Violencia de género, pobladoras y feminismo popular: Casa Yela, Talca (1964–2010)

Abstract

Hillary Hiner has written a book that is remarkable in many ways, a work that historians, anthropologists, feminists, and other social scientists will realize that they have been in need of. This book is about gender violence and other types of violence against women in Talca, Chile, before and after the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. It focuses on the role of the Yela group, organized in 1986 by women for women who experienced violence. In 1995, they got money from a nongovernmental organization to buy a house that they named Casa Yela, one of the first shelters for women survivors of violence in Chile. Up until Casa Yela closed in 2010, its members worked with other feminists fighting against gender violence. Hiner's book is a sort of microhistory that gives the reader a broader picture of violence against women not only in Talca but also in the surrounding Maule region and, indeed, Chile as a whole. This book makes a vital contribution to the historiography on violence against women.To tell the story of Casa Yela, Hiner interviewed women who stayed there and women who organized the Yela group before the shelter's founding. She also examines newspapers from Santiago, Talca, and the Maule region, personal archives, and documents from the Archivo de la Vicaría de la Solidaridad to give a broad yet detailed reconstruction of gender violence. By analyzing the case of Casa Yela, Hiner examines Chilean politics and power relations as well as women's resistance to both.This study deals with three main arguments, which are developed throughout the book. First, gender violence must be constructed and understood within the context of the specific society and state in which it occurs. Second, specific states define what is considered legitimate and illegitimate gender violence. The state's determinations influence social attitudes and vice versa, both of which extend into the private sphere. Third, violence is not confined to the home, just as violence exercised by common citizens is never really private, because violence draws on and generates perceptions and discussions in the public sphere. Therefore, as Hiner says, “violence is a political problem” (p. 25).In order to illustrate these points, the first chapter studies how women in Talca lived and experienced violence in the fundos and dwellings during the turbulent years of the agrarian reforms (1964–73). The second, covering the years from 1973 to 1988, explores women's opposition to gender violence and their idea of establishing a shelter to fight it. The last chapter covers the period from the transition to democracy in 1988 until Casa Yela closed its doors in 2010. During these years the Yela group's members joined feminist networks and began to participate in state institutions. They were named the pioneras in the fight against domestic and sexual violence (p. 215).In addition to discussing violence against women in Chile, Hiner offers a penetrating analysis of the history and historiography of gender and feminism in Chile. She points out that while Chilean historians employed Joan Scott's insight into “gender as a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes,” it was not until the 2010s that the second part of Scott's definition of gender, as “a primary way of signifying relationships of power,” was employed to discuss and understand gender, bringing fresh debates among Chilean feminist historians (pp. 32–33). Hiner also pays special attention to the term gender violence, providing a thorough evaluation of its historiographical and anthropological definitions. Both approaches place this book within the most recent debates of the field.As noted, the author conducted several interviews that allowed her to discover thought-provoking experiences of women of the bajo pueblo, which otherwise had been impossible to obtain. One such woman was Irene, who left her husband because he abused her sexually and verbally and moved with her children to Casa Yela. With lengthy excerpts from Hiner's various interviews included in the book, the reader learns about these women's experiences of violence through their own words; for example, Marcela tells, “Ahí se agachó, pescó la motosierra, me cortó en la cabeza primero, después me cortó la mano” (p. 245).In sum, this is a rich book that uses the case of Casa Yela to bring violence and gender violence center stage in Chilean history. In doing so, Hiner refreshes terms such as feminisms and gender; she also does this by analyzing recent publications and offering thoughtful ways to understand the terms' application in Latin America. Although the book addresses a difficult subject, the writing is clear and enjoyable, something that is sometimes hard to find in our field.