FSLN women discuss gains in revolution

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In March of this year, the National Directorate of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) of Nicaragua presented a programmatic statement on women's rights to the Third National Assembly of the Nicaraguan Women's Association—Luisa Amanda Espinoza (AMNLAE).

This statement, the first of its kind since the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship in July 1979, came on the heels of the publication of a series of official reports documenting the status of Nicaraguan women today.

One such report issued by the Women's Office of the Ministry of the Presidency reviews the conditions of war which have compelled Nicaraguan women to become involved in the revolution and to assume a crucial economic role in the country.

At the same time, however, the report documents the numerous obstacles women still face on the job and in society. Wife beating and abortion, for example, are still major, unresolved problems. Abortion is illegal, while wife beating is not. Botched back-alley abortions, the report states, are the leading cause of maternal death.

The report concludes with the need to "redefine the role Socialist Action: In March 1987, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FLN) issued a programmatic document on women's rights. How was that document initiated and what debate took place around it?

Gioconda Belli: At the time of the FSLN's 1984 electoral campaign, the discussions concerning women's issues were reinitiated. It is not that the role of women had not been discussed before 1984, but many of us felt there had been a gradual retreat in the attention paid to women's issues.

After the first years of the revolution, the women's struggle was focused almost entirely on participating in the general tasks of the revolution. But many of us felt that we needed to be more specific about the issues concerning women.

By us I mean the movement of women intellectuals who have been constantly striving to place the women's question at the center of the concerns of the revolution.

Sofia Montenegro: Since 1985 there have been numerous regional and national women's assemblies to work on the FSLN's programmatic document. One very important meeting this year was the one hosted by the women farm workers of the Rural Workers Association (ATC).

These women demanded a change in their situation and a specific approach to their double workday. Women make up about 35 percent of the entire farm labor force. On the average, they put in an 18-hour work day between their jobs and their work at home.

Iliana Rodriguez: I think that women in Nicaragua, in practical terms, are in a very abysmal situation.

What I see, though, is that there is a possibility of making great strides forward in Nicaragua now that the specific women's issues have been incorporated into the platform of the FSLN.

Belli: I think the FSLN has had a progressive attitude toward women throughout its history-especially after the mid-'70s. Doris Tijerino, for example, in one of her writings talks about Carlos Fonseca [the founder of the FSLN]. Fonseca had told her that she shouldn't wash her compañero's clothes, that she should be writing and 10 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1987 society has always assigned to women" and to "overcome the inequalities between the sexes and resolve the most deeply felt problems of women, in order to achieve the construction of a new society."

In July and August of this year, Socialist Action correspondent Nancy Elnor visited Nicaragua, where she worked as a technical advisor to the Nicaraguan National Library. Elnor is president of AFT Local 1474 at the University of California, Berkeley.

While in Nicaragua, Elnor interviewed three women leaders of the Nicaraguan Revolution on how far the revolution had come in overcoming the inequalities between the sexes. They are Gioconda Belli, Sofia Montenegro, and Iliana Rodriguez.

Belli, who served on the FSLN Political/Diplomatic Commission until 1979, is currently a member of the board of directors of the FSLN Propaganda Department. She is the author of four books of poetry.

Montenegro is a co-founder of Barricada, the official newspaper of the FSLN. Currently, she is the head of Barricada's editorial section.

Rodriguez is the director of the Nicaraguan National Library.

carrying out intellectual work, and that she shouldn't waste her time with domestic chores.

Of course, we cannot say that the FSLN has not had machismo in its ranks. But I think the overriding tendency has been to encourage the participation of women in all facets of the revolution.

Our recent discussions concerning the rights of women are also very important. In a number of revolutions where women played a key role in the insurrection, the gains they made were eroded and often set back. In Algeria, for example, not long after the revolution, women fighters went back to wearing their veils.

Montenegro: You also have to take into account that women constitute 52 percent of the Nicaraguan population and that a majority of these women are under Name Address City State Zip Tel. generation of women who have entered adulthood in a new revolutionary situation.

For example, a lot of these women participated in the literacy campaign and went up into the mountains. That represented a tremendous cultural leap forward in a country with a heritage like ours.

So now these women are in their 20s and are much less willing to accept going back to the old conditions.

Nonetheless, these conquests are still quite fragile. The weight of the prevailing culture is still very strong, and this has the potential of driving back the status of women.

Rodriguez: There are still important institutional obstacles and limits on how far we can go. These are things we are struggling to overcome.

To give one example: There is a woman who does sex education on TV. Her program deals with all aspects of women's sexuality, love making, child-bearing, abortion, etc. She had a program that was shown on Sundays at 6 p.m. This was prime time.

Unfortunately, she was asked to postpone the show and to air it on Monday night at 9 p.m. This really defeats the whole purpose of sex education because very few people now see this program.

Belli: I think that we still have to do a lot of ideological work. We have to continually address the apparatus that reproduces ideology. We have to change the way that society has treated women and still does. Even though we have very progressive documents, this is only the beginning.

S.A.: What is the involvement of women in leadership positions in the FSLN, the unions, or the mass organizations?

Belli: According to the FSLN's document on women, 31.4 percent of government leadership positions are held by women. In addition, 26.8 percent of the members of the FSLN regional committees are women, as are 24.3 percent of the entire party membership.

Women make up 40 percent of the membership of the Rural Workers Association, and women occupy 15 percent of the local-level leadership positions in that organization. Sixty-seven percent of the members of the Sandinista Defense Committees (CDS) are women.

S.A.: But how many of these are actually heads of their unions?

Belli: Very few. I think it's more of a struggle ahead for us than a reality.

For centuries men have been trained to be competitive and aggressive; qualities often associated with leadership. We often hear arguments being used against women taking up leadership positions that would never be used against men.

For example, it is not uncommon to hear someone say, "She is emotionally unstable," because she has had five husbands. If a man has had 10 women nobody cares.

Even those of us who have a higher standard of education face problems in playing leadership roles.

Montenegro: AMNLAE [the Nicaraguan Women's Association—Luisa Amanda Espinoza] is committed to training women for leadership positions.

The idea is to start at the rank-and-file level. This isn't as easy as it may sound. In many plants, up to 80 percent of the workforce are women. One year, the women in one of these plants elected the few men in the plant to the union leadership.

But the men they elected never took into account the women's problems. So the women called the FSLN for advice. The FSLN told them: "Well, you are the majority. You elected them. You can revoke them and elect your own women representatives." And so they did.

Belli: In our revolution, we have a lot of space to pursue and improve our struggle. We have AMNLAE. We have the new Women's Office of the Ministry of the Presidency. And we have no restrictions about what we can say and write.

And now, through the new FSLN programmatic document on women's rights, the revolution has taken a big step forward.

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