Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas (review)

This interesting, admirably reasoned book illuminates the feminist legacy of the recent revolutionary movements in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Chiapas. It addresses three shortcomings of the literature on revolutions: the scant attention given to the role of women; the tendency to conclude analysis at the moment of regime change or cessation of efforts by revolutionaries; and an overemphasis on the state, with a corresponding de-emphasis on the broader society. Kampwirth means to remedy this problem by assessing the contrasting fortunes of feminism in the three Latin American revolutions.

Her method is to employ and extend Valentine Moghadam's classification of revolutions in terms of their "gender outcomes" either as modernizing and egalitarian, with women's equality a stated goal, as in the three Latin American revolutions that Kampwirth analyzes; or as patriarchal, reinforcing gender differences and traditional gender roles rather than equality, as in the revolutions in Iran and Poland. (The Cuban revolution does not quite fit either category because one cannot predict with any certainty the gender outcome in a post-Castro Cuba.) Both Moghadam and Kampwirth regard the situation that predated the revolution—its "gender legacy"—as the main predictor of how women will fare afterwards. Kampwirth, however, enlists three other factors shaping feminist revolutionary legacies: the religious tradition that favored the revolution; the kinds and extent of resources available to feminists; and the influence of international feminism. This last factor refers primarily to the influence of Nicaraguan feminism in El Salvador but includes European and U.S. influences to a lesser extent. Indeed, a major point of the book is that Latin American feminists are born of revolution and differing from their North American cousins in their holistic orientation, promotion of broad social change, and acute attention to entrenched barriers of class and ethnic prejudices. In other words, they are much more concerned with politics than theory.

Kampwirth does a good job of explaining the similarities and differences among the revolutions in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Chiapas. The antidictatorship revolutions in Nicaragua and El Salvador pursued egalitarian programs inspired by Marxism and liberation theology, which in theory—and often in practice—favored women's equality. Women repeatedly invoked the egalitarianism embedded in these political and religious discourses to claim equal rights with men. This was a very powerful combination for the thousands of Nicaraguan women who participated in massive nationwide mobilization efforts such as the literacy crusade or the health campaign, where they not only broadened their horizons but also developed confidence, skills, and political savvy. After such life-changing experiences, it was difficult for women to continue deferring to an omniscient patriarchal revolutionary vanguard. In a separate chapter, Kampwirth details how antifeminism hit Nicaragua with a vengeance after the Sandinistas were voted out of office in 1990.

In El Salvador, the feminist move to independence from the guerrilla structure was hastened by the extreme sectarianism and factionalism of the guerrilla movement. Not surprisingly, those divisions were replicated in feminist organizations and had to be addressed by women in the ranks. Since the rebels never assumed power in El Salvador, feminists there never benefited from post-revolutionary largesse; however, they did receive valuable international assistance, both moral and tactical, from their more seasoned Nicaraguan sisters whose example they sought to emulate. Salvadoran feminists also received international material assistance from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental agencies, including substantial funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The Chiapas movement is different because it is a post-cold war phenomenon, and because organized feminism there is not a result but rather a precursor of rebellion. The principal distinction of the Chiapas rebellion is its indigenous nature, with its platform of equal rights, dignity, and cultural autonomy for Indians. Indigenous women had already been organizing for several decades...