Abstract
In this study I will examine the patterns of women’s participation in the guerrilla struggles of Latin American revolutionary movements. Women’s participation in such struggles has long been overlooked. Analyses of Latin American women’s political behavior tend to be limited to conventional political processes, such as voting and office-holding, which reflect gender bias as well as the ethnocentricity of North American researchers.1 In the literature on guerrilla warfare, armed struggle is generally regarded as an exclusively male political behavior.2 In actuality, Latin American women have participated in guerrilla movements, though not in extensive numbers until recently.3 With the influx of women into the Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan movements, analysts have been forced to acknowledge and reconsider women’s contributions to armed struggles.
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Notes
A number of political scientists argue that much of the political behavior in Latin America occurs outside conventional processes through guerrilla movements, military coups, strikes and demonstrations: for example, Howard J. Wiarda and Harvey F. Kline, “The Latin American Tradition and Process of Development,” in Wiarda and Kline eds., Latin American Politics and Development (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1979), p. 42. The paucity of studies on women’s participation in such activities is frequently noted. See, for example, Jane S. Jaquette, “Female Political Participation in Latin America,” in June Nash and Helen Safa eds., Sex and Class in Latin America (New York: Praeger, 1976).
For example, the major study of guerrilla warfare by Richard Gott, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), does not even reference “women.”
Luis Vitale, Historia y Sociologia de la Mujer Latinoamericana (Barcelona: Editorial Fontamara, 1981).
James Kohl, and John Litt, “Urban Guerrilla Warfare: Uruguay,” in James Kohl and John Litt eds., Urban Guerrilla Warfare in Latin America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974).
Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Vintage, 1969).
Gerard Chailand, Guerrilla Strategies (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1982), p. 240.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1979).
While this paper generically refers to “Latin American women,” it should be kept in mind that Latin American women differ on a number of important characteristics, for example, nationality, class, race, and rural/urban background. Valid generalization, however, incorporates “Latin American women” as a useful category. See Jaquette, “Female Political Participation in Latin America.”
Vitale, Historia y Sociologia de la Mujer Latinoamerica.
Johanna Brenner and Maria Ramas, “Rethinking Women’s Oppression,” New Left Review 144 (March-April), pp. 33–71.
Nancy Chodorow, “Mothering Male Dominance, and Capitalism,” in Zillah Eisenstein ed., Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979), pp. 83–106.
Carmen Diana Deere and Magdalena Leon de Leal, “Peasant Production, Proletarianization, and the Sexual Division of Labor in the Andes,” in Lourdes Beneria ed., Woman and Development (New York: Praeger, 1982), pp. 65–93.
Elsa M. Chaney, Supermadre: Women in Politics in Latin America (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1979).
Steffen W. Schmidt, “Political Participation and Development: The Role of Women in Latin America,” Journal of International Affairs 30 (Fall-Winter), pp. 17–18.
Helen Icken Safa, “Class Consciousness among Working Class Women in Latin America, Puerto Rico,” in June Nash and Helen Safa eds., Sex and Class in Latin America (New York: Praeger, 1976), p. 80.
June Nash and Helen Safa, “The Family and Ideological Reinforcement of Sexual Subordination,” in Nash and Safa eds., Sex and Class in Latin America (New York: Praeger, 1976), p. 80.
Chaney, Supremadre.
Nora Scott Kinzer, “Priests, Machos, and Babies,” Journal of Marriage and Family 35 (May), pp. 300–311.
International Labor Organization, Yearbook of Labor Statistics (Geneva: ILO, 1984).
Irene Tinker, “New Technologies for Food-Related Activities: An Equity Strategy,” in Rosalyn Dauber and Melinda L. Cain eds., Women and Technological Change in Developing Countries (Boulder: Westview Press, 1981), p. 53.
June Nash, “A Critique of Social Science Roles in Latin America,” in Nash and Safa eds., Sex and Class in Latin America, p. 13.
James W. Wilkie and Stephen Harber eds., Statistical Abstract of Latin America, Volume 21 (Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1981), pp. 143–144.
Jaquette, “Female Political Participation in Latin America.”
Margaret Stacey and Marion Price, Women, Power, and Politics (London: Travistock, 1981), p. 142.
Chaney, Supremadre, p. 137.
Jaquette, “Female Political Participation in Latin America.”
Ibid., p. 222.
Steffen W. Schmidt, “Women in Colombia: Attitudes and Future Perspectives in the Political System,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 17 (November), p. 480
Jaquette, “Female Political Participation in Latin America,” p. 233.
Vicky Randall, Women and Politics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982), pp. 44–45.
Vicky Randall, Women and Politics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982), pp. 44–45.
Vicky Randall, Women and Politics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982), pp. 52–62.
