s anti-nepotism laws. Before accepting the position, I did consider my son and what the heightened attention would do to him, but I hadn’t expected this kind of impact on other people in my immediate environment.

Regarding the presidential election campaign, the social upheaval, the constitutional reform, and your challenging work in government, what keeps you going in today’s Chilean politics?

In politics, there are motivating as well as very discouraging factors at play. For example, I organized the first congress on non-sexist education together with fellow students at the University of Concepción in 2014 with a budget of only around 50 euros, so virtually without money. That was encouraging. It showed me that there is a public way of resolving conflicts by way of an open exchange. Another great experience was the nationwide conferences on non-sexist education, which were held at well over 70 % of schools from 7th grade upwards. These are the kinds of things that make you persevere. Besides, I’m not alone. Even though I’m the one in government, the public face - we are a whole generation, not in the sense that we are all the same age, but in that we have a common denominator: We are all working to ensure the success of Frente Amplio. This also includes bringing the feminist cause to the fore.

What was the most important insight you gained as you learned the ropes of being a minister? What would you highlight, in particular?

I think two things are relevant. For one, we shouldn’t pretend that everything is a novelty and happening for the first time. They often say that this government is facing unprecedented obstacles or hostility from the press. I don’t know if our government and our president are treated better or worse than those who came before, or whether previous governments experienced such a strong impetus for change while facing such strong opposition. I wouldn’t bet on it. I think the difference is that we had elections every year. That was very unfortunate indeed. But it was an important experience from which we learned our lessons.

And the second point?

It has to do with the age gap and diversity. It is important to include other experiences and backgrounds. Not everyone at the Ministry for Women and Equality comes from feminism, which, I think, is a good thing. This may sound like management jargon, but I think that diversity within teams is very important.

There are two years left in your term. What will they look like?

The topic of nursing care is currently one of the major issues for us. It is to be the legacy of President Gabriel Boric’s government. We want to rethink what prosperity means. So far, we have not faced this discussion the same way Europeans have. Why not? Because they have been living in welfare states and we haven’t. For this reason alone, we have no idea what social security actually means. I believe that the political left today is making a big mistake in wanting to return to a world that no longer exists – with the idea that a labor contract is the path to social prosperity.

What is your answer to this?

With our draft for a Chilean law on support and nursing care, we want to show that care is a social issue and not an individual problem that can be solved through payments. This will not be easy, and it will take time. However, I believe that countries that did not enjoy social welfare in the past have an opportunity to have a whole new debate on this idea. We can also rekindle a critical debate on the subsidiary state. The Frente Amplio and the Minister for Development and Family, Javiera Toro Cáceres, show that there is another way to approach care and the welfare state - a Chilean way.

In addition to nursing care, the issue of abortion is also a central topic of feminist politics and currently highly contested. What has happened so far, where does the debate stand today?

I believe that social decriminalization has gained a lot of momentum in recent years. When I started working actively on behalf of the political left, I almost got expelled from an organization because I held a workshop in which abortion came up as a topic. Self-determined, free abortion was and is very important throughout Latin America. This is why we will continue to persistently pursue our strategy of social decriminalization. This will be a difficult debate in congress. However, as other examples show, such as the debate on divorce law, an open discussion is crucial if we are to change the way our society thinks.

Regarding your main political concerns, what is your take on the role of international organizations as political actors?

We have worked very hard for Inter-American cooperation, for example with the Belém do Pará Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Elimination of Violence against Women. Other Latin American leftists decided to leave the system of the Organization of American States (OAS) because they disagreed with some of its leadership. This vacuum has now been filled by anti-democratic groups. For Chilean women in particular, the inter-American human rights system has always been key to achieve progress on the Convention of Belém do Pará. We advocated very strongly for membership of the OAS, with all that it entails, which is not all positive.

Can you give an example?

For Lidia Casas, a Chilean lawyer who had run for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it was a very thankless experience to see local anti-democratic groups campaign against her in Washington. Thanks to South-South cooperation, and with 144 votes, mainly from middle-income countries, we now got Patsilí Toledo elected as the first Chilean member of the Committee of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. She is a Chilean lawyer who campaigns against gender-based violence. That was so important. When Trump took office, the international human rights system and its agencies faced a financing crisis because the United States cut funding significantly. In addition, many people do not fully understand the concept of human rights, since conservatives and right-wing parties reduce it to a left-wing ideology.

How do you view the global challenges for democracy and human rights?

I believe that today the international human rights system is in deep crisis, caused primarily by the crisis in Gaza, but also by the war in Ukraine. In my opinion, these are two pivotal points. These conflicts and their resolution will shape the coming decades. The human rights system as a whole is on the brink: Its governance, its limits, its scope of action. This became abundantly clear to me at the meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York. Firstly, countries that do not respect women’s human rights were entrusted with the leadership of the next commission. Secondly, there was almost no debate on Palestine or, here in the Americas, on Haiti, nor about the fact that more Venezuelan women live in the diaspora than Syrian women. These failures clearly showcase the gaps in a system that is supposed to protect human rights. And they are currently key factors in determining the direction this world is taking. I think that the European and American political left has a special responsibility here. They are obviously the ones with a particular focus on protecting international human rights. In countries that are involved in international politics, progressives should now reflect very carefully on how this deep crisis has come about.

What would you say to the next generations who want to become active in politics? What should they know when they chose this path?

I think the most important thing in the current situation is not to assume that you will win just because you are right. These are two completely different things. I can be very convinced that I’m right and still fail spectacularly – even though I’m right. Because of the mutual distrust between different camps, people do not communicate enough with each other. The cognitive distortions generated by technology are doing the rest. For me, it is crucial that we feminists are ready and willing to have a dialog.

What can this dialog look like?

We need to create alternative ways of communicating with the other half of the population because if we don’t, the way the world is going, we will have women who are increasingly liberal, and I do not mean on the progressive left, but liberal, and men who are increasingly reactionary, not necessarily conservative, but reactionary. This means that if we do not adapt our feminist and left-wing strategy, then, for a long time to come, we will only have the support of female voters. And we will have right-wing extremism that is driven by men.

Antonia Orellana is a journalist from the University of Chile. She was part of the feminist network «Red Chilena contra la violencia hacia las mujeres» (Chilean Network against violence against women). She is a co-founder of Convergencia Social, President Gabriel Boric’s party, and currently serves as Minister of Women and Gender Equality of the Chilean government. 

Gitte Cullmann is a sociologist and economist from Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Since 2020, she has been Head of the International Office of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Santiago de Chile (regional office for Bolivia, Chile, and Peru).

Angela Erpel Jara is a sociologist from the University of Chile. She holds a Master’s degree in Habitat and Urban Poverty in Latin America from the University of Buenos Aires and is a graduate of Gender, Politics and Citizen Participation. She currently serves as democracy and human rights coordinator at the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Santiago de Chile.

*with support from Rasmus Randig