Revolutionary Women
By Kirthi Jayakumar
Sandinista fighters in 1979. Photo via the Institute of Nicaraguan and Central American History. Source: Link
Women played a significant role in the Sandinista Revolution, a major event in the history of Nicaragua, in overthrowing the Somoza dictatorship during the 1960s and 1970s (Santos and Engel, 1983). The women began their battle in 1967, and fought to secure national freedom from the Somoza dictatorship and to advance gender equality. In their subversion of a dictatorship and their quest for gender equality, these women also fought to free their nation from being the site of a proxy war during the Cold War.
The Nicaraguan Revolution: A Snapshot
The Nicaraguan Revolution comprised three key phases in Nicaraguan history. The first of these was the opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s. Following this, a campaign led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) sought to get rid of the dictatorship in 1978-1979, and then govern Nicaragua until 1990. From 1981 to 1990, Nicaragua was the site of a Contra War, waged between the FSLN-led government of Nicaragua and Contras backed by the United States – highlighting the country as a major proxy war background during the Cold War (Baracco, 2005). During this phase, the FSLN, a collective of leftist political parties, received aid from the Soviet Union, and the Contras were backed by the United States. Eventually, the Sapoá Accords in 1988 and the Tela Accord in 1989 brought the Contra War to an end, and demobilized the FSLN and Contra Armies.
Women in the Nicaraguan Revolution
Women joined the ranks of both the Sandinistas and the Contras (Santos and Engel, 1983), and worked together to produce reforms in Nicaragua (Cupples, 2006). Estimates suggest that women constituted about 25 to 30% of the FSLN, but only 7% of the Contras (Cupples, 2006). On both sides, they played myriads of roles that included those of organizers and supporters and enablers of communication, and active engagement in taking care of their female comrades and persuading their husbands to join the revolution.
In 1977, women who joined the FSLN mobilized into an organizational set up called the Asociación de Mujeres ante la Problemática Nacional (AMPRONAC) or the Association of Women Concerned about National Crisis. AMPRONAC played a significant role as part of the FSLN to bring down Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979. Following Somoza's fall, AMPRONAC became Asociacion de Mujeres Nicaraguenses Luisa Amanda Espinosa (AMNLAE) or the Feminist Ideology during the Sandinista Revolution. The new name was a tribute to Luisa Amanda Espinoza, the first woman to die in the war against Somoza. Though it remained closely connected to the FSLN, it framed its approach in the idea that “No revolution without women's emancipation: no emancipation without revolution.”
During the Sandinista Revolution, gender roles changed: the women became involved as guerrilla fighters in the journey to overthrow Somoza, and mobilized to work with the FSLN to bring about the revolution (Heumann, 2014; Isbester & Patroni, 2002). Initially, the FSLN identified the emancipation of women as one of its key goals. It prohibited the use of women as sexual objects, promoted breastfeeding, eliminated distinctions between children born within and out of wedlock, dispensed with the family wage mechanism where husbands received the wages for their wives’ and children’s labour, and established penalties for prostitution. Men and women were mandated to share household duties and childcare through the “Nurture Law,” which made it mandatory for both spouses to be responsible for half each of all that their child needed until the age of majority (Santos and Engels, 1983).
During the revolution, women shifted out of the stereotypical frames within which their roles were inscribed. They served as guerrillas in the armed forces, challenging traditional caregiving roles. The progressive views of the FSLN at the material time made it a welcoming space for women to engage and participate in the movement to overthrow Somoza.
During the uprising, women had their own battalions that marched in rallies (Mendez, 2002; Isbester & Patroni, 2002). They carried forty-pound backpacks during their marches, and men equally broke stereotypes by participating actively in preparing food. The first woman to be killed in battle against the Somoza regime, Luisa Amanda Espinoza, was an especially significant role model (Heumann, 2014). She joined the FSLN after leaving an abusive husband, survived several dangerous missions, and was betrayed by an informant. The AMNLAE, named after her, carried her legacy forward by supporting women who were looking to leave abusive homes, and educating women on their sexual and reproductive health rights and updated them with political information (Santos and Engel, 1983).
