Brian Oelberg

LASCNE Inter/Cambios

8 April, 2000

Las Guerrilleras:  Women Warriors and Revolution

This paper is actually composed of preliminary work in three areas:  The role of women warriors in indigenous and pre-columbian culture;  the localization of the soldaderas and camp followers in Mexican cultural history; and  the role of women in Latin America in the post-world war two revolutions.  All three of these topics have been treated by authors from many disciplines, and the political participation and identity formation of women in Latin American needs to be understood through a trans-historical and multi-theoretical lens. 

Engels, in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State,  put forward four goals:  1.  Ending the economic dependence of women on their husbands;  2.  Getting women out of the isolation of the home and incorporating them in the work force;  3.  Socializing household chores traditionally done by women;  and 4.  Ending the economic chains that compel family members to remain together, so that relationships between people can be based on affection and not on economic necessity.  (From Stone, 1981:21)  What Engels' prognosis lacks is a consideration of race and the hegemonic and one-sided relations which industrialized nations have exercised over the rest of the world.  While the personal is political, both personal and political have roles in the oppression of Latin American peoples.

Diosas Guerreras, Mujeres Luchando:  Women Warriors in Latin America

In the Americas, the historical record of women warriors begins with a letter written by Christopher Columbus, February 2, 1493, to Queen Isabella, herself a warrior who strategized and frequented battles dressed in armor.  Jones quotes Columbus:  "'They use no feminine exercises, but bows and arrows of caneand they arm themselves and cover themselves with plates of copper.'  In the report from his second voyage, he described being attacked by female archers on the island of Guadeloupe.'" (1997:95)  

Native American cultures included warrior women, and Jones found evidence of stories about "manly-hearted women" among the Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Apache, and Crow, as well as Mandan, Mojave, Klamath, Navajo, and Zuni.  Some of these included historical figures such as Moving Robe, a Sioux woman warrior who fought against General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in southeastern Montana.

Penny Dransart studied the role of warrior women in Inca society (in MacDonald et.al., 1987) and found that their goddess Pachamama, which would later be replaced by the Virgin Mary through the efforts of the Spanish missionaries, had a warrior goddess duality in Mama Guaco, "one of the founding mothers of Inca society."  (p. 71)  The conquistador Francisco Pizarro arrived in 1531 and according to Jones, "made frequent mention of women in battle." and later "dispatched his brother Gonzalo Pizarro to search for El Dorado, 'the city of gold,'"  The group was warned that they were entering a country controlled by "warlike women who would attack them," and did, and a priest, Gaspar de Carvajal, eventually published an account of this journey, which led to the renaming of the river Amazon.  According to Jones, this led other explorers to criticize the name change because it was not a rare thing for women to fight in battle, and so these women were not mythical amazons but rather typical of the region.  (1997:95-97)

In Mexico, the Mexica culture was pantheistic and contained a number of dual goddesses, an "Earth Mother who at times becomes a war goddess or tribal defender."  (Salas, 1990:2)  Salas found evidence of warrior women in Totonac, Chichimeca and Toltec culture, and details the role of the mociuaquetzque, unarmed women who accompanied their men in battle, and were described by sixteenth century historian Fray Juan de Torquemada.  (1990:7)  Salas shows that  "the change from a female warrior past to an exclusively male warrior society  was still evolving."   

Salas continues her analysis by examining how the Mexica goddess of war was supplanted by the Virgin of Guadalupe, whose shrine was built over another dedicated to the warrior goddess Tonantzín, which then resulted in one of the largest mass conversions of all time.  In western culture, woman has been forced into a patriarchal system of definitions, the virgin/whore and crone.  In Mexico this was played out as the Virgin of Guadalupe assumed the role model of chaste virgin and Dona Marina, a Mexica princess who aided Cortez and bore his child, has been identified as the whore, La Chingada.  Salas examines the true nature of Dona Marina and finds her worthy of respect, much like Sacajewea in the lore of Lewis and Clark.  But Mexican culture has demonized her as La Malinche, and Malinchismo implies that one is a vendida, a sellout, a traitoress to race and country.  Salas then examines the role of women in the war of Independence and the revolution of 1910, and finds that "The colonial period also saw the reemergence of the Earth Mother/warrior goddess cult in a Hispanic guise. 

