The Transnational Diffusion of Anti-Communism: Conservative Women in Brazil, Chile, and the United States

This paper examines transnational connections between and among anti-communist women in Brazil, Chile, and the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s.  It explores what conservative Brazilian and Chilean women did to communicate and promote their role in the overthrow of João Goulart (1964) and Salvador Allende (1973)  to each other and to conservative women in the United States.  It concludes by showing that these women reversed the flow of information by serving as models for each other and for anti-communist women in the United States.  A number of studies have examined what anti- communist women did to undermine progressive governments in Brazil and Chile.  This paper will argue that in addition to building highly visible, effective movements that contributed substantially to the weakening of the Goulart and Allende governments, these women influenced movements beyond their respective nation.  To illustrate this point, this paper discusses the transnational relationships these conservative women built with each other in pursuit of their anti-communist agenda.  It portrays these women as critical actors in the transnational diffusion of a gender-based anti-communist discourse and practice.