Jaquette, “Female Political Participation in Latin America,” pp. 229–230.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Schmidt, “Political Participation and Development,” p. 254.
Norma Stoltz Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements: The Case of Nicaragua,” paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Society, San Francisco, p. 20.
The foco theory was first formulated by Che Guevara. He argued that guerrilla fighters could defeat the regular army, that guerrilla warfare should take place in the countryside, and that “objective” conditions need not be ripe for revolution to occur, “since the foco, the mobile focal point of insurrection [could] by its very existence . . . create them.” Gerard Chailand, Revolution in the Third World (Baltimore: Penguin, 1977). For a Marxist critique of the foco theory, see Clea Silva, “The Errors of the Foco Theory,” Monthly Review 20 (July-August), pp. 18–35.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements,” p. 20.
Chailand, Revolution in the Third World, pp. 42–47.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements,” p. 20.
Elsa M. Chaney, “Women in Latin American Politics,” in Ann Pescatello ed., Female and Male in Latin America (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1973), p. 115.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements.”
Ibid, pp. 4–9.
Norma Stoltz Chinchilla, “Mobilizing Women: Revolution in the Revolution,” Latin American Perspectives 4 (Fall), p. 95.
Maxine Molyneux, “Mobilization without Emancipation? Women’s Interests, the State, and Revolution in Nicaragua,” Feminist Studies 11 (Summer), p. 37.
Cornelia Butler Flora, “Socialist Feminism in Latin America,” Woman and Politics 4 (Spring), p. 71.
Ibid.
Ibid. p. 72.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements,” pp. 7–8.
Flora, “Socialist Feminism in Latin America,” p. 91.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements.”
Ibid.
Temma Kaplan, “Female Consciousness and Collective Action: The Case of Barcelona, 1910–1918,” in Nanner O. Keohane, Michelle Z. Rosaldo, and Barbara C. Gelpi eds., Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideology (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1982).
Flora, “Socialist Feminism in Latin America,” p. 78.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements.”
Janet Saltzman Chafetz and Anthony Gary Dworkin, Female Revolt: Women’s Movements in World and Historical Perspective (Totowa NJ: Rowman and Allanheid, 1986), pp. 102–103.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements,” pp.9–11.
June Nash, “Women in Development: Dependency and Exploitation,” Development and Change 8 (2), pp. 161–182.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements,” pp. 15–20.
Molyneux, “Mobilization without Emancipation?”
Ibid, p. 232.
Ibid, p. 233.
Ibid.
Ibid
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements.”
Ernst Halperin, Terrorism in Latin America (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1976).
Glaucio Ari Dillon Soares, “Mobilidade e Politica,” Revista Brasileira de Estudos Politicos 50, pp. 101–119.
Nash, “A Critique of Social Science Roles in Latin America.” A variety of sociological theories have attempted to deal with the mobilization of deprived groups. Chafetz and Dworkin argue for use of an eclectic model in which the intensification of a social structural change results in a movement mounted by direct beneficiaries, as well as by external organizations and leadership. In Latin America, economic and political crises impinging on the urban and rural proletariat have historically resulted in activism when these classes could be linked to labor movements and popular or political organizations. See Chinchilla, “Class Struggle in Central America: Background and Overview,” Latin American Perspectives 1 (Spring and Summer), pp. 2–23, 44
Sara Sefchovich, “America Latina: La Mujer en Lucha,” Fem (January-February), pp. 5–12.
Helen Icken Safa, “The Changing Class Composition of the Female Labor Force in Latin America,” Latin American Perspectives 4 (Fall), p. 135.
Deere and Leon de Leal, Peasant Production, Proletarianization, and the Sexual Division of Labor in the Andes.
Chancy, Supremadre, p. 87.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements.”
Chaney, Sapremadre, p. 97.
Tilly (Louise Tilly, “Paths of Proletarianization: Organization of Production, Sexual Division of Labor, and Women’s Collective Action,” Signs 1 [Winter], pp. 400–417) outlines specific conditions under which working-class women have tended to act collectively. When women are involved in wage labor, characteristics related to the organization of production, such as women’s contact with other workers of similar interests, engagement in structured associations, ability to withdraw labor without incurring great cost, and a household division of labor that allows them to act autonomously, promote collective activity. Working-class women also tend to act collectively when the household itself is mobilized on the basis of commonly shared interests. According to Tilly, these factors differ little from those leading to working-class male mobilization, with the exception that women are much more likely to act when household sustenance or consumption is threatened. Research on Latin American working-class women similarly argues that the structural position of women in production and household are important mobilizing factors. Sec Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements.”
Safa, “Class Consciousness among Working Class Women in Latin America, Puerto Rico,” pp. 75–76.
Ibid.
Chaney, “Women in Latin American Politics,” pp. 108; 111–112.
