This personal account is based on a recent visit to Nicaragua by Vic-
toria Schultz, a free lance journalist and film maker who covered the
Nicaraguan insurrection last year for Pacifica Radio. She has also
produced and directed “Women in Arms,” a film on Nicaraguan
women.
Last November I returned to finally started to cook and clean
Nicaragua for a few weeks to and look after the children while
find out how women were faring she went vending in the Ma-
in the process of the Sandinista nagua market. I hadn’t heard the
revolution they had fought for subject of housework discussed
with singular valor and in very im- on a grass-roots level before, so I
pressive numbers. asked how it had become an
iOrganizar! It seemed to be issue.
the battlecry in the new Nicara- The women assured me that
gua for everyone-women, men, indeed men sharing in house-
peasants, urban dwellers, young work was being talked about all
people. I was especially eager to over Ciudad Sandino. There was
see how women were respond- a necessity. With the price of
ing to this call to reconstruct a food staples very high and work
war-torn country and no longer, scarce, times were hard. But
as before, to fight a common women could still earn a few cor-
enemy. dobas working in the market.
One answer came on a week- But it wasn’t just an economic
day afternoon in one of imperative. The women were
Managua’s sprawling slums, also talking from a conscious-
renamed Ciudad Sandino in the ness that had been raised during
prevailing revolutionary fashion, the years of breaking with the
The local chapter of the San- past and participating in the
din’ista-backed Women’s Asso- Sandinista-led struggle. In the
ciation was holding its meeting in last years they had also been in-
this poor barrio where 50,000 peo- fluenced by AMPRONAC, precur-
pie lived without plumbing or sor to the Women’s Association.
paved roads. Women had grown slowly to see
While waiting for the meeting themselves and their rights in a
to begin, several women became new way.
involved in an animated conver- Fifty or so of these women
sation. One told the others were now crowded into the small
cheerfully that her husband had wooden building alongside a dus-
36
ty road. Most were over thirty,
part of the generation that had
resisted mostly on the homefront
in such tasks as smuggling arms.
Together with a very young
representative from the
Women’s Association head-
quarters, one of the many young
women who had fought on the
battlefront, the women talked
about their problems and how to
resolve them. The burning issue
of the day was unemployment,
and the women enthusiastically
discussed plans to start a small
plant in their neighborhood to
make clothes.
Such community based enter-
prises are being encouraged by
the Women’s Association to
solve the phenomenal unemploy-
ment rate in Nicaragua and in-
crease the participation of the
people themselves in solving
their problems.
The women in Ciudad Sandino
were excited about the pro-
spects. They took count of how
many had previous experience
sewing professionally and could
teach others; many hands were
raised. Quite a few of the women
had worked in Somoza’s shrimp
processing factory, where they
had contracted chronic skin
diseases from standing all day in
knee-deep water. They wel-
comed the idea of being in
charge of their own production
unit.
When I commented on the ac-
tive attendance at the meeting,
the women told me to come back
on a Saturday afternoon when
women weren’t out working or
looking for work. “That’s when
hundreds of women usually par-
ticipate,” they assured me.
“That’s fairly typical,” com-
NACLA Reportupdate * update update, update
~1)
Co
0.
The first national assembly of women from all over the country-Managua, January 1980.
mented Silvia Perez later. Silvia
is the information officer at the
Women’s Association head-
quarters (located in a large but
sparsely furnished mansion that
used to belong to dictator
Anastasio Somoza’s mother.) “In
Managua some neighborhoods
have up to 600 organized women,
but there’s one area with 45,000
inhabitants and only 15 have
joined the Association.” Stress-
ing the need to keep women in-
volved, she added, “Now that
the revolution has triumphed, we
must often work harder than
before to motivate people to
join.”
ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN
The national Women’s
Association, in keeping with the
revolution’s commitment to
honor its heroes and heroines,
today carries the name Luisa
Amanda Espinosa. She was a
seamstress and the first woman
combatant to fall in the
Mar/Apr 1980
Sandinista-led struggle to over-
throw the dictatorship. That was
in 1964, three years after the
founding of the Sandinista Front
for National Liberation (FSLN).
The Women’s Association is
addressing itself at the present
time to immediate needs-work,
food, literacy and medical care.
A high priority is the literacy
campaign. Half the population is
illiterate, but for Nicaraguan
women the illiteracy rate is about
60 percent.
Plans are also being laid by
the Association and the Ministry
of Social Welfare (headed by
former AMPRONAC leader Lea
Guido) to improve services for
women such as day care centers
and public laundries. The San-
dinista newspaper Barricada
reported that a plant for produc-
ing blue jeans had already
started work in one barrio. The
Ministry had provided the sewing
machines and the fabric, and the
organized women in the area
were running it.
PARTICIPATION IN THE STRUGGLE
AMPRONAC (Association of
Women Confronting the National
Problems), formed in 1977 with
the support of the FSLN, played
an important role in the battle to
oust Somoza. As a broad-based
women’s organization it offered
a public forum, with street
demonstrations and petitions, for
women to defend the human
rights of the thousands of their
family members who were being
tortured and killed by the dic-
tatorship. In clandestinity it en-
couraged women to actively join
the struggle, countering the
threat of harsh repression from
the National Guard and frequent
disapproval from husbands,
fathers and even mothers who
still saw women’s place as in
the home.
