Chile

Chile is a country of 16.6 million inhabitants that is located along the western coast of South America. The people of Chile are primarily Roman Catholic, and the country has a reputation for being socially conservative among its Latin American peers.

Chile experienced stable democratic rule during much of the 20th century until Augusto Pinochet led a military coup in 1973 to end the Marxist, democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. Pinochet was right wing in his approach to economics and politics, so he championed the traditional [Page 280]role of women as wives and mothers in the home. After democracy returned to Chile in 1990, a center-left coalition governed during the 1990s and 2000s allowing women's roles in society to evolve. In 2004, a centuries-old ...