Mecanismos de Opresión: Una Exploración del Género en La Población del Folklore
Chile: Cultural Identity, Social Justice, and Community Development
Abstract
This paper looks at the dynamics of systemic gender oppression in the marginalized poblacíon El Folklore. It begins with a brief exploration of systemic inequality in Chile, broadens into a theoretical examination of the construction of gender—and the real, at times violent, implications of this construction, –and then focuses on the intersection of class and gender oppression and its impacts on the lives of four women in Folklore. In its study of Folklore, this paper breaks down the investigation of systemic oppression into two of the spaces in which it resides in the lives of women: their public and private lives. It explores violence in the community, on the part of both the state and within the community itself, and how this violence parallels the violence and restriction that exists within the walls of the home.
In this paper I aim, as best I can, to give voice to the four women from Folklore who shared their stories with me and made this project possible.