Women form a human hemisphere. Every law, every movement of freedom or culture, has long left us in the shadows. We have always arrived at the feast of progress, not as the reluctant guest who is slow to come, but as the ashamed comrade who is invited late and then concealed at the banquet with foolish embarrassment (Mistral, 1906; editorial translation).

1. Introduction

I begin with a personal story that explains the title of this article. While I read to my son Federico the story “The invisible thread: a story about the ties that bind us,” I wonder about the bonds that unite women, especially those of us who have chosen the judicial path.

This work will therefore seek to reconstruct part of the history of women in the Judiciary based on a milestone that marked its centennial this year: on April 17, 1925, Claudina Acuña Montenegro became the first woman to enter the escalafón primario (primary judicial roster)¹. This gesture of naming this pioneer and those who followed in her footsteps and then addressing the quantitative data on women’s participation today is an act of rebellion against patriarchal declarations that insist that women lack history (Scott, 2011).

This first step is part of a proposal for feminist analysis. The theory maintains that women are discriminated against, subordinated, and oppressed by reason of their sex; at the same time, their experiences, life stories, and needs are neither considered nor satisfied; therefore, to eliminate this discrimination and subordination, it is necessary to undertake deep changes in the distribution of political, economic, and social power between the sexes (Facio, 1999).

For this, it is essential to recognize that I depart from a feminist perspective, paraphrasing Alda Facio (1992), with my “gender lenses” firmly on.

The use of a gender perspective implies not only reconstructing the historical memory of women in the Judiciary but also problematizing the various obstacles to women’s participation in that space of power.

Thus, if we think about the incorporation of the category of gender with the contributions of feminist theories, the questioning must never remain on the surface. Feminism has understood, therefore, that the problem is much more complex. It is not enough to include women, “but to reconstruct the world to eliminate sexism from social, economic, and political structures” (Bodelón, 2009, p. 111; editorial translation); and, along that path, it is relevant for any proposal to address the various barriers that prevent the equal distribution of power.

Having explained the above, the work seeks, on the one hand, to unravel the enigmas of female history—a complex and, at the same time, non-negotiable task (Gaviola et al., 1986). Simultaneously, it does not intend to become a story “of women for women” (Valcárcel, 2012), but rather to understand that even when progress has been made toward parity in the Judiciary, it is necessary to also pay attention to those barriers that remain present in women’s careers.

The challenge? To critically face one hundred years of women’s history in the Judiciary, not to provide an account of the great works carried out by women, but to bring to light the silenced and hidden gender operations (Scott, 2011).

For the proposed purpose, the first part will seek to trace a path between the reasons that justified that “forbidden entry” (prohibido entrar) for women into the public sphere, to then advance along the path initiated by Claudina Acuña Montenegro in the Judiciary, providing some of the names of those pioneers. To conclude this section, the work will focus on current data regarding the participation of women in the power of the State called upon to hear, judge, and enforce judgments (conocer, juzgar y hacer ejecutar lo juzgado).

In the second part, with the objective of reflecting on present challenges and with a view toward the future, attention will be paid to three issues: gender stereotypes within the Judiciary, violence against women in the workplace, and care work².

This will lead, in the third part, to proposing certain measures aimed at eliminating such barriers, responding to the demand for effective equality in accordance with the mandate of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

An equality that will take one hundred and twenty-three years to arrive (World Economic Forum, 2025). Therefore, certain actions are proposed that aim to be part of a wide and varied range of actions designed and executed from a gender perspective (Zúñiga Añazco, 2020).

2. A hundred years of disputes, struggles, and achievements

While this centennial (1925-2025) bears witness to significant achievements, as Mary Beard (2018) argues, there are many reasons to celebrate, but also many others to remain indignant. Women who occupy the public sphere, like all other women, continue to face various forms of discrimination in both the public and private realms (Human Rights Council, 2025).

Accordingly, the following section will briefly analyze the exclusion of women from the public sphere, based on literature that delves into the reasons that justified it, followed by an introduction to the names of those pioneers who, since Claudina Acuña Montenegro, have broken through the fences built by patriarchy in the public arena.

2.1. Forbidden to enter

One of the claims of the first feminist wave centered on the conquest of those spaces traditionally reserved for men, such as education, the labor market, suffrage, property, and the public-political sphere (Novelli, 2025).

This involves the conquest of a space reserved by the patriarchal system³ for men, a space where the values of liberty and equality are represented, whereas the private sphere is that which is regulated by relationships of subjection and inequality (Monereo Atienza, 2010).

The argument sustaining such a division—which is simultaneously established as hierarchical (Amorós and de Miguel, 2020)—is that of a “different nature,” nourished by misogynistic discourse. This discourse, as Celia Amorós (2008) explains, disqualifies the entire collective of women by ascribing generalized contemptible traits to all of them (the negation of the principle of individuation), originating in Rousseauian Enlightenment and reaching its full development during Romanticism.

Amorós (2008) explains that romantic misogyny is rooted in the matrix that all men are generically superior to all women. The novelty of such an assertion—compared to similar claims previously conveyed through religious discourse—is the method of its application⁴: essential and divergent traits are attributed to both men and women. All of the above allowed, within the discourse of equality and liberty—the foundation of coexistence based on a covenant among equals—for female inferiority to find its justification in “Mother Nature.” Thus, a sharp distinction emerged between the political order (that which arises from the social contract) and the natural order, a distinction that is not merely physical-biological but dictates what each sex ought to do.

This division and counterposition between the public and private spheres was artificially constructed by patriarchal ideology, which situated women in the private sphere, where they played a relevant role in care and family education; at the same time, their personhood was subjected to the power of the husband (Monereo Atienza, 2010).

