Feminist mobilizations weave intersectional resistance in Chile

Women march under a pink banner that reads "Against the legacy of impunity" on March 8, 2025 in Santiago, Chile. Photo © Nicole Kramm.

Opinion • Andrea Salazar • March 20, 2025 • Leer en castellano

At 8:30 in the morning feminists and activists gathered to offer seeds, sopaipillas (fried flour dough), and fruit to a tree in Cerro Huelén, a hill in the center of Santiago de Chile. Their offerings marked the beginning of March 8 activities this year, and were followed by a llellipun, a traditional Mapuche ceremony in which they prayed to the Ñuke Mapu [Mother Earth] for the well-being of people, living beings and the intertwined networks that sustain life. 

During the ceremony, members of the Ulcha Zomo collective and the Mapuche Women's Network led us through a process of connecting with the land and with one of this year's slogans: “Where is Julia Chuñil?” Chuñil is a Mapuche woman and land defender who disappeared four months ago with her dog, Cholito.

As the ceremony concluded, we distributed the offerings among those present and affirmed our desire to honor the International Day of Working Women.

Feminists, community groups, unions, and cultural organizations began assembling in the center of the capital. By around 11:00 o’clock, the city’s long, wide street known as the Alameda had filled with people. We set off westward from Plaza Dignidad, as Plaza Baquedano was renamed during the 2019 uprising.

“To the streets: against the neoliberal consensus and the patriarchal offensive,” read the banner at the head of the march. On the front line were spokeswomen for the march and Senator Fabiola Campillay. Campillay was not there as a Congress person, but as a working woman, a survivor of police violence, and a leading figure in the movement against police terror. A few weeks earlier, the Supreme Court prevented her from speaking publicly about Claudio Crespo, the cop involved in the event that blinded activist Gustavo Gatica during the uprising. 

Seeing Campillay surrounded by feminists and in front of the banner “Against the legacy of impunity!” moved me to tears. It reminded me that state violence constantly renews itself, as does feminist resistance and our tireless struggle to honor the history of what we have been and what we can be.

Over the last decade in Chile, in strike after strike, and meeting after meeting, feminists have woven a network of almost 100 collectives, roundtables and union-like structures. This year, painfully aware of the patriarchal offensive currently underway, we resolved to weave our struggles together even more tightly and kick off 2025 united, organized and fighting.

In more than 40 cities, towns and hamlets, protests and other activities centered the diverse struggles of the feminist and anti-patriarchal movement, support for imprisoned women and sexual and gender dissidents, and the struggle against extractivist violence and neocolonial dispossession. We also marched against misogynist violence, which has been rising, with nine femicides in 2025 thus far.

Against impunity

“We’re marching to highlight that the government has prioritized impunity and a repressive agenda over legal abortion, decent pensions, and the right to housing,” said Javiera Mena, spokesperson for the Coordinadora Feminista 8M and the Articulación por la Huelga General Feminista 2025, in a statement to the media. 

“Today, they are evicting land occupations and encampments,” said Cristina Varela, another spokesperson from the Coordinadora. “Today they are going to discuss changes to the migration law, which criminalizes migrants and strips them of their rights. Today we have laws like the Nain-Retamal law, which criminalizes protest, which is our only tool for transformation.”

A shot of the beginning of the March 8, 2025 march in Santiago de Chile. Photo © Nicole Kramm.

I was just a few meters from them when they made these statements, but I could barely hear what they were saying. According to organizers, there were nearly half a million people on the streets of Santiago.

The sound of the thousands around us thundered, intermixing with the beating of drums and chants like the classic: “We can hear it, we can feel it, long live women in struggle!” And there was the more recent chant: “[former president] Piñera’s legacy will fall, and we’re going to demolish his monument,” a reference to a motion passed in the Senate to erect a monument in his memory.

For hours, feminist and anti-patriarchal organizations publicly voiced their hopes, grief and demands. They criticized real estate speculation and the nearly 50 evictions of land occupations that the government plans to execute. 

