Women in Conservative Religious Mobilization in Latin America: Chile and Mexico in Comparative Perspective

Abstract Studies of ‘anti-gender’ mobilisations focus on contested gender policies such as abortion, same-sex marriage and sex education. Who engages in these protests and why is less known. We argue that conservative women organise to defend religious beliefs and agendas against a perceived threat that targets not only religious institutions but also their own identities as wives and mothers by offering alternatives to conventional family structures. This argument applies to the secularisation threat of the early twentieth century as well as the policy demands of liberal social movements in the early twenty-first century. Focusing on Chile and Mexico, we highlight continuity and change in conservative–religious women’s activism.