Term
| arpilleras(ahr-pee-YEH-rahs) |
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Definition
| appliqued tapestries sewn by Chilean women illustrating their personal experiences of torture, hunger, unemployment, and the arrest and disappearance of their loved ones. This work, supported by the Chilean Catholic Church, not only created solidarity and relieved loneliness among the women, but also served as a source of income and a means of bringing international attention to human rights violations in Chile. |
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Term
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Definition
| a cultural ideal that exalts male virility, superiority and control, especially over women; it has been the ideological basis of male-female relations in Latin America for centuries but is now widely questioned. |
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Term
| Madres de la Plaza de Mayo(mah-drays day la PLA-za day MY-oh) |
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Definition
| literally, mothers of May Plaza, a central location in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Women gathered weekly in the Plaza de Mayo to protest the arrest, disappearance, and execution of their family members under military rule. |
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Term
| marianismo(mah-ree-a-NEEZ-mo) |
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Definition
| a cultural norm that idealizes women as the custodians of virtue, piety, morality, and spirituality; from Maria, or Mary, the Virgin Mother of God in the Catholic tradition. Traditionally, this feminine code was linked with machismo and precluded women from independent life beyond their duties as wives and mothers. |
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Term
| ollas comunes(OH-yas koh-MOO-nez) |
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Definition
| communal kitchens, organized and run by poor and working-class women. With the support of the Catholic Church and international organizations, the ollas appeared all over Chile during the Pinochet years as a response to poverty, unemployment, inflation, and hunger. |
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Term
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Definition
| coalition government headed by Salvador Allende from 1970 to 1973; a controversial period of experimentation with democratic socialism. The government was ended by a brutal military coup in which Allende died along with thousands of others. |
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Term
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Definition
| Literally, "We are more," or "There are more of us." Chant used by women's groups in angry street demonstrations against the authoritarian Pinochet regime in the mid-1980s. |
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