For Young (1990), the theory and institutionalized practice of the late 18th century (modern political theory) in Europe and the United States rearranged social life according to a strict division between the public (which expresses the universal and impartial standpoint) and the private (which expresses desire, feeling, and the particularity of needs and interests). From the former, those individuals and groups who did not fit the model of the “rational citizen”—one who possesses the capacity to transcend their body and feelings—were excluded. As women were the “guardians of affectivity, desire, and the body,” they had to be excluded from the public sphere.

The struggle against the exclusion of women from the public realm and the critique of the arguments sustaining this confinement have been part of the laborious work of generations of women, and some men, based on the idea that such exclusion contradicts the liberal democratic promise of emancipation (Young, 1990).

In this vein, the early demands of the feminist movement relate to the struggle for the right to be citizens and to occupy the public sphere. The primary fruits of these struggles were reflected in the recognition of the right to vote and access to university studies, especially during the 20th century. It is the period of history in which “women leapt from the rearguard to the vanguard of public life” (Fermandois and Stuven, 2013, p. 9; editorial translation).

2.2. A hundred years of an epic history

Even though the “forbidden to enter” sign has been forcefully undermined and women have progressively entered and occupied the public sphere, patriarchal mandates regarding women—the places they should occupy and the roles they must fulfill—remain present in our societies, albeit more or less nuanced, with varying levels of policy intervention to achieve structural changes. Without access to the public sphere, “there is no possibility whatsoever of being recognized, of being heard and listened to” (Guerra, 1999, p. 63; editorial translation).

As noted in the previous section, one of the first fields contested by the feminist movement was the public sphere, based on the demand for the right to citizenship. This citizenship goes hand in hand with the participation of women in a space also reserved for men: universities.

In the case of Chile, the fundamental impetus for the progressive incorporation of women into the public sphere was the enactment, during the government of President Aníbal Pinto, of the Amunátegui Decree (February 6, 1877), which authorized women to attend university classrooms. By destroying an unjust prohibition, it served as the key for women to join the discussions of the 20th century (Eltit, 2018).

While this decree stems from the recognition of rights from a liberal perspective, its significance cannot be overlooked, as it became the beginning of the path toward the transformation of the public sphere and its use by women—a slow, progressive path, and one not free of barriers.

Matilde Throup Sepúlveda began that journey. This pioneer became the first Chilean woman to qualify as a lawyer on June 6, 1892, and the third female professional—preceded by Eloísa Díaz Insunza, who obtained her Medical-Surgeon degree on January 2, 1887, and Ernestina Pérez Barahona, who also obtained her degree on January 10, 1887. She became a precedent for countries such as Belgium and Argentina, which requested reports to grant the title of lawyer to their own female citizens who were studying law.

She was also the first to apply for a competitive selection process (concurso) in the Judiciary: for the position of notary and court secretary in the city of Ancud; her petition was rejected by the Court of Appeals of Concepción.

Following that resolution, the lawyer Throup appealed to the Most Excellent Supreme Court, a body that issued a judgment on September 23, 1893, granting the request and declaring her right to compete for such a position. This judgment is a legal milestone in the recognition of women’s rights to access public office (Maturana Cabezas, 2025).

After Matilde Throup earned her degree, another Matilde decided to enter the classrooms where law is taught. Matilde Brandau received her law degree in 1898.

2.2.1. Claudina acuña montenegro

In April 1925, thirty-two years after the Supreme Court recognized the right of women to apply for positions within the Judiciary, the fifth woman to qualify as a lawyer in Chile, Claudina Acuña Montenegro⁵, was appointed Secretary of the Santa Cruz Court on April 17, 1925.

Our protagonist was born on November 4, 1900, in the city of Melipilla. She pursued her studies at the Liceo de Aplicación and subsequently studied to become a domestic economy teacher, serving as a primary school teacher from 1917 to 1920. She studied law at the University of Chile, qualifying on September 15, 1923 (Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination, 2024a).

According to her service record, she held the following positions within the Judiciary: Secretary of the Santa Cruz Court (1925); Secretary of the Curicó Court (1935); Alternate Judge of the Curicó Court (1936); Alternate Secretary of the 4th Criminal Court of Santiago (1940); Secretary of the 2nd Criminal Court of Santiago (1941); Secretary of the 1st Civil Court of Major Jurisdiction of Santiago (1945); Secretary of the 3rd Criminal Court of Major Jurisdiction of Valparaíso (1961). After serving the institution for 36 years, she retired on July 1, 1961.

If we observe, for example, the date on which María Luisa Algarra Coma took office—appointed on December 2, 1936, in Spain (Arruti, 2025)—Claudina’s appointment, like Matilde’s case, places her at the vanguard of overcoming the barriers of “forbidden entry.”

2.2.2. Other names

The following section will provide a chronological account of the gradual incorporation of women into various positions within the primary judicial roster (escalafón primario) of the Judiciary until the arrival of the first women to hold positions in the Supreme Court (Máximo Tribunal)⁶. This historical journey of dates and milestones represents a simple gesture of recognition for these pioneers.

Let us return to the year of Claudina Acuña Montenegro’s appointment. From 1925 until the appointment of a woman to the position of judge, more than fifteen years passed. During those years, although the entry of women was slow at first, they began to enter this space of power more continuously starting in 1933 and throughout the 1930s. From 1925 to 1941, there were 11 appointments: 2 occurred between 1920 and 1930⁷, and the remaining 9 between 1930 and 1941.

