Role of women in the Nicaraguan Revolution

Women played a role in the Nicaraguan Revolution. Those who joined the Sandinista movement in the revolutionary Nicaragua essentially fought a battle: to secure national freedom from the Somoza dictatorship and to advance gender equality. 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.

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. The Sandinistas promoted breast feeding and made legalized breaks for working women to do so, eliminated the distinction between children born in and out of wedlock, banned the former "family wage" that saw male heads of households receive the wage of his wife and children's labor, and established penalties to suppress prostitution. They required that men and women shared the household duties including child care. This requirement came in the form of a "nurture law," which mandated that men were responsible for half of whatever their child needed—education, upbringing, support, clothing, etc.—until they reached eighteen. 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.

The women in revolutionary Nicaragua played a significant and uncharacteristic role in the revolution as guerrillas in the armed forces, subsequently challenging their traditional roles as mothers and primary caregivers. Their initial entry point into the public sphere as guerrillas was a precursor to women's further involvement in more political revolutionary events and agendas. Women of all ages and socio economic backgrounds joined both sides of the conflict as part of the Sandinista revolutionary forces, and as part of the counter revolutionary forces. Women joined the FSLN to challenge the Somoza regime for many reasons which in essence surrounded the issue of the political repression of Nicaraguan women and Nicaraguan youth in particular. The FSLN began integrating women into their guerrilla forces in 1967. Unlike other left wing guerrilla groups in the region, the Sandinistas espoused progressive views on gender equality because they believed that winning women's support and participation in the revolution would only strengthen it and ensure greater success. This in turn led to women aligning with the Sandinistas and the additional support of young Sandinista women who wanted to revolt against the Somoza regime. 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. tags which will then appear here automatically >