A socialist militant, she survived the 1973 Chilean coup d'état and went into exile in Mexico where she developed her research career.

[2] She resided in Chile during the government of Salvador Allende and, after the coup d'état, she went to Buenos Aires,[2] and a month later, she traveled with her family to Mexico, where she settled in 1973.

[1] In Mexico, she initiated contact with feminist movement leaders such as Lourdes Arizpe, Marta Lamas, Antonieta Rascón, and Carmen Lugo.

In 1979, Barbieri began to contribute to Fem, a feminist magazine founded by Alaíde Foppa in 1976.

[4] — Teresita de Barbieri[4] Barbieri's commitment to study these systems of social action and the meaning of action in relation to sexuality and reproduction was of a category, she said, that leaves open the possibility of the existence of different forms of relationship between women and men, between the feminine and the masculine.

In her document entitled Relaciones de Género en el Trabajo Parlamentario, she stated it was necessary to use imagination, to consult a thesaurus, to try to lighten and change the language.

[4] Barbieri's research covered a variety of areas, including peasant and working women, domestic work and daily life, population policies, reproductive and health rights, gender, spheres and spheres of action.