I refer to the following appointments: Hamida Tello Jiménez (March 19, 1931, Secretary of the Elqui Court); Blanca Arcos Rivero (May 15, 1933, Secretary of the Constitución Court); María Peralta Polanco (June 13, 1933, Secretary of the Victoria Court); Blanca Tovar (also appearing as Tobar) Orellana (November 20, 1933, Secretary of the Court of Minor Jurisdiction of Alto San Antonio); Uberlinda Montesinos Olavarría (July 30, 1935, Secretary of the Court of Minor Jurisdiction of Puerto Varas); Luisa Ducó Dunoguier (November 12, 1935, Secretary of the El Loa Court); Raquel Quezada Veas (December 18, 1935, Secretary of the Court of Minor Jurisdiction of Sewell); Reynalda (Reinalda) Pino Urrutia (March 9, 1936, Secretary of the Coronel Court); and Eliana Loyola Illanes (August 18, 1937, Secretary of the Viña del Mar Court).

On December 15, 1941, Corina Mera Mera became the first woman to be appointed as a judge—in this case, Judge of the San José de la Mariquina Court. Corina Mera Mera was born in San José de la Mariquina on June 13, 1905, and died in Yumbel on April 11, 1985; she studied at the University of Chile and was sworn in as a lawyer on February 29, 1941; her thesis was titled “El movimiento de capitales y el plan Hallensit” (1952). Within the Judiciary, she held the following positions: Secretary of the Court of Minor Jurisdiction of San José de la Mariquina (April 21, 1941); Judge of San José de la Mariquina (December 15, 1941); Judge of the Court of Minor Jurisdiction of Valdivia (December 15, 1944); Judge of the 1st Court of Major Jurisdiction of Quillota (February 20, 1953); Judge of Arauco (October 11, 1955); and Judge of Yumbel (April 28, 1960). She retired from that position on October 18, 1982.

After such a milestone, more than fifteen years elapsed before the first woman entered the third category of the primary judicial roster.

María Mardones Montenegro assumed the position of Relator of the Valdivia Court of Appeals on June 21, 1956—the only woman in said roster out of a total of 68 people. Within the Judiciary, she held the following positions: Secretary of the 2nd Court of Valdivia (June 15, 1950); Judge of the 2nd Court of Osorno (June 15, 1953); Relator of the Valdivia Court (June 21, 1956); Relator of the Concepción Court (May 27, 1958); Relator of the Santiago Court of Appeals (December 11, 1958); Judicial Prosecutor (Fiscal) of the Valdivia Court (October 4, 1960); Judicial Prosecutor of the Talca Court (July 13, 1965); Alternate Minister (Ministra suplente) of the same court (two months starting March 20, 1968, and another two months on May 8, 1968); and Judicial Prosecutor of the Punta Arenas Court (August 18, 1970). She retired from this last position on September 1, 1978.

The following year, she was joined in that category by Leticia Contreras Squella, who was appointed Relator of the Santiago Court of Appeals on March 22, 1957. According to her service record, she qualified as a lawyer on May 3, 1945, and held the following positions within the Judiciary: Secretary of the Lautaro Court (March 29, 1947); Secretary of the Parral Court (March 20, 1949); Judge of the Yungay Court (August 30, 1950); Judge of the Melipilla Court (November 30, 1950); Judge of the 3rd Civil Court of Minor Jurisdiction of Santiago (April 9, 1952); Relator of the Santiago Court (August 27, 1957); Alternate Judicial Prosecutor of the Santiago Court (during different periods between 1966, 1968, and 1969); and Judicial Prosecutor of the Santiago Court of Appeals (October 23, 1969). She resigned on September 14, 1993.

By 1970, nearly fifty years after the first woman entered the Judiciary, 227 women held various positions within the institution. In this context, on November 12, 1971, Fannie Leibovich Gubermann took office as Minister (Ministra) of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, becoming the first woman to hold a high-ranking position in the Judiciary. She began her judicial career on October 31, 1934, when she assumed the position of Secretary of the Juvenile Court of Valparaíso. She was subsequently appointed as Judge of the 1st Juvenile Court of Valparaíso in February 1959. The final position in her career was Minister of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, a post she held from November 1971 until shortly thereafter, due to her passing on May 30, 1972.

More than twenty-five years after the first woman was sworn in as a Minister of a Court of Appeals, the first time a woman appeared on a shortlist for the Supreme Court was in 1997, corresponding to the Minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Raquel Camposano Echegaray.

Four years after Minister Camposano was part of a shortlist for the Supreme Court, the first female Minister of the Supreme Court was appointed. María Antonieta Morales assumed the position on November 5, 2001. She was followed in the period between 2001 and 2007 by Margarita Herreros Martínez, Gabriela Pérez Paredes, and Sonia Mireya Araneda Briones.

In the same year as Minister Morales, Mónica Maldonado Croquevielle assumed the position of Prosecutor (Fiscal) of that court on November 5, 2001.

The entry of these first women into the Supreme Court is one of the milestones in weaving together the history of women in the Judiciary.

Of all these women, as with every pioneer, I imagine them paying “a high price and an unnecessary loneliness for that which their successors take for granted” (Varela, 2017, p. 30; editorial translation).

2.3. Women’s participation today

The Supreme Court Directorate of Studies (2019) reports that since 2005, there has been a sustained increase in the number of women⁸. Among the data provided by this study, the following are noteworthy:

- As of December 31, 2018, at the national level, the Judiciary—including the CAPJ (Corporación Administrativa del Poder Judicial)—consisted of 10,976 people, of whom 6,630 were women and 4,513 were men. In percentage terms, this equals 60.5% and 39.5%, respectively, with a gender gap of 21%; that is, within the Judiciary, there are 21% more women than men.

- In 2018, the first-instance judiciary consisted of 60% female judges, while 40% were male judges. Participation is reversed in the second instance (composition of Ministers of the Courts of Appeals): 59.3% of the Ministers of the Courts of Appeals were men, while 40.7% were women.

- In the Supreme Court, from 2005 to 2018, a considerable increase in the percentage of female justices is observed during the period; in 2005 they represented 5%, reaching 30% by 2018.

