The Effects of Reform

This paper is a condensed version of a more extensive study of Sandinista policies. It is based on research carried out in Nicaragua with the help of the Nuffield Foundation. It is part of an on-going project on state policy, women and the family in post-revolutionary societies and complements research already carried out in South Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Cuba and the USSR.

The term 'socialist' is used here for the sake of brevity. In relation to most of these states, some qualification is required along the lines suggested by Rudolf Bahro ('actually existing socialism'), for the reasons he advanced in his book The Alternative in Eastern Europe. Others have not reached the level of economic sociatisation that qualifies them for inclusion in this category.

See, for example, the attitudes of women to this in Hansson, C. and Liden, K