Role of women in the Nicaraguan Revolution
Those who joined the Sandinista movement in the revolutionary Nicaragua essentially fought a battle: to secure national freedom from the Somoza dictatorship and to advance gender equality.
A change in gender relations was limited due to the process being shaped by the values and priorities of the Sandinista government rather than by the main women's organization AMNLAE (Asociacion de Mujeres Nicaraguenses Luisa Amanda Espinosa) or the rising Feminist Ideology During the Sandinista Revolution, which resulted in the victory of the opposition candidate Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, over the incumbent Daniel Ortega in the 1990 elections that ended the revolution.
With the assistance with their partner and the predominant women's organization AMNLAE (Asociacion de Mujeres Nicaraguenses Luisa Amanda Espinosa), the FSLN made significant progress towards this goal.
Specifically, the Sandinistas prohibited the use of women as sexual objects; the female body could not be used to sell products in Nicaragua.
[1] The Sandinistas promoted breast feeding and made legalized breaks for working women to do so, eliminated the distinction between children born in and out of wedlock, banned the former "family wage" that saw male heads of households receive the wage of his wife and children's labor, and established penalties to suppress prostitution.
This requirement came in the form of a "nurture law," which mandated that men were responsible for half of whatever their child needed—education, upbringing, support, clothing, etc.—until they reached eighteen.
The reluctance for AMNLAE to explicitly pursue the anti-sexism agenda and the subsequent acceptance of more traditional roles for women and families by the FSLN was largely responsible for the outcome of the 1990 elections.
Because neither AMNLAE nor the FSLN explicitly challenged the sexist controversies, they subsequently fell to a much more traditional and conservative party led by a woman president fulfilling the typical gender-roles that Nicaraguan feminists felt that women desperately needed to dismantle during the revolution.
Their initial entry point into the public sphere as guerrillas was a precursor to women's further involvement in more political revolutionary events and agendas.
Unlike other left-wing guerrilla groups in the region, the Sandinistas espoused progressive views on gender equality because they believed that winning women's support and participation in the revolution would only strengthen it and ensure greater success.
Similarly, the National Guard also had women among its ranks, active as police officers as well as in the EEBBI, the Somoza regime's special forces.
Luisa Amanda Espinoza was the first Sandinista woman to be killed in battle against the Somoza regime, was one of the revolutionary role models.
Her name was later incorporated to the Nicaraguan women's association, AMNLAE (Asociacion de Mujeres Nicaraguenses Luisa Amanda Espinosa) in commemoration of her role in the revolution.
