From Me to Us and from the Personal to the Political: Building Gender Awareness in Workshops for Women

Abstract

The study analyzes on a set of state-funded pedagogical activities aimed at women as vulnerable, promoting gender consciousness in addressing issues such as excercise of rights, political an social participation an other matters related to woman’s empowerment. There are «Talleres para
Mujeres» («Workshops for Women»), administered by the Fundación para la Promoción y Desarrollo de la Mujer (Foundation for the Promotion and Development of Women, Prodemu), and specifically the «Taller de Desarrollo Personal» («Personal Development Workshop») of Pishuinco sector in the Commune of Valdivia, between April and June of 2015. Founded in ethnographic methodology, this research uses anthropology of gender, popular education and feminist pedagogy, and incorporates reflections ranging from feminism of the second wave to the post-colonial feminism to problematize the experience described, highlighting the potential of collective processes
consciousness, while putting question the phenomenon of gender consciousness building itself