The Indian Earth Mother converged with the Spanish Blessed Mother image in the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe[and her] warrior image emerged in Mexico as Maria Insurgente." (1990:24)  This split image of women is played out again in the Mexican revolution of 1910, in which thousands of women took part as soldaderas, as camp followers, and as soldiers.  Salas examines how they were received at the time and up to the present, and finds this same split image, evident in the names they were called. 

*La Adelita was the soldadera who represented the virgin, chaste and sweet,

*La Cucaracha was the drunken whore.

*Juana Gallo represented the masculinized fighter.  All three have appeared in popular literature, song, and cinema, with corridos telling the stories of both La Adelita and La Cucaracha, and Juana Gallo showing up in film. 

La Adelita became the favorite camp song of Sandino in the Nicaraguan war against the U.S. Marines, and Salas found that "The resurgence of the Adelita corrido in Mexico might be attributed in part to the visibility of Nicaraguan and Salvadoran guerrillas and female soldiers."  (1990:94)

A dichotomy exists between this role as moral support for the male warrior, both in mythical goddess form and as camp follower, and the warrior role, often seen as a defeminization/ masculinization.   This often required passing as a man, and included male clothing, cropped hair, and a masculine demeanor.  This plays out in the modern military dilemma of women in combat, the search for elusive standards such as upper body strength and morale factors and feminine hygiene as reasons to eliminate women from the front lines.  Enloe points out how ridiculous this is in the age of nuclear war, and identifies the reasoning in the need for hyper-masculinity and a fear of the feminine.  She illustrates this, mentioning the US Marines' regulation plucked eyebrow arch and the dilemma of hairstyle, which needs to be short, to the collar, but not so short as to be 'unfeminine,' since a butch female soldier threatens the gender construct of what it means to be a military man.  She quotes a US Army recruiting brochure as saying "Some of the best soldiers wear lipstick," and locates this dilemma as being caught between the need to utilize women and the threat they present as stemming from the idea that "Amazon women are a threat to men, that they must be defeated  to preserve masculine self-confidence, and thereby to ensure the survival of civilization."(Enloe, 1987:118-119) 

Women have always been involved in warfare in the Americas.  These traditions suggest that the participation of women in modern guerrilla struggles is no great break from tradition but rather a continuation of the self-defense of the occupied lands under conquest, under colonialism, and under imperialism. 

Cuba

The Cuban Revolution began with women organizers.  Vilma Espín and others were instrumental in bringing Castro to power.  Espín writes about a history of women's struggle in the 19th century that led up to this, beginning with women such as black peasant Mariana Grajales and Ana Betancourt.  Espín herself was "an important figure in the underground movementcoordinating clandestine work for the July 26 (1953) Movementshe had a number of responsibilities with the rebel army.  She has been president of the Federation of Cuban Women since its founding in 1960 and is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party."  (Stone:  34)  Women were crucial in the struggle against Batista, and Stone says that "Castro paid homage to these women fighters and used their example to explain how the revolution was going to move forward to involve masses of women."  (p. 8)   With the success of the revolution, millions of Cuban women organized, and were able to effect real progress:  divorce rights, child care, an end to sexist images in the media, free contraceptives and abortion on demand, paid maternity leave, and an increase in women in the party leadership to 19% in 1980 (compared with 2% in the US Senate) as well as union leadership of 42.7% (Stone: 19)  Castro spoke of a "Revolution within the revolution" and admits that "in reality all of us were prejudiced in regard to womenI believed that an enormous potential forcefor the revolution existed in our women."  (from Castro's 1966 speech, in Stone:  48)  The Cuban revolution stands as the unique success story in a number of ways, in its resistance in the face of the US embargo and more direct attacks such as the violated sovereignty of Elian Gonzalez, in its existence since the fall of the USSR, and in its promotion of the rights of women.  Randall qualifies these successes for women as being less than complete, and sees this as being linked to the women's struggle as remaining only a component of the broader movement, rather than becoming a movement in its own right.

