The Far-Right’s Gender Politics in Chile’s Failed Constitutional Process

Gender politics are central to understanding the rise of far-right illiberal and authoritarian political movements. In this paper, I examine the political strategies of the far right in Chile to better understand how far-right actors are employing gender in their current attempts to limit democratic rights and participation. I argue that the rise of powerful feminist movements and their political successes in promoting gender equality have shifted both the political strategies and the ideological understanding of gender by far-right leaders and parties. Drawing on archival research, media analysis, and elite interviews conducted during 10 months of fieldwork, I analyze the changing political rhetoric and strategies of the far right during Chile’s failed constitutional process of 2020-2023. First, I examine the role of gendered appeals in the highly organized disinformation campaign by the right that helped defeat the progressive first draft of constitution by 62% in a national vote in September of 2022. This first progressive draft, written by an elected constituent assemble with gender parity, promoted gender equality, sexual and reproductive rights, and the rights of sexual minorities. Second, I analyze the political strategies used by the far right, particularly José Antonio Kast and his Partido Republicano, to win a plurality of delegates to the second constitutional assembly. The conservative second constitutional draft enshrined the protection of private property, maintained a neo-liberal economy, rejected a broad vision of social welfare, and targeted the recent gains in reproductive rights and the rights of sexual minorities. Finally, I focus on the gendered strategies of the second constitutional plebiscite in December of 2023. Chileans rejected (56%-44%) this second draft led by the feminist mobilization of women under 35 who voted to reject the threat to their rights by 70%. This extraordinary sequence of events provides a unique opportunity to analyze the changing political rhetoric of the far right and the centrality of gendered claims in their political projects and strategies. My analysis thus shows how changing gender ideologies on the far right are central to the illiberal political projects that endanger liberal democracies.