Women and Guerrilla Movements
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba
208 pages | 6 x 9 | 2002
Cloth edition is not available
ISBN 978-0-271-02251-2 | paper: $24.00 sh
"This is an intelligent and well-researched book—essential reading for helping academics and practitioners think through the complexities of women's lives during and after revolutions. Kampwirth's book will chart a new course for us to study women as individuals, not just as a group, with regard to political and social revolutions. A book that superbly captures the real lives of women revolutionaries—without over-romanticizing the revolutions or the roles of women."—Tracy Fitzsimmons, Shenandoah University
The revolutionary movements that emerged frequently in Latin America over the past century promoted goals that included overturning dictatorships, confronting economic inequalities, and creating what Cuban revolutionary hero Che Guevara called the "new man." But in fact, many of the "new men" who participated in these movements were not men. Thousands of them were women. This book aims to show why a full understanding of revolutions needs to take account of gender.
Karen Kampwirth writes here about the women who joined the revolutionary movements in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and the Mexican state of Chiapas, about how they became guerrillas, and how that experience changed their lives. In the last chapter she compares what happened in these countries with Cuba in the 1950s, where few women participated in the guerrilla struggle.
Drawing on more than two hundred interviews, Kampwirth examines the political, structural, ideological, and personal factors that allowed many women to escape from the constraints of their traditional roles and led some to participate in guerrilla activities. Her emphasis on the experiences of revolutionaries adds a new dimension to the study of revolution, which has focused mainly on explaining how states are overthrown.
Karen Kampwirth is Associate Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Latin American Studies Program at Knox College. She is co-editor of Radical Women in Latin America (Penn State, 2001).
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 New Roles for Sandino's Daughters
2 Feminine Challenges to Military Rule in El Salvador
3 Also a Women's Rebellion: The Rise of the Zapatista Army
4 Rethinking Women and Guerrilla Movements: Back to Cuba
Appendix: Social Origins of the Central American Guerrillas
Bibliography
Index