The female guerrilla: strategies of political emancipation in the poetry of Heddy Navarro and Teresa Calderón

Abstract

This work analyses two texts published by female Chilean poets at the end of the eighties: Poemas insurrectos (1988) by Heddy Navarro and Género femenino by Teresa Calderón. In line with the importance that collective action of women assumes against the dictatorship, even by participating in groups of armed resistance such as the MIR or the FPMR, these authors create a feminine subjectivity traced by the guerrilla language. Insurrection, barricades, and strikes are reiterative signifiers in their texts, so we wonder what functions that type of enunciation performs. Thus, it is proposed that both poets construct the voice of subversive women to represent the fight for “democracy in the country and in the home” that the feminist movement is raising at that time. These poets defy gender roles decreed by the regime and patriarchal culture, proclaiming the microphysic powers that women possess to emancipate from authoritarian violence.