The women migrants in the anti-racist Afro-bloc warned that “there is no feminism without those criminalized by forced displacement.” The sexual and gender dissident truck, a mobile stage, featured bisexual, lesbian and trans artists. The Calypso Girls, women from Chayanne's fan club, dressed up as high schoolers and shouted, “It's never too late to study." Palestinians and internationalist fighters raised their banners against genocide and demanded that Chile break relations with Israel.

After walking three kilometers, we reached the stage, where artists Thaïna Henry, Francelis and Luta Cruz from the anti-racist bloc gave moving presentations. Then Mónica Araya, an 87-year-old woman from the Movement of Families of the Detained and Disappeared and the Chilean Women’s Freedom Movement (MEMCH), addressed the crowd. 

Araya marched with a photo of her disappeared mother, as she does every year. “Today, more than ever, we must take to the streets,” she said.

Fundación Camila performed the song “Yo tenía una hermana” [I had a sister] demanding justice for Camila and Almendra, two deaf women who were murdered. In sign language, they condemned ableism and the difficulties that disabled people face when attempting to secure justice. 

Finally, activists read the manifesto “United, Organized and Fighting!” aloud. It celebrates transnational feminism and salutes women, sexual and gender dissidents and those who resist war, occupation and imperialism from the East and West. 

As the event came to a close, police dispersed marchers with tear gas and a water cannon, as is common in Chile, and arrested 16.

The prelude: assemblies and calls to action

To grasp the significance of this year’s 8M, it is not enough to talk about the present. We have to remember that we also organized a Feminist May and that millions of us took to the streets in 2019, playing a key role in the uprising. And we should keep in mind that we have suffered defeats, exhaustion, precariousness, the pandemic, discouragement and sometimes blamed ourselves for these defeats.

It can be hard to keep fighting in this context. That’s why we decided to join forces, reflect on what we have experienced and work to create a new March 8, which, at least in Chile, is the first major protest of the year.

We held weeks of meetings to discuss what actions to take before and during 8M. A broad consensus became clear as each came to similar conclusions. We must resist the advance of the far-right, led by Javier Milei, Donald Trump, and Benjamin Netanyahu, while challenging the spread of racism and xenophobia among progressive leaders and some segments of the left that also promote militarization, securitization and neo-extractivism. 

We organized “Feminist Super Monday” on March 3, during which we renamed 60 subway stations to commemorate milestones in the working class feminist movement. This lifted our spirits, rooted us in history and strengthened our resolve against fascism. 

Later that evening we gathered in Puente Alto, on the outskirts of Santiago, to burn a three-headed figure representing colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism. With this rite and in front of the fire, we kicked off the first week in March, which year after year is a time when we renew our desire to change everything.

A young woman with a red hand painted on her chest during the March 8, 2025 march in Santiago de Chile. Photo © Nicole Kramm.

Is Chilean feminism dead?

A few days before the march, a far-right activist claimed that the feminist movement was in decline and that this year would be the last March 8 mobilization. Some anti-patriarchal activists and influencers also said that feminism is dead, albeit for other reasons.

What I wish to say to the right and to my sisters is, unsurprisingly, different.

To right-wing naysayers, I’ll refer to the huge response to our calls for the 8M march. We will not be silent, even as the movement appears to ebb and flow. We embody resistance, day by day, as we stay alive. We are an undercurrent that they cannot—or will not— see. We have not forgotten the protests and everything that our bodies are capable of being and doing. This is the history and the struggle in which we exist. 

To my friends and comrades who (no longer) identify with feminism, I say: let us hold on to each other. Can we try organizing together despite our differences? 

Let’s discuss our experiences of fighting for our rights, our biases and contradictions and how to confront the current political cycle.

Let’s find answers in action. 

Let’s practice listening and putting everything on the table: our successes, mistakes, and doubts. Let us weave a life worth living from the smallest moments, with migrant women, women water defenders, and rural women; with those who are non-monogamous, weirdos, sex workers; with those who today do not have the strength to fight; and with the communities and peoples who resist all borders and authoritarianism. 

Today, more than ever, let us hold on to each other.