Role of women in the Nicaraguan Revolution
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Women played a role in the
There was an emergence of women as active participants and leaders. Many women joined the ranks of the Sandinistas as the armed struggle in Nicaragua started in 1967.[1]
Women also joined the Contras movement. Women from both the Sandinistas and Contras worked together to generate reform in Nicaragua.[2]
Description
It is estimated that women made up approximately 25 to 30 percent of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).[2] On the other side of the revolution, women also participated, albeit in fewer numbers. It is estimated that seven percent of Counter Revolutionary Soldiers (Contras) were women.[2] Women on both sides of the revolution were involved in many roles, including: organizers, supporters of communications, providers of their homes for their female comrades’ protection, and persuaders of their husbands to join the revolution.
A change in gender relations was limited due to the process being shaped by the values and priorities of the Sandinista government rather than by the main women's organization
The women were empowered to challenge any attempts that would reduce them back to the domestic role. Chamorro's portrayal of women reinforced rather than challenged the politics of gender equality in Nicaragua.
Feminist ideology
The women in Nicaragua during the Sandinista Revolution saw their way of life drastically change. Women became involved as guerrilla fighters in the overthrown of the Anastasio Somoza García regime, as many women mobilized to assist the FSLN bring about the revolution.[1]
Early in the revolution, the FSLN made the
Nicaraguan feminists were not able to find a voice through AMNLAE, who they saw as more feminine than feminist, thus many feminists cut their ties with what they see as a right-wing organization and began advocating for gender equality on their own. This became increasing difficult during the Contra war when AMNLAE, the FSLN, and other independent women shifted their focus away from emancipating women and towards winning the war. The reluctance for AMNLAE to explicitly pursue the anti-sexism agenda and the subsequent acceptance of more traditional roles for women and families by the FSLN was largely responsible for the outcome of the 1990 elections.[3]
In 1990, Violeta Chamorro, representing the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO), was elected into office. [4] This was not only a defeat for the FSLN and revolutionaries but for the Nicaraguan feminists. Because neither AMNLAE nor the FSLN explicitly challenged the sexist controversies, they subsequently fell to a much more traditional and conservative party led by a woman president fulfilling the typical gender-roles that Nicaraguan feminists felt that women desperately needed to dismantle during the revolution.[5]
Women in the armed struggle
The women in revolutionary Nicaragua played a significant and uncharacteristic role in the revolution as
Women joined the FSLN to challenge the
Women among the FSLN were encouraged to participate in every aspect of combatant and civilian life as equals to their male counterparts.[5] Women had their own battalions which marched in rallies organized by the FSLN such as the one held in 1979 in the town of Carazo. Women were required to carry forty pound backpacks, and men were required to engage in traditionally-female tasks such as food preparation. Although men heavily outnumbered women in the leadership positions within FSLN ranks, women consisted of approximately 25 to 30 per cent of the members.
Similarly, the
Female counter revolutionaries
Nicaraguan women participated as part of the counter-revolutionaries or
Similar to the organizations made by Sandinista women, the female members of the Contras created organizations to aid women who had lost husbands and children in the conflict. The Committee of Mothers of the Resistance (Comité de Madres de la Resistencia) was formed in an effort to obtain war pensions from the government.[2] The women of the Sandinista and Contra movement worked together. In 1993, groups of Sandinista and Contra women merged to form an organization with the goal to attempt reconciliation; the organization was called the Association of Mothers and Victims of War.[2] This organization managed to obtain pensions for a small number of women. It also funded and completed joint development projects. These development projects included a self-help housing project, food aid packages, and a construction cooperative. The housing project, El Progreso, built 26 houses for Mothers of the Resistance and 26 houses for Sandinista women.[2] In the construction cooperative, women learned how to make bricks and build latrines.[2] The organization also received funding from a German agency. This allowed them to buy a house where they could hold meetings, workshops, and courses for women.[2] The excess money was used to fund other initiatives such as: a credit fund, art classes for children, and training courses for women with disabilities in beauty therapy, floristry, baking, and dressmaking.[2]
Notes
References
Sources
- Chinchilla, Norma Stoltz. "Feminism, Revolution, and Democratic Transitions in Nicaragua" in The Women's Movement in Latin America: Participation and Democracy (2nd ed). Ed. Jane S. Jaquette. Boulder: Westview Press, 1994. 177-196.
- Chinchilla, Norma Stoltz. Revolutionary Popular Feminism in Nicaragua: Articulating Class, Gender, and National Sovereignty. Gender and Society 4 (1990): 370-397.
- Cupples, Julie. “Between Maternalism and Feminism: Women in Nicaragua’s Counter-Revolutionary Forces.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 25, no. 1 (2006): 83–103.
- Heumann, Silke. “The Challenge of Inclusive Identities and Solidarities: Discourses on Gender and Sexuality in the Nicaraguan Women’s Movement and the Legacy of Sandinismo: Gender and Sexuality in the Nicaraguan Women’s Movement.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 33, no. 3 (July 2014): 334–49. https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.12103.
- Kampwirth, Karen. Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004. 19-46.
- Kampwirth, Karen. "Women in the Armed Struggles in Nicaragua: Sandinistas and Contras Compared" in Radical Women in Latin America: Left and Right. Eds. Victoria Gonzalez and Karen Kampwirth. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.
- Kampwirth, Karen. “The Mother of the Nicaraguans: Dona Violeta and the UNO’s Gender Agenda.” Latin American Perspectives 23, no. 1 (1996): 67–86.
- Mendez, Jennifer Bickham. “Organizing a Space of Their Own? Global/Local Processes in a Nicaraguan Women’s Organization.” Journal of Developing Societies 18, no. 2–3 (June 1, 2002): 196–227. https://doi.org/10.1177/0169796X0201800209.
- Metoyer, Cynthia Chavez.(2000) Women and the State in Post-Sandinista Nicaragua. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.
- Molyneux, Maxine. "Mobilization without Emancipation? Women's Interests, the State, and Revolution in Nicaragua". Feminist Studies, 11.2 (1985) 227-254.
- Santos, Maria, and Barbara Alpern Engel. “Women in the Nicaraguan Revolution.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 7, no. 2 (1983): 42–46. https://doi.org/10.2307/3346284.