Nicaragua

The Nicaraguan revolution included women as a major part of its fighting forces, in its leadership, and in its support.  Jones (1997:103) estimates that 30% of the Sandinista forces were female, with women involved at all levels.  He quotes the founder of the FSLN, Tomas Borge, as saying "Women were in the front line of battleThey were in the leadership of military units on the firing line during the war."  Founded in 1961, the FSLN came to formally include women after 1969, when Gladys Baéz formed AMNLAE, the Sandinista Women's Organization, to create a space for women.  Randall interviewed dozens of the former combatants and found a common thread of engagement with feminism:  "the pre-victory Sandinista movement attracted a large number of women to its ranks.  More importantly, many of these women had feminist concerns" (p. 77),   A pattern of involvement emerged, with women beginning with the student movement and the worker's and teacher's strikes of the 1970's and later being forced underground by the state response of terror and torture.  One leading figure, Comandante Dora Maria Tellez, says that "Women participated in our Revolution, not in the kitchens but as combatants.  In the political leadershipA man would be hard put to lift a hand to hit or mistreat a woman combatant."  (in Randall, 1981:56)  Women became involved at many levels, across generations as mothers and daughters drew each other into the struggle.  One mother says "After Monica [her daughter] was arrested I didn't care if the whole world knew I was a revolutionaryOur major objective was to mobilize and politicize the masses."  (Randall, 1981:68-71)  The mothers of combatants have organized in Nicaragua and El Salvador, as well as in Chile against Pinochet.  Women helped run Radio Sandino, the rebel radio station, and led commando strikes and battles leading up to the July 19, 1979 victory.  Dora Maria led the liberation of Leon, Monica Baltodano lead the tactical retreat of thousands from Managua to Masaya.  They remained in the leadership in the post war period.  Nora Astorga lured a prominent and notoriously brutal general to her home where FSLN commandos assassinated him, and she was later to become the Attorney General in charge of handling the trials of Somoza's torturers and henchmen.  (Randall, 1992:78)  The Sandinistas were able to effect some changes for women, prohibiting the use of images of female bodies in commercial advertising, creating special health programs, and a Women's Office that developed programs to help low income women.  However, Randall identifies the failure of the Sandinistas to adequately address women's issues as one of the keys to understanding their electoral loss in the 1990 elections.

El Salvador

The revolution in El Salvador broke into armed struggle a year after the Sandinistas took over, but the student and labor movements had been organizing under increasingly fierce repression since the late sixties.   Tommie Sue Montgomery, in Revolution in El Salvador,(1995) estimates women's participation in the FMLN as being about 30%, with women as 20% of the leadership.  In 1981, an all-woman battalion was formed in Guazapa, and three of the fifteen members of the DRU, the FMLN's top command, were women.  Mercedes del Carmen Letona (Comandante Luisa) was one of many women who worked with the rebel's radio station, Radio Venceremos, and other women commanders included Comandante Clelia in Morazan, Susana in Chalatenango, and Iliana in San Vicente.  The second-in-command of the FPL was Comandante Ana Maria, assassinated by a rival faction in Managua in 1983. 