Jaquette, “Female Political Participation in Latin America,” p. 230.
Lucy Cohen, “Female Entry into the Professions in Colombia,” Journal of Marriage and Family 35 (May), p. 328.
Chaney, “Women in Latin American Politics,” pp. 109.
Schmidt, “Women in Colombia,” pp. 468–469.
Cynthia Enloe, “Women—The Reserve Army of Labor,” The Review of Radical Political Economics 12 (Summer).
Ibid, p. 49.
Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare p. 87.
Halperin, Terrorism in Latin America, p. 45.
Charles A. Russell and Bowman H. Miller, “Profile of a Terrorist,” Terrorism 1, pp. 17–33.
Carlos Franqui, Diary of the Cuban Revolution (New York: Viking, 1980).
See Martin Rojas and Mirta Rodriguez Calderon eds., Tania (New York: Random House, 1971).
Mercier Vega, Guerrillas in Latin America (New York: Praeger, 1969).
See Jane S. Jaquette, “Women in Revolutionary Movements in Latin America,” Journal of Marriage and Family 35 (May), pp. 344–354.
Walter Laqueur, Guerrilla: A Historical and Critical Study (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1970).
Ibid.
Jaquette, “Women in Revolutionary Movements in Latin America.”
Ibid.
Franqui, “Diary of the Cuban Revolution,” p. 527.
Sheila Rowbotham, Women, Resistance, and Revolution (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 223.
Quoted from Che Guevara in ibid.
Dickey Chappelle, “How Castro Won,” in Franklin Mark Osank ed., Modern Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Free Press, 1962), p. 37.
Simon Torres and Julio Aronde, “Debray and the Cuban Experience,” Monthly Review 20 (July-August), p. 56.
Draper, Castroism: Theory and Practice, (New York:, 1965).
Franqui, Diary of the Cuban Revolution, pp. 526–527; 532.
Espín, quoted in Susan Kaufman Purcell, “Modernizing Women for a Modern Society: The Cuban Case,” in Ann Pescatello ed., Female and Male in Latin America (Pittsburgh Press, 1973).
Franqui, Diary of the Cuban Revolution.
Ibid, pp. 215,219,229.
Olga Lopez, “Las Guerrilleras Cubanas,” in Michèle Flouret ed., La Guerrilla en Hispano America (Paris: Masson, 1976), p. 112.
Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare.
Chapelle, “How Castro Won,” p. 327.
Franqui, Diary of the Cuban Revolution, p. 192.
Ibid., p. 352.
Ibid., pp. 279–299; 391–394.
Purcell, “Modernizing Women for a Modern Society,” pp. 261–262.
Quoted in Max Azicri, “Women’s Development Through Revolutionary Mobilization: A Study of the Federation of Cuban Women,” International Journal of Women’s Studies 2 (January-February), p. 29.
Gott, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America, p. 242.
Alberto Gomez, “The Revolutionary Forces of Colombia and Their Perspectives,” World Market Review 10 (April), pp. 59–67.
Adolfo Gilly, “Guerrillas and ‘Peasant Republics’ in Colombia,” Monthly Review 17 (October), pp. 30–40.
Gomez, “The Revolutionary Forces of Colombia and Their Perspectives,” p. 61.
Jaquette, “Women in Revolutionary Movements in Latin America,” p. 348.
Gott, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America, pp. 525–534.
Jaquette, “Women in Revolutionary Movements in Latin America.”
Ibid.
Gott, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America, p. 533.
Walter J. Broderick Camilo Torros: A Biography of the Priest-Guerrillero (New York: Doubleday, 1975).
Gott, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America, p. 528.
Ibid, p p. 303–304.
Broderick, Camilo Torros.
Gott, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America, p. 526.
Arturo C. Porzècanski, Uruguay’s Tupamaros: The Urban Guerrilla (New York: Praeger, 1973).
Ibid.
Movimento de Liberacion Nacional, “The Tupamaro Program for Revolutionary Government,” James Kohl and John Litt eds., Urban Guerrilla Warfare in Latin America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974)., pp. 293–296.
Porzecanski, Uruguay’s Tupamaros, p. 31.
Halperin, Terrorism and Latin America, p. 45.
Kohl and Litt, “Urban Guerrilla Warfare: Uruguay,” Urban Guerrilla Warfare, p. 191.
Halperin, Terrorism and Latin America, p. 45.
Jaquette, “Women in Revolutionary Movements in Latin America,” p. 351.
Maria Esther Gilio, La Guerrilla Tupamara (Havana: Casas de las Americas, 1970).
Jaquette, “Women in Revolutionary Movements in Latin America,” p. 351.
Movimento de Liberacion Nacional, “The Tupamaro’s Plan for Revolutionary Government,” pp. 293–296.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements.”
Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, “Why the FSLN Struggles in Unity with the People,” Latin American Perspectives 6 (Winter), pp. 139.
Susan E. Ramirez-Horton, “The Role of Women in the Nicaraguan Revolution,” in Thomas Walker ed., Nicaragua in Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1982).
Susan E. Ramirez-Horton, “The Role of Women in the Nicaraguan Revolution,” in Thomas Walker ed., Nicaragua in Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1982).
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements.”
AMNLAE, “Our Participation in the Economy,” in Women’s International Resource Exchange, Nicaraguan Women and the Revolution (New York: Women’s International Resource Exchange, 1982).
Ibid., p. 14.
Patricia Flynn, “Women Challenge the Myth,” NACLA Report on the Americas 14 (September-October), p. 29.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements,” p. 24.
Victoria Schultz, “Organizer! Women in Nicaragua,” NACLA Report on the Americas 14 (March-April), p. 37.
Flynn, “Women Challenge the Myth,” p. 29.
Ramirez-Horton, “The Role of Women in the Nicaraguan Revolution,” p. 51.
Ibid, p. 47.
AMPRONAC, “Our Participation in the Economy,” in Women’s Resource Exchange International, Nicaraguan Women in the Revolution, pp. 3–4.
Flynn, “Women Challenge the Myth,” p. 29.
Schultz, “Organizer!,” p. 38.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements,” p. 14.
Ibid, p. 11.
FSLN, “’Why the Sandinistas Struggle in Unity with the People,” p. 112.
AMPRONAC, “Our Participation in the Economy,” pp. 4–5.
Flynn, “Women Challenge the Myth,” p. 31.
Chinchilla, “Women in Revolutionary Movements,” p. 17.
Ibid, pp. 15–20.
Ibid
Ibid, p. 18.
NACLA, “El Salvador 1984: Locked in Battle,” NACLA Report on the Americas 18 (March-April), p. 14.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 16.
Ibid.
AMES, “Participation of Latin American Women in Social and Political Organizations: Reflections of Salvadoran Women,” Monthly Review 34 (June).
Armstrong, Robert, “The Revolution Stumbles,” NACLA Report on the Americas 14 (March-April), p. 28.
Armstrong, Robert and Janet Shenk, “There’s a War Going On,” NACLA Report on the Americas 14 (July-August), p. 20.
Central America Information Office, El Salvador, Background to the Crisis (Cambridge: Central American Information Office, 1982), p. 57.
Armstrong and Shenk, “There’s a War Going On,” p. 32.
NACLA, “No Easy Victory,” NACLA Report on the Americas 15 (May-June), p. 12.
Castillo, Caroline, “The Situation of Women in El Salvador,” in Women’s International Resource Exchange, Women and War: El Salvador, p. 8.
Quote from NACLA, “No Easy Victory.”
Tommie Sue Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador (Boulder: Westview Press, 1982), p. 151.
Castillo, “The Situation of Women in El Salvador.”
NACLA, “El Salvador 1984,” p. 16.
Armstrong and Shenk, “There’s a War Going On,” pp. 31–33.
Quoted in Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, pp. 154–155.
Ibid., p. 154.
AMES, “Participation of Latin American Women in Social and Political Organizations,” p. 19.
Ibid., p. 23.
WIRE, “Women’s Lives in El Salvador, an Interview with Miriam Galdemez, and El Salvadoran Refuge,” in Women and War: El Salvador (New York: Women’s International Resource Exchange, 1982), p. 3.
Ibid.
Criollo, Cecelia, “Is Revolution Men’s Work?” in Women and War: El Salvador (New York: Women’s International Resource Exchange, 1982), p. 4.
AMES, “Participation of Latin American Women in Social and Political Organizations,” pp. 18–19.
Wilkie, James W. and Stephen Haber, Statistical Abstract of Latin America, Volume 21 (Los Angeles: UCLA Press, 1982), p. 174. The percent of the total female population which is economically active, by nation and year of data, are as follows: Colombia, 15.4% (1973); Cuba, 11.5% (est. 1970); El Salvador, 20.5% (1978); Nicaragua, 18% (1977); and Uruguay, 22% (1975). It should be noted that Cuban statistics reflect the period prior to the drafting of the Family Code and women’s increased economic participation during the 70s.
Chafetz and Dworkin, Female Revolt, pp. 102–103.
Molyneux, “Mobilization without Emancipation?,” p. 245.
Ibid.
Ibid., p.244.
Jaquette, “Women in Revolutionary Movements in Latin America.”
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Lobao, L.M. (1998). Women in Revolutionary Movements: Changing Patterns of Latin American Guerrilla Struggle. In: Diamond, M.J. (eds) Women and Revolution: Global Expressions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9072-3_13
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