As the fight against Somoza in-
tensified, large numbers of
women emerged from social and
37update * update . update * update
political obscurity and passivity to carry out all kinds of tasks, big and small, within the resistance. They delivered messages, ar- ranged transportation, found safe houses for meetings, stored food and medicine, and hid arms and Sandinista literature. At one point women started leaving their homes in order to
fight for the liberation of their
country. Silvia Perez told me
about her own experience. “My
companero considered me a bad
mother when I decided to leave
my children and go with the
revolution. But I could never
have been a good mother under
the system, the economic situa-
tion wouldn’t have permitted it. It
took a long time before my
mother was convinced I was
right. Then she helped me.”
Women’s participation in the
Nicaraguan liberation struggle is
comparable in scope perhaps
only to that of the Vietnamese
women who, as many Nicara-
guan women pointed out, were a
real source of inspiration for
them. It doesn’t take much effort
to find Nicaraguan women who
fought in the mountains or cities,
or both. The final insurrection in
Le6n, the second largest city,
was led largely by women. After
victory four of the seven San-
dinista military chiefs of staff
there were women. Among them
was Dora Maria Tellez, the
famous “Comandante Dos” of
the Sandinista’s daring takeover
of the Palacio Nacional in August
1978.
One of the innumerable other
women, lesser known, who took
part in the fighting, is Consuela, a
small smiling young woman.
Consuela shared with me
memories of her experiences
38
Left to right: Joaquin Cuadra, head of army; Dora Maria Tellez; Luis Carrion,
military chief of staff.
during the insurrection last sum-
mer. She had headed a squadron
of men and women in the
western section of Managua, not
an uncommon task for women.
One day during the fighting the
National Guardsmen advanced
into a Sandinista-held street.
Armed with only a 22-caliber
pistol, Consuela led six com-
batants straight into the line of
fire so they could throw their
homemade Molotov cocktails
at the Guardsmen and drive
them out.
Consuela also remembered
the time a rocket exploded on
the roof of a one-story building
where she was hiding with her
squadron. She was sure that
would be the moment of their
deaths. “Going through that kind
of experience develops you,
changes you,” she said simply.
The hard experiences have left a
slight nervous quiver on her
face.
Now she wants to continue
with the class struggle, she
volunteered, which is why she
joined tne Sandinista fight in the
first place. In answer to my ques-
tion she said yes, women also
have to be liberated in the
process.
A WOMEN’S REVOLUTION TOO
Women like Consuela joined
the FSLN, as did the men, pri-
marily to free the country from
Somoza’s tyrannical rule. But in
the process their own lives were
profoundly transformed. Such is
the case of a woman everyone
calls Mami. Now in her late thir-
ties, she had divorced her hus-
band, a wealthy Somoza sup-
porter, because of irreconcilable
political differences. Joining the
FSLN in its early years, she
NACLA Reportupdate * update * update . update
raised her children “in a pro-
letarian way,” as one of her
daughters told me.
“In Somoza’s Nicaragua all
doors were closed to women,”
Mami explained. “The Frente
gave us a chance to be free. You
see women now with responsi-
bilities we couldn’t have dream-
ed of earlier. The Sandinista
women are respected and equal
with the men.” Mami now is a
local political representative for
the FSLN, tirelessly teaching and
talking about the revolution. She
does this with an inspiring elo-
quence and enthusiasm.
Consuela too is involved in
political education, a field that
has almost come to be women’s
work in the new Nicaragua.
(Nicaraguan women of all
classes seem to have a very
acute sense of politics and a
special skill at expressing
themselves in a forceful, direct
way.)
The Women’s Association is
setting out to mobilize and
politicize women on a massive
scale-not just to defend the
revolution but also to defend
their own rights. As Silvia pointed
out, “Men have good intentions
but we have to push ahead with
our rights. Men certainly won’t
do that. The women played a
significant role in winning the
war, not only fighting but also dy-
ing. Now we have to organize
ourselves.”
Women have already made
some legal gains. The bill of
rights of the new government
stresses equality between men
and women. The new media law
even specifically forbids the
depicting of women as sex ob-
jects.
IarlApr 1980
Changes, however, are slow in
coming, I thought when I saw a
movie ad with a very scantily
dressed woman in chains
published in the bourgeois daily
newspaper, La Prensa. When I
pointed it out to Dora Maria
Tellez, she laughed and then
sighed at the thought of the
tremendous amount of work to
be done in building a new
Nicaragua. Assessing the situa-
tion in the country today she
said, “All revolutions imply a lot
of disorder. The revolution
transforms everything, makes
everything tremble. All the struc-
tures are disordered, so that
later they can be put back in
order, but a different, a revolu-
tionary order.”
Dora Maria Tellez is now in
charge of the Frente’s political
work in Managua. She is one of
the many Nicaraguan women
who, though not directly in-
volved in projects linked with
women, are making sure the
Sandinista revolution will also be
a women’s revolution.