This work focuses on the analysis of the tensions, resistances and contradictions that are part of installation process of gender equality discourse which was institutionalized in the 1990s, as part of the process of re-democratization of the Chilean society. We focus particularly on the discussion that took place at the parliamentary level, and in two initiatives, the amendment of Article 1° of the Constitution and the First Plan for Equal Opportunities conducted by SERNAM (Woman National Service). But understanding the transition from resistance to “gender equality discourse” until at least an apparent acceptance, requires also the review of some historical background about the relationship between women and the state, and the character of the inclusion of the female issues, usually associated with motherhood and family, and the agencies created especially for this purpose since the mid twentieth century under governments of different political orientations. For this reason and from a long term perspective, the article also proposes a review of the trajectory of women’s state agencies and the ideas that have traveled the twentieth century on the role of woman in the public sphere as mother, worker and citizen.

Women; gender; equal opportunity; women’s rights; government policy; Chile