Other data providing a more general overview of the composition of the Judiciary are those published by the Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination (2024b), including:

- Between 1823 and March 30, 2021, 219 male ministers and 13 female ministers have been appointed to the Supreme Court.

- In the Courts of Appeals (17 in total), the situation in terms of women’s representation is more auspicious: in 1990, the gender gap was 55%, and its reduction has allowed it to reach -5.8% as of March 2024; that is, there are nearly 6% fewer female ministers than male ministers in the Courts of Appeals.

This year, the Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination published data on the Judiciary’s staffing as of June 2025. The following points stand out:

- The Judiciary consists of 11,681 people, of whom 6,962 are women and 4,719 are men. In percentage terms, they equal 59.6% and 40.4%, respectively, with a gender gap of 19.2%; that is, in the PJUD (Poder Judicial), there are 19% more women than men.

- The largest gender gap (-11.6%) occurs in the Supreme Court, where 44.2% of its personnel are women and 55.8% are men.

- In the Courts of Appeals nationwide, there are five courts where the gender gap is 0—that is, there is parity (Arica, Iquique, Copiapó, Chillán, and Punta Arenas); in four there are positive gaps (Valparaíso, Santiago, San Miguel, and Valdivia), and in nine there are negative gaps (Antofagasta, La Serena, Rancagua, Talca, Concepción, Temuco, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique).

- Nationwide, there are 18% more female judges than male judges.

- Family Courts are the type of work unit that concentrates the largest number of members (2,551), with 67.1% women and 32.9% men, and a gap of 34.1% (Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination, 2025a).

While this sample of various updated studies regarding the participation of women in different positions within the primary judicial roster is revealing, it begs the question: does one swallow make a summer? This question leads us to look beyond parity as a purely quantitative horizon (Santiago et al., 2021)—that is, the balanced distribution of power between men and women (Zúñiga Añazco, 2020).

3. One (or several) swallow(s) do not make a summer

The title of the following section takes the name of an op-ed published by the President of Magistradas Chilenas (Chilean Female Magistrates) after the photo of the first gender-balanced integration of the Supreme Court was published.

As Geraldine Aguirre Belmar (2024) rightly points out in her column, the balanced composition alone has not been accompanied by a general political commitment to this democratic requirement that should radiate throughout the Judiciary, nor is it a representation of the equal distribution of power. Proof of this is that, in more than two hundred years of the Supreme Court’s history, and nearly a quarter of a century since the first woman assumed the position of Minister of the High Court; no woman has been elected President.

The parity-based participation of women is not justified under the idea that female judges are more sympathetic toward female litigants, nor that women as a group reason differently than their male colleagues (Hunter, 2012); rather, it is a requirement of democracy justice and possesses powerful symbolic value.

The above leads us to reflect on the barriers that produce discriminatory effects on women’s participation in power. This is a reflection on the fact that an increase in the percentages of women’s participation (the politics of presence) is no guarantee of substantial changes in the exercise of power; instead, it is necessary to overcome the structures that condition it—that is, to substantively transform the dominant values and those rules made in the image and likeness of men (Salazar Benítez, 2025).

In other words, the presence of women in spaces of power does not result in qualitative parity free from various grievances, violence, barriers, and the “structural power fence” (Macías Jara, 2025; editorial translation).

Lidia Casas (2010) recognizes that women are exposed, in this public space, to a series of obstacles in building their careers; for example, they are asked about their private lives, whether they have children, or their marital status—questions that would not be part of the experience of men in the Judiciary.

In this sense, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2013) recognizes that the unequal participation of women in justice entities is justified both by discriminatory practices historically carried out by the bodies in charge of selecting candidates, and by the lack of institutional and material conditions that allow women within the public service to be free from violence and to access the highest courts under equal conditions.

For its part, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2024a) in General Recommendation No. 40 warns that to achieve parity, the various obstacles preventing women from accessing decision-making systems on equal terms with men must be combated (para. 2). Thus, attention must be paid to patriarchal structures, for which one of the pillars on the path to achieving parity is the structural transformation in favor of the equal and inclusive representation of women (para. 13).

The administrative arm of the Rule of Law, in which gender discrimination operates, is one where women have faced and continue to face a series of obstacles in both entering the legal profession and ascending within its practice (Hunter, 2012).

To this end, it is proposed to reflect on three structural obstacles: gender-based violence, gender stereotypes, and care work. That is to say, the commitment is to move beyond the cosmetic and instead understand the structures of power inequality and constructed hierarchies. Consequently, it becomes fundamental to address three of the primary gendered obstacles: stereotypes, sexual harassment, and caregiving responsibilities.

3.1. The gender order in the judiciary

The parity participation of women in the Judiciary does not imply that this space of power is free from patriarchal mandates regarding gender, which are manifested through gender stereotypes about women, understood as preconceptions regarding the attributes or characteristics possessed or roles that are or should be performed by women⁹.

Gender stereotypes affect and infiltrate, for example, the merit criteria for advancement in women’s career paths, as well as the social or media assessment regarding judicial decision-making (Santiago et al., 2021, pp. 60-61).

The gender order in judicial culture became evident in the Diagnostic Study of the Gender Equality Perspective in the Chilean Judiciary (Dirección de Estudios de la Corte Suprema, 2016). This is evidenced by the responses to a series of questions; for example, when asked: “[H]ow much do you agree with the following statements? Female judges impart justice in a more emotional manner”. Although the responses show that 76% of judges reject that phrase, the rejection is higher among women (59%). Conversely, to the question “Do male judges impart justice in a more rational manner?” although 73% of people reject such an assertion, a higher rejection is found among women (83%), compared to 57% among male judges.

