Political Mothering: Women and Gender on the Chilean Salmon Trade Union

Abstract

The Chilean salmon industry processing plants demand important amounts of female labour-force on the ground of naturalized attributed female gender characteristics, such as nimble fingers and particularly, lower union participation. However, in a context of high labour conflict and in response to precarious labour condition, important female leaderships have emerged. This work analyzes, on the one hand, the salmon unions, and their capacity to include gender issues, and, on the other hand, aspects of the subjectivity and speeches of the emergent women leaders. I will argue that female leaders do no fragment their personal experience, but organized their subjectivity in an integrated but also stressed way, on the one hand mothering their trade union activity, and on the other, politicizing their private life.