--Ramona Rodriguez, Condega, Nicaragua
Ramona Rodriguez, a young Nicaraguan feminist, speaks with great confidence about the importance of women working in solidarity with one another. Never having had the opportunity to complete high school, her consciousness and empowerment come from the influence of a strong local and national women's movement.
The Nicaraguan women's movement sprouted out of the Sandanista Revolution during the late nineteen seventies and eighties. Women were involved in all facets of the revolution breaking down traditionally strict gender roles. Women were organizers, leaders, and fighters. During this time, women began to organize themselves, forming committees to protest the contra war and offer support to the Sandanista government.
However, women's organizations were supported by the Sandanista government only assuming that they did not actually deal with "women's" or "feminist issues." Thus, innately tied to party politics, the women's movement was essentially determined by the Sandanista government. Within these confines issues essential to women's liberation, such as domestic violence, reproductive rights, lesbian rights, and women's economic empowerment, were not discussed. Practical as opposed to strategic gender issues were dealt with. Consequently, it succeeded that women had to choose between being a feminist or joining the Left and as Nicaraguan feminist Sofia Montenegro notes, "The Left did not recognize that the two could go together." (Kuppers, p.177)
Since the fall of the national Sandanista government in 1990, the Nicaraguan women's movement has flourished. It is inarguably one of the most widespread and influential social movements in Nicaragua. Though led predominantly by Sandanista women, the movement is politically autonomous, consisting of small local groups, united together in broad-based national organizations such as The National Feminist Committee and the Network of Women Against Violence. Many of the feminist leaders in Nicaragua are also prominent Sandanistas.
In the past ten years, great energy has been focused on the Nicaraguan women's movement, specifically on issues of anti-violence and on the creation of economic alternatives for women. The involvement of women in FSLN politics is also a key focus of the movement; to stage their actors and create change. It can be said that the overlying aims of the women's movement are to work towards the end of all types of violence against women; physical, psychological, economic, social, and political.
Since the time of the revolution, the women's movement has taken on a new ideology of "revolutionary feminism" concentrating both in the public and private spheres. Organizations expressly declare their objectives to be to fight against subordination and for the transformation of values and conditions for women. (Montenegro, p.367) The movement is about personal transformation as much as it is about fighting to transform public polices. Whereas defining oneself as "feminist" is often controversial in many women's movements in other countries, "feminism" has become a key phrase in the Nicaraguan movement, among women of all classes. The National Feminist Committee distributes stickers that proclaim, "I am a feminist, I believe in the liberty to be, feel, dream, and elect."
In recent years in Condega, Nicaragua, a small town of about 30,000 in the northernmost part of the country, the local women's organizations have had an incredible impact on the community. Their most recent project, the creation of a neighborhood of single women built and financed by women, clearly exemplifies the revolutionary work they are doing.
Hurricane Mitch devastated Condega in late October 1998, leaving nearly a third of the population homeless. After the Hurricane, the local government, which is Sandanista, organized and received international funding to be used in the largescale reconstruction process. However, the interests of women, specifically of single women, were largely left out of these efforts and these women and their families remained for months in overcrowded and unsanitary shelters.
Anticipating such problems, two local women's organizations, The Network of Women Against Violence and The Collective of Women Constructors, in partnership with international feminist supporters, immediately began to organize their own reconstruction project. The main objectives were to build houses for single women affected by the hurricane, to train women in the building process, and to give women the titles to their homes.
Now, a year later, nearly twenty houses have been built and their exists a neighborhood of women, called La Communidad de Mujeres Unidas (The Community of Women United). Above the front door of each house hangs a panel with a women's symbols and the year 1999 engraved. The houses were built by teams of women, both international volunteers and local women. The Collective of Women Constructors is currently forming their own construction team which will be headed up by a British forewoman who has previously worked in Condega.
The efforts of this project to create a community of empowered resistant women, as well as its support of women in non-traditional trades, and of lesbian women, has attracted much international interest and support.
This is a form of support and solidarity which defies universal patriarchal norms. Because the Nicaraguan women's movement is disadvantaged economically, this project, was funded internationally. The Condega Homemakers Project, was formed in New York specifically to head up this fundraising effort. The CHP works in partnership with the two Condegan organizations, with the power resting in the hands of the Nicaraguan women. In overall, the project has been a great success, empowering women socially, economically, and psychologically. This project exemplifies a great advance in these efforts--the creation of a sustainable and empowering alternative--a neighborhood of women, built by women, where women own the titles to their houses.
It is also, as Rodriguez points out, a safe space where domestic violence will not be tolerated. In a country that suffers from extremely high incidences of domestic violence and violence against women in general this "safe space" is very important. In this community resistance amongst women is encouraged and the impact of collective action is recognized. As Sofia Montenegro proclaims, "Without collective identity, there is no collective action." Nery Gonzalez, a beneficiary of the project and also a carpenter and construction worker with The Collective of Women Constructors says of her experience working in non-traditonal trades, "I am not about to just sit idly by, I want to continue training women in construction and carpentry." Lola Lopez, Gonzalez's neighbor, also expresses her desires to keep moving forward in the women's movement, " As women we are very worthy of this work, we are not less than men. Though the vast majority of men are machista and they belittle and ridicule our presence, we will continue to go and work where they are and demand that they respect us as women, here and everywhere." By employing and empowering local women and creating bonds of international solidarity between women's groups, the cooperation between the Network of Women, the Women's Construction Collective, and the Condega Homemakers Project proves the success of collective feminist action.
Chassen-Lopez, Francis R. "From Casa to Calle: Latin American Women Transforming Patriarchal Spaces," in Journal of Women's History 9.1 (April 30, 1997)174-185.
Ferguson, Ann. "Resisting the Veil of Privilege: Building Bridge Identities as an Ethico-Politics of Global Feminism," in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 13.3 (July 31, 1998): 95-108.
Kupper, Gaby, ed. Compañeras: Voices from the Latin American Women's Movement. London: Latin America Bureau, 1992.
Montenegro, Sofia. "Un Movimiento de Mujeres En Auge," in Movimiento de Mujeres en Centroamerica. Managua, Nicaragua: Programa Regional La Corriente, 1997.