Perhaps the most prominent woman guerillera in El Salvador was Nidia Diaz.  She was involved with the struggle beginning in the 1970's, and was one of two female commanders in the CPD, the central directorate of the FMLN, when she was captured by a US advisor in 1984.  Her book, Nunca Estuve Sola, (I Was Never Alone) was of major importance in propagandizing the war in El Salvador.  She was released in a trade after the guerrillas took President Duarte's daughter Inez hostage.  She is now a political figure, as are many of the ex-combatants, involved with the FMLN as a political party, and she holds a seat as deputy.  In 1999 she was the running mate of Facundo Guardado for the presidency of El Salvador, receiving nearly 30% of the vote.  Randall notes that "each succeeding revolutionary experience incorporates more women into its process.  In El Salvador, the FMLN adopted regulations governing percentages of women at local, regional, and national levelsat the lower levels, 50% of that leadership had to be female."  (1992: 184)

Mexico

The Zapatista uprising surprised the world in January of 1994, but once again was the result of organizing dating back twenty years, to the 1st Indigenous Congress in 1974 led by Bishop Samuel Ruiz.  Lynn Stephen notes that "the explicit participation of women in the Zapatista army and civilian movement has brought a particular gendered version to the model of democracy advocated by the EZLN" (in Rodriguez:  149)  This involvement included women from the Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chol, Zoque, Mam, and Tojolobal indigenous groups, and articulated issues, through revolutionary laws, such as domestic violence and rape, reproductive control, political participation, rights to education and medical care and economic justice.  (p. 149)  Major Ana María directed the takeover of San Cristobal, and the original declaration by Subcomandante Marcos included the "Women's Revolutionary Law,"  ten demands for women's rights.  Stephen says that "According to EZLN combatants, women are integrated into many different levels of the EZLN and local councils."  (p. 157) and quotes Captain Maribel as saying that "What we are trying to establish is that women don't have to just work in the kitchen.  Women are also capable of leading society and not just leaving this up to the men Most of the women in the EZLN are between 17 and 20 years old."  (p. 158)

Vivienne Bennett has chronicled the rise of urban popular movements and territorially based protests in Mexico, and especially the role of women.  She says that "women's participation in these two forms of social activism has been fundamental:  Women vastly outnumber men in urban popular movements across Mexico, and women carry out the bulk of territorially based protests as well."  (in Rodriguez, p. 117)  She found that "women were the organizers, the spokespersons, the negotiators, and the protesters.  Thus, by their nature, territorially based protests offer women the opportunity to become leaders as well as participants."  (p. 128)  

Cynthia Enloe notes that "In each country military strategists need women.  They need women who will act and think as patriarchy expects women to act and think.  And they need women whose use can be disguised, so that the military can remain the quintessentially 'masculine' institution, the bastion of 'manliness.'" (p. 220)   Women as warriors does not necessarily mean playing into this war game, and through their participation, women have been able to redefine revolutionary movements.  Nonviolent and violent liberation struggles have proven the efficacy of women in social struggle and combat, whether in the jungles or in the streets.  Enloe makes a point of the connection between these struggles, saying that "Women in El Salvador, South Africa, Argentina and Chile are all enduring determined efforts to militarize their lives, and in ways that are not just comparable to the militarisation of British and American women's lives.  Today their struggles with military dependence and control are actually linked to the militarisation being experienced by women in Britain and America."  (p. 220)  This linkage has been part of a power struggle that has broken into open warfare again and again in this century.  This history shows the desire and ability of women to fight to change their social reality, communicating through force that which words have not achieved.  

Bibliography

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MacDonald, Holden, & Ardener, Ed.  1987.  Images of Women in Peace and

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Montgomery, T.S.  1995.  Revolution in El Salvador:  From Civil War to Civil

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Randall, Margaret.  1981.  Sandino's Daughters:  Testimonies of Nicaraguan

Women in Struggle.  Vancouver, B.C.:  New Star Books.

_____________.    1992.  Gathering Rage:  The Failure of 20th Century

Revolutions to Develop a Feminist Agenda.  New York:  Monthly Review.

Rodriguez, V.E., Ed.  1998.  Women's Participation in Mexican Political Life. 

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Salas, E.  1990.  Soldaderas in the Mexican Military:  Myth and History.  Austin: 

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Stone, E.  1981.  Women and the Cuban Revolution:  Speeches and Documents

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