In the case of the first statement, those who agree represent 6% of the total, where men presented higher figures, with 12% versus the 3% exhibited by women. This complements the stereotype analyzed in the second statement, in which agreeing that male judges impart justice in a more rational manner had a total acceptance level of 7.7%, being higher among men (14.1%) compared to 3.6% of women, with men manifesting “a stereotype regarding men being more rational beings than women, the differences between these two groups being statistically significant at 5%.”

For its part, when analyzing the characteristics of women and men, facing the question “How much do you agree with the following statement? There are positions more appropriate for women and others more appropriate for men,” 50% of people respond that they reject such a statement, with lower rejection found among women (57%) than among men (41%); however, the number that draws attention is that of the total people surveyed, 30.6% agree or strongly agree with such a statement, the difference of that total between men (37.5%) and women (25.6%) being significant.

Regarding the question “How much do you agree with the following statement? In some work activities, women perform better and in others men do better?”, 44% of the total people surveyed agree or strongly agree with that statement; among those who reject it, there is a significant difference between men (30%) and women (44%).

A statement that could reveal gender stereotypes is the following: “In some legal matters (civil, criminal, labor), women perform better and in others men [perform] better”; 69% of the sample rejects it; the rejection is higher among women (74%) than among men (61%). If we look at the specific numbers for each matter, although the percentages of people surveyed are similar regarding women and men performing similarly in the different matters —civil matters: 78%; criminal matters: 80%; labor matters: 78%—, in family matters that number drops to 67% and a not insignificant percentage agrees that women perform better in family matters (14% of the total).

Regarding the latter, the study states that this is a finding to be taken into consideration. This is because, firstly, it is a jurisdiction (family) where the people surveyed fix a position higher than the previous ones (more than 10%); secondly, because the family jurisdiction is the competence that most concentrates women, which, in light of qualitative work, is not a simple act of choice or preference, but rather the underlying reason is the supposed greater suitability of women for the knowledge and resolution of family issues, which responds to a gender stereotype in the application of the Law.

A few years prior to the diagnostic study, Corporación Humanas investigated the opportunities in their careers regarding promotions and challenges, which are viewed differently between men and women. In its report, it noted the high perception of discrimination caused by gender stereotypes that devalue women’s performance and limit their possibilities of ascending to the institution’s higher hierarchies.

Stereotypes are expressed in the fact that the characteristics attributed to each sex reveal that the ideal model of a judge is masculine and determine a negative view of women’s performance, with an exacerbated emotionality that would prevent them from deciding impartially and working in teams without generating conflicts. They are manifested, furthermore, in an assignment of preferential spaces for men and women that reproduces the traditional sexual division of labor, which is not neutral, as men are associated with spaces of greater prestige —Supreme Court and criminal matters— (Infante and Salvo, 2007).

3.2. Gender-based violence against women in the workplace

Suzie Miller dedicates her book Prima Facie “To all the women who are one in three.” According to the United Nations, one in three women has suffered some type of violence, with this phenomenon acquiring symptoms of an epidemic (Balaguer, 2005).

Violence against women and girls is one of the most powerful and efficient tools used by the patriarchal system to dictate where they must be, what roles they must fulfill, what clothes to wear, at what time they must leave home, and how they must behave. In this sense, Kate Millett (2020) states that patriarchal society exercises, as in the case of other dominant ideologies, an insufficient and even ineffective control if it does not count on the backing of force.

The diverse manifestations of gender-based violence against women and girls have been the object of distinct efforts at the state and international levels, being incorporated into the public agenda, above all thanks to the feminist movement that, starting from the sixties and seventies, has fought with the aim of making this scourge visible, while simultaneously making proposals to attack both its causes and its consequences (Birgin, 2012).

Violence can adopt multiple forms and occur in diverse spheres, including, among others, the workplace (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 2017, para. 20), thereby preventing “women from taking the necessary first steps to see themselves represented in decision-making,” and when dealing with women in decision-making positions, it “can expel them from said posts and dissuade other women from attempting to occupy said posts” (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 2024a, para. 37; editorial translation).

Addressing it from that prism requires assimilating that sexual harassment against women in the workplace, together with other manifestations of violence, constitutes the greatest attack on the dignity and rights of women, posing a grave problem of public order of a persistent, structural, and universal character (Reche Tello, 2025). Furthermore, it constitutes a barrier to the retention and advancement of women in their professional trajectories (Santiago et al., 2021).

Sexual harassment has been present in the lives of women throughout history, rooted in machista practices, which have allowed the phenomenon of this manifestation of gender-based violence against women to perpetuate itself in distinct ambits, and within them, in the workspace—from which the courts of justice have not been exempt. This is a labor space that, historically, in the first place, was barred to women, and which continues to be a space where women are in a position of subordination and precariousness. It is that expression of male control over sexual access to women, and as a legal claim, it is a feminist creation, as they were “the first to take women’s experience seriously enough to unveil, conceptualize, and legally define this problem” (MacKinnon, 2014, p. 151; editorial translation).

UN Women published in 2018 the report “Towards an end to sexual harassment: The urgency and necessity of change in the era of #METOO”, in which it recognizes that sexual harassment is a human rights violation that “expresses and reinforces power inequalities” and is used to “achieve compliance, submission, and the affirmation of sexual inequality” (UN Women, 2018, p. 10; editorial translation).

In harassment, diverse structural elements operate that impact the historical invisibilization of the phenomenon, the lack of investigation and sanction of the facts with a gender perspective, as well as the impunity and silence that accompany the victims (Ugarte, 2020).

Highlighting the relationship of this manifestation of violence against women with the system of oppression that feminists have called patriarchy or the sex-gender system, allows for the rethinking that any policy seeking [to address it] must also be conceived in that key, recognizing these patterns and adopting reparation measures for the victim.