On the other side, several women joined the Contras, too, often adopting counter-revolutionary positions out of personal experiences rather than ideology (Cupples, 2006). Here, too, several of them played roles that transcended stereotypical ideas of gender.
Mobilizing for Peace
When the Contra war unfolded, however, the goals shifted and the FSLN did not prioritize the rights or emancipation of women (Kampwirth, 1996; Isbester & Patroni, 2002). AMNLAE was seen more as a feminine rather than feminist initiative, as it reluctant to call out the sexism that set in with this shift in focus. Traditional roles for women and families came to be accepted and normalized by the FSLN (Mendez, 2002). By 1990, the results of this trend became significantly clear, as Nicaragua came to be ruled by a woman president – Violeta Chamorro – who fulfilled all the typical gender-roles that the women of Nicaragua wanted to dismantle during the revolution (Kampwirth, 1996). This stands out as an important reminder that it is not inherently subversive to put a non-cis-het male person in a position of power, because transformation is a function of a willingness to engage with and practice feminist values.
In 1993, women across both sides, from the FSLN and Contra factions, came together to form an organization to reconcile their differences. This was known as the Association of Mothers and Victims of War (Cupples, 2006; Isbester & Patroni, 2002). They successfully obtained pensions for some women, operated and ran self-help housing projects and a construction cooperative, and provided food aid. The housing project built 26 houses each for Sandinista women and for the Mothers of the Resistance, with some funding support from a German agency. The women themselves built their houses, learning the art of construction as they went along, eventually buying themselves a house to hold their meetings, host workshops, and run courses for women. They used the surplus money they gained from time to time to run a credit fund, training courses for women with disabilities, and classes for children.
Lessons for Feminist Foreign Policy
The Nicaraguan Revolution witnessed some very powerful efforts on part of women in resisting dictatorship, in breaking stereotypes around their gender and roles in society, and in mobilizing across divided lines for peace.
The first major lesson the narrative of the women in the Nicaraguan Revolution presents is their dedication to feminist approaches to transform systemic discrimination. As women, despite mobilizing across gender lines to support the overthrow of a dictator, the movement they supported did not return the same level of support or accountability to them. Pressing for changes through a feminist lens remained their key approach to engage with their sociopolitical contexts.
The second major lesson is the subversion of proxy war dynamics by choosing to mobilize across lines and coming together for peace, development, and cohesive growth. The decision to mobilize across lines to prioritize peace and intentional progress represented the assertion of their agency in defining their future, and not letting external political might dictate their future.
The role of the women in the revolution had tremendous, far-reaching consequences for Central America, as their resistance gave rise to a feminist movement that shaped gender politics across the region (Cavanaugh, 2017; Isbester & Patroni, 2002).
References
Baracco, Luciano (2005). Nicaragua: The Imagining of a Nation – From Nineteenth-Century Liberals to Twentieth-Century Sandinistas. New York, NY: Algora Publishing.
Cavanaugh, D. (2017). Women With Guns Helped Win the Nicaraguan Revolution. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/women-with-guns-helped-win-the-nicaraguan-revolution-258a8d5efb59
Cupples, Julie (2006). "Between Maternalism and Feminism: Women in Nicaragua's Counter-Revolutionary Forces". Bulletin of Latin American Research. 25 (1): 83–103.
Heumann, Silke (2014). "The Challenge of Inclusive Identities and Solidarities: Discourses on Gender and Sexuality in the Nicaraguan Women's Movement and the Legacy of Sandinismo". Bulletin of Latin American Research. 33 (3): 334–349.
Isbester, K., & Patroni, V. (2002). Still Fighting: The Nicaraguan women's movement, 1977-2000. International Journal, 57(3), 485.
Kampwirth, Karen (1996). "The Mother of the Nicaraguans: Dona Violeta and the UNO's Gender Agenda". Latin American Perspectives. 23 (1): 67–86.
Mendez, Jennifer Bickham (2002). "Organizing a Space of their Own? Global/Local Processes in a Nicaraguan Women's Organization". Journal of Developing Societies. 18 (2–3): 196–227.
Santos, M. & Engel, B. A. (1983). "Women in the Nicaraguan Revolution". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 7 (2): 42–46.
