MEMCh members focused their efforts on women's issues throughout the social spectrum including the families of the urban poor, middle classes and educated elites.
[5] Social issues MEMCh supported were the availability of sanitary, affordable housing; assistance for alcoholism; reform of women's prisons;[7] and equal access to education.
[3] They held rallies for votes and political freedom, and in favor of regulations dealing with the high unemployment and subsistence living; and others against a military pact between Chile and the United States, and sending Chilean troops to participate in the Korean War.
MEMch developed an educational work, hosting schools for workers and job training courses, and created social service facilities to provide health care and legal advice.
[9] In the 1940s, the organization strongly opposed fascism, but rumors and actual links with communism of some of the feminists led to public defamation of several members and press which was critical of their objectives.
In 1949, having survived the government decision to outlaw the Communist Party and state harassment aimed at curtailing its activities, Chilean women gained universal suffrage.
Since democracy was restored in 1988, the organization has focused on joining a broad coalition of Chilean NGOs in the advocacy of women's equality, which includes their reproductive and sexual rights, as well as all aspects of development.