In this sense, precisely in the Concluding Observations on the fifth periodic report of Chile, the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (2024) expresses concern regarding the persistence of sexual violence, including in the workplace (para. 26), and therefore recommends to the State that it “take measures to combat sexual harassment in the workplace, including awareness campaigns” (para. 27; editorial translation).

In the recent General Recommendation No. 40, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2024a) recommends that states introduce codes of conduct with an intersectional perspective in the various public powers with the aim of eliminating all forms of gender-based violence against women.

For its part, the International Labour Organization, in the Convention on Violence and Harassment (2019), recognizes that “gender-based violence and harassment disproportionately affect women and girls” (preamble).

On the subject, the “Diagnostic Study on the Gender Perspective in the Judiciary” warns, in matters of sexual violence, not only about the presence of sexual harassment but also about the non-existence of efficient mechanisms to provide a response; thus, one in every ten persons declares to have witnessed or experienced a situation of sexual harassment at work (9.5%)—which women perceive in greater measure (11.3%)—and only a percentage close to 22% utilizes an institutional channel to report it; the rest prefer to discuss it with a work colleague or close family member. This result, therefore, reveals, on the one hand, the existence within the Judiciary of conduct that attacks the dignity of persons and, on the other, that the institutional mechanisms in force to assert complaints and channel cases of sexual harassment are practically not utilized (Directorate of Studies of the Supreme Court, 2016).

Based on what was confirmed in the cited study, the Judiciary adopted a series of measures. On the one hand, in 2018, the “Protocol of action for reporting. Treatment of sexual harassment” was launched, a product of the work of the roundtable that met for the first time on February 15, 2017, and which sought to deliver a proposal for a protocol of action for the reporting, treatment, and sanction of sexual harassment.

Subsequently, in Acta No. 103-2018 of the plenary of the Supreme Court, it is recognized that sexual harassment is a manifestation of gender-based violence and that international human rights law requires states to adopt appropriate and effective measures to combat public and private acts of violence based on sex, including acts constituting sexual harassment; establishing the procedure of action for the prevention, reporting, and treatment of sexual harassment in the Chilean Judiciary (Supreme Court, 2018).

It is worth highlighting that in 2017 the Prevention and Information Campaign Regarding Sexual Harassment was launched to inform, make visible, and sensitize the members of our institution regarding what practices are considered sexual harassment, making a call not to allow the existence of this form of gender-based violence in the Judiciary (Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination, 2017; editorial translation).

Together with the above, one of the strategic axes of the Gender Policy of the Judiciary is “Non-gender violence,” which seeks “to eradicate from the work of the Judiciary all actions or conduct, based on gender, that cause death, damage, or physical, sexual, or psychological suffering to all persons, both in the public and private sphere, in particular those that imply sexual and workplace harassment based on gender.”

3.3. Judges who care

That the topic of care has been left for the end is due to the reflection made by Valérie Lefebvre-Faucher (2020):

If you have read this book this far, it is because you have made a large space in your life for intellectual work (and have had to, in order to do so, break with other aspects of your life, accumulating debt for study) or because you have arduously negotiated 10 minutes of intellectual availability from a professional and family life that requires your constant attention. (pp. 195-196; editorial translation)

One of the issues that has taken time to achieve visibility and attention in the public sphere is care work, which has historically been performed by women—to whom the “natural” function of exercising it has been attributed—operating also as a barrier to their participation in the public sphere and, with it, in spaces of power. Unpaid work performed within families remains the obstacle to be overcome (Seery, 2020).

Care work, deliberately hidden (Gómez, 2020) and invisibilized, was placed at the center of social protest in the 1960s, thereby opening Pandora’s box and making this matter a subject of public debate, finding in this work that which “naturally” corresponded to them (Toupin and Robert, 2020). It was the core of the exploitation of all women (Robert, 2020).

Feminism seeks to break the “natural” and invisible role of care tasks performed by women, to convert and recognize it as the most important and necessary work for our survival. This implies modifying gender structures, as well as racist, ideological, economic structures, and cultural practices, on the path toward profound cultural change (Vargas, 2025). Paraphrasing the title of an article by Irène Demczuk (2020), caring is, more than ever, a feminist issue.

Care tasks form part of the division between the public and private spheres and the assignment of women to such tasks in the latter. This makes women more likely to need work leave to provide care, which impacts employers’ perception of them as less desirable hires or leads to their overrepresentation in informal, part-time, low-paid jobs, often without union representation. Furthermore, this is the main reason for women being out of the labor market, affecting their capacity to enjoy their right to health, among other rights, preventing them from participating in public life, and also affecting their capacity to care for themselves (Human Rights Council, 2025).

In other words, the unequal distribution of care tasks, based on gender stereotypes, generates negative impacts on women’s enjoyment of rights, not only at an individual level but constituting a form of structural or systemic discrimination against women. This issue is aggravated when other factors of discrimination intersect (class, ethnicity, migratory status, among others), which can generate situations of intersectional discrimination (Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 2025).

Care work disproportionately impacts women; therefore, the use of gender lenses to analyze this reality is fundamental. Let us start with the following data: “[I]n 2024, women dedicated 2.5 times more hours than men to unpaid domestic work” (Human Rights Council, 2025, para. 33; editorial translation).

That these tasks are carried out especially by women is part of patriarchal mandates and entrenched gender stereotypes. Precisely, the stereotypes that place women and girls as those principally responsible for serving and caring for others are determined by the gendered division of labor, making it necessary to transform them and the harmful cultural norms (Human Rights Council, 2025).

