Talk:Feminist ideology during the Sandinista Revolution

This could use a bit more critical elaboration. In particular the concluding paragraph which attributes the loss of the elections to the Sandinista's lack feminism or something similar. While there were many differences between the women in the FSLN and AMLAE with the executive committee of the FSLN, the authors you have listed do not deny that much positive change took place during the decade they were in power. The revolution did forward the cause of women like no other government has in Latin America since.

The right-wing US-backed UNO government went out of its way to roll back many of the accomplishments of the Sandinista period making it one of the most legally conservative governments in Latin America regarding women's rights and laws--little has changed since 1990 in that regard.

There are several well respected works on Nicaragua that can inform your comments. I recommend Roger Lancaster's Life is Hard (1986), Florence Babb's After the Revolution (2001), Elizabeth Dore's Myth of Modernity (2006), Katherine Isbester's Still Fighting (2001). All of these deal with women, the revolution and the aftermath. These are only a few of many works that deal with this topic, there are many more books and articles including many written by Nicaraguan women which I have not listed (I do not have the information in front of me at the moment).

Also look at the assumptions of what is "feminist." Having a woman president is not a guarantee that she is for women's (or the majority of women) rights and interests. Identity politics are complicated and people do not respond to a single set of interests. Chamorro was the wife of a high profile member of the business community (among other things he was a newspaper owner and executive editor of La Prensa). But he was also the heir of the old conservative (as in party) oligarchy--needless to say that class and political interests came first and Violeta Chamorro played her role of "the widow" quite well. During her presidency (and since) women's interests took second (or last) place to the implementation of structural adjustments in order to comply with World Bank and International Monetary Fund (and other similar organizations) requirements for loans and development assistance. Neoliberalism has not been to the benefit of the majority of the population, nor to women's interests (unless you have the economic resources of the Chamorros who have more than enough to live in Nicaragua, US, Europe, etc.)

Merge
I've done a very rudimentary merge of Women and the Armed Struggle in Nicaragua and Feminist ideology during the Sandinista Revolution to Role of women in Nicaraguan Revolution. It reads like an essay though... —Quarl (talk) 2007-02-26 03:29Z