Camila Vallejo is the antithesis of the average Chilean politician. She's not a man, she's not rich and she's not worried about re-election.

"Macho attitudes in Chile are expressed in many forms," says the 25-year-old, a recent mother, who was elected to parliament in November and takes office in March. "In the salary inequalities, the lack of respect for sexual and reproductive rights and the great difficulties that confront women trying to reach political office."

A member of the Communist Youth, Vallejo rose to prominence in 2011 as president of the politically powerful University of Chile student federation. In street marches during 2011 and 2012, university and high school students, led in part by Vallejo, exposed Chilean higher education to be a for-profit sham with little effective regulation. University presidents were jailed, universities shut down and investigated, the protesters ignited a national debate over the future of public education in Chile.

Vallejo has been delivering political speeches and organizing communities for nearly a decade. Even as a 19-year-old Vallejo was known for rousing speeches that espoused deeper social spending and inclusion for Chile's lower class. Elected last year to represent La Florida, a middle-class Santiago neighborhood, Vallejo epitomises shoe-leather politics. She walked her entire district, from farmer's market to small businesses, pushing her progressive agenda. The strategy paid off as she and fellow communist youth activist Karol Cariola were both elected.

"They tried to create caricatures of me to distract the population from the issues and avoid a debate," she says. "Nonetheless, the power of the ideas, and the reasoning behind our demands were far stronger … The public understood that we were not just students who fought for our own interestsand that the youth is also part of the process of a much greater social transformation that involves the rest of society."

Given her good looks and charisma, she has continually battled to keep the goals of the movement front and centre. In interviews, she refuses personal questions, even about her favourite movie. But ask her about the recent elections in which four student leaders won parliamentary seats and she beams with pride. "There's no reason why those seats need to be occupied by the traditional-style politicians we have always had."