In the specific case of the Judiciary, the study on the situation of maternity and paternity protection within the Judiciary was conducted in 2018. Although it noted a recent shift toward a perspective of balancing roles between men and women in parenting issues and their compatibility with work, it revealed that women are the ones who fulfill the role as those principally responsible for the care of sons and daughters. Based on this, it recognized work-family conciliation as a gender problem, with women facing paradoxical situations where expectations of their traditional roles coexist with new labor demands, leading to the so-called “double presence” (doble presencia)—that is, responding simultaneously to the demands of paid work and domestic work, which affects women in the majority (Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination, 2018).

It is worth noting that, although the study reports that among younger fathers discourses arise regarding the need to be considered relevant actors in the parenting process, in the opinion of the interviewees, in the institution “more traditional discourses in this regard persist, which devalue the responsibility of fathers over children, associating said role with women” (Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination, 2018, p. 59; editorial translation).

Subsequently, the study “Gender conditioning factors in mobility and promotions to higher-ranking positions in the Judiciary”¹⁰ was conducted. Regarding some of the results related to the issue of care, it is noted that for positions of Head of the CAPJ (Corporación Administrativa del Poder Judicial) and in some directorates of the Supreme Court, the requirement of “availability to travel” is established. This requirement “equates to an implicit declaration of: either the subject has the physical ability to travel, or as it is a requirement for the position, they must internalize the cost that this implies. One of these costs corresponds to the use of private time (beyond the extension of the workday) to perform institutional functions. Put this way, it generates an immediate tension with the role of family care attributed to women.”

To all the work of care, we must also add the mental load (carga mental) that also weighs on women. It concerns the mental space and psychological energy that women must deploy so that everything functions in the family—for example, planning clothes for the next season and the week’s menus, remembering to call to make an appointment with the pediatrician for vaccines (Seery, 2020); it is the most invisible aspect of care work.

4. Some proposals

Based on the barriers to which attention has been drawn in the previous section, and which constitute obstacles to women’s participation in spaces of power, the following paragraphs will outline some proposals for actions aimed at eradicating gender stereotypes and sexual harassment within the judicial culture, together with those that seek to put care at the center.

The proposals will have as their central core some of the standards on these subjects based on International Human Rights Law.

Regarding gender stereotypes, in the Concluding Observations on the eighth periodic report of Chile, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2024b) expresses its concern regarding the persistence of gender stereotypes,

[...] concerning the roles and responsibilities of women and men in the family and society, which insist on the traditional role of women as mothers and wives, thereby undermining their social status, autonomy, and opportunities for professional development (para. 23; editorial translation).

Along these lines, General Recommendation No. 40 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2024a) maintains that, to confront patriarchy based on a transformative approach, gender stereotypes must be eliminated in all spheres (paras. 12 and 30 et seq.).

In this sense, the results yielded by the information gathering of the Evaluation of the scope of the Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination Policy (Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination, 2025b) will be fundamental. Based on this, it is possible to think of measures aimed at removing gender stereotypes, which, due to their transversality and cultural entrenchment, make it necessary to implement coordinated collective actions, as well as institutional policies sustained over time in order to eradicate them (Santiago et al., 2021, p. 60).

Secondly, regarding sexual harassment, it is important to analyze the phenomenon from a gender approach (enfoque de género), as a technique, tool, or methodology that entails the use of the critical and emancipatory potential of the analytical category of gender, contributing a distinct perspective that allows for the analysis of the differentiated impact of this human rights violation, and with it, to think of actions and policies to prevent, sanction, and eradicate it.

Sexual harassment is one of the many manifestations of gender-based violence that has been invisibilized and silenced by patriarchy. As a response, it demands the incorporation of a gender approach, adopting diverse measures to ensure women’s access to justice, together with processes that accompany them and reparation measures. It is also relevant to have data to address and recognize the importance of this social problem that affects women’s human rights in a space they occupy so much. From there, the achievement of full equality between men and women requires, as a condition, having workspaces free from this manifestation of gender-based violence against women.

Any measure adopted must consider, on the one hand, the general standards regarding violence against women and girls based on their gender, contained, for example, in General Recommendations No. 19 and 35 of the CEDAW Committee, as well as Convention No. 190 on the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work (International Labour Organization, 2019), measures to prevent harassment, as well as remedies and reparations.

In this sense, precisely in the Concluding Observations on the fifth periodic report of Chile, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2025; editorial translation) recommends to the State that it “[I]ntensify awareness campaigns to transform patriarchal attitudes and gender stereotypes, promoting co-responsibility in domestic and care tasks” (para. 21 letter e).

Regarding the latter, as mentioned, the Judiciary has adopted measures, adapting the investigation procedure for complaints in cases of harassment, incorporating the gender perspective as one of its principles (Supreme Court, 2018).

It is necessary, therefore, that justice systems have conciliation policies sensitive to their feminization (Santiago et al., 2021, pp. 162-163).

To this end, a central axis of any policy revolving around placing care at the center, overcoming the archetype of a “priestly judge” (juez sacerdotal)—that is, one dedicated exclusively to their professional life, disregarding their family and care responsibilities (Arruti, 2025)—a beacon to follow is the recent Advisory Opinion 31/2025 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

In it, the IACtHR recognizes the dependency of all persons at different moments of their life cycle; therefore, care fulfills both an individual and social function.

Advisory Opinion 31/2025 recognizes the right to care, which implies that caregivers can exercise their labor without discrimination and with full respect for their human rights. Therefore, states have the obligation to adopt measures to advance conciliation.

In line with the above, it becomes fundamental to carry out campaigns informing the members of the institution, as well as the general public, about gender gaps in care tasks. To this end, it is also relevant to have disaggregated data by gender related to the various types of care work.

Another central element on which measures must focus is combating gender stereotypes present in the assignment of care tasks. Precisely, the IACtHR in Advisory Opinion 31/25 mentions how, based on gender stereotypes, “expectations of behavior for men and women based on biological differences are usually held, while practices based on those expectations are created and reproduced,” which has evident consequences regarding the violation of rights—for example, when women who form families that depart from socially and culturally accepted patterns are discriminated against, or in cases where discriminatory decisions are adopted based on traditional conceptions referring to the role of women as mothers.

Along these lines, progressive measures must be adopted and implemented to reverse the negative gender stereotypes that lie at the base of the inequitable distribution of unpaid care tasks. Such measures should favor the modification of these stereotypes and contribute to reducing the possibility of companies incurring biases and avoiding the hiring of women of reproductive age (Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 2025, paras. 146, 147, and 162; editorial translation).

Any measure adopted, whether as public policy or specific measures adopted by the Judiciary, must, under the protection of Advisory Opinion 31/2025, include, at a minimum, reinforced protection for groups in a special situation of vulnerability, such as pregnant women or those in the breastfeeding period, children, persons with disabilities, or older persons; in addition to specific protection mechanisms for persons who perform unpaid care tasks.

5. Conclusions

The structuring of the separation between the public and private spheres has been a cardinal axis upon which patriarchal discourse revolves—and continues to revolve—operationalizing that difference and separation. Wherein, despite various advances in the recognition of rights, outstanding debts remain with the most numerous collective (not counting other axes of oppression): women.

The path initiated by Claudina continues with other pioneers, whom we will rescue from patriarchal oblivion by naming them, as a first act of subversion against the system that has kept us in the shadows.

One hundred years have passed since that milestone, a century witnessing significant advances, especially regarding women’s participation in the Judiciary.

In the case of female judges, although we are in the presence of a group in a situation of privilege, this does not preclude the need to propose measures that seek to confront the various barriers that form part—as feminist theorists have evidenced—of a system of oppression that continues to enjoy good health and executes its power throughout the social, economic, and political fabric.

In this work, attention has been paid to three of them: gender stereotypes, sexual harassment, and care work, as central elements that affect women’s participation in the public sphere and in spaces of power.

Studies are required, such as the one currently being conducted by the Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination, regarding the effectiveness of policy strategies and actions aimed at incorporating gender mainstreaming. The foregoing becomes especially relevant insofar as, although the institutionalization of a gender policy in the Judiciary marks a decade, the results of some investigations reveal that this branch of the State remains a machista space.

Along these lines, the need arises to analyze the various scenarios of the gender order both within the Judiciary (organic arm) and in the fulfillment of its constitutional role, as the power of the State is called upon to resolve conflicts of diverse nature.

Weaving together the present and thinking about the future must lead us to search for the frameworks of the invisible threads of the past while simultaneously untangling the knots that operate as barriers to women’s participation in the Judiciary.

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Funding: This article has not received any funding associated with the public, commercial, or for-profit sectors.

Conflict of Interest: The author declares that she has no conflicts of interest regarding the preparation of this article.

Contribution Statement based on the CRediT taxonomy: The author declares her contributions to the present research article, using the CRediT taxonomy: Conceptualization: (100%); Formal analysis: (100%); Investigation: (100%); Writing – original draft: (100%); Writing – review & editing: (100%).

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Notes

¹In accordance with the Organic Code of Courts (Código Orgánico de Tribunales), the primary judicial roster (escalafón primario) of the Judiciary is comprised of seven categories, ranging from persons holding the position of Secretaries of Courts of Letters (Secretarios de Juzgados de Letras) of a commune or grouping of communes to the position of Minister of the Supreme Court (Judiciary, n.d.).

²Some of the factors identified by Yanira Zúñiga (2020) as explanatory of the phenomena of vertical and horizontal segregation affecting women within the Judiciary are gathered.

³In all patriarchal systems, we find a series of common characteristics: it is a historical system and not a natural one; it is founded on male dominance exercised through sexual violence against women, which is installed, through force and fear, in their bodies; the paradigm of the human—represented by the white, wealthy male, of reproductive age, without physical disabilities, and heterosexual—fixes the highest point of the hierarchy regarding any other condition or variable; and, finally, the justifications that allow for the maintenance of patriarchal dominance have their origin in biological differences (Facio & Fries, 1999).

⁴Previously, similar assertions had been conveyed through religious discourse (Amorós, 2008), as well as being present in many of the authors in the history of thought (Monereo Atienza, 2010).

⁵She studied at the Liceo de Aplicación and Law at the University of Chile, qualifying on September 15, 1923; her thesis was titled “El problema de la mendicidad en Chile” (The Problem of Begging in Chile).

⁶All the data mentioned in this section are published in Maturana, 2019.

⁷In addition to the previously mentioned Claudina Acuña, Estefanía Poblete Poblete was appointed Secretary of the Petorca Court in 1927.

⁸The same holds true in Latin American justice systems, which appears to be a consequence of the process of feminization of the legal profession and the opening of the civil service to women—a conquest of the feminist movement’s struggle (Salazar & Indacochea, 2021, p. 7).

⁹The foregoing definition is based on the one utilized by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the judgment of the case of González et al. v. Mexico.

¹⁰The Study is comprised of two research projects: 1) “Condicionantes de género en la movilidad y ascensos a los cargos de mayor jerarquía en el Poder Judicial” (Gender conditioning factors in mobility and promotions to higher-ranking positions in the Judiciary) (Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination, 2019), which addresses: theoretical framework; normative framework; analysis of recruitment and selection processes; and mobility patterns; and 2) “Desarrollo profesional ascendente y acceso a los cargos de mayor jerarquía en el Poder Judicial de Chile” (Upward professional development and access to higher-ranking positions in the Judiciary of Chile), which addresses the perceptions of the (potential) members of high-ranking positions in the Judiciary (Technical Secretariat for Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination, 2020).