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Women
and Guerrilla Movements Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba
Karen Kampwirth
July | 2002 | 6 x 9 inches
Political Science, Comparative Politics
Paperback: $24.00 SH | ISBN: 978-0-271-02251-2
"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).
