“Like you entered you left, with nothing!” Empowerment amongst female ex-combatants in Nicaragua

Abstract

The massive participation of women in the Nicaraguan revolution stands in contrast with the widespread idea of Latin American women’s subordinate status in society. By virtue of their new roles as guerilla soldiers and common conspirators, these women experienced a higher level of gender equality within the guerilla than in society at large. However, the new won freedom of movement, admiration and respect that the context of revolution had offered many of them, didn’t transcend into peacetime. Through fieldwork and interviews with 11 female ex combatants, and the framework of empowerment theory, I have investigated to what extent their participation in the revolution was empowering for them. This thesis concludes that the level of empowerment these women incorporate is more tied to the personal backgrounds from which they entered and thus left the revolutionary struggle, than to their experiences from clandestine activity. While the ex-combatants from upper and middle class backgrounds have expressed a greater capacity to influence their own life paths, those of poorer backgrounds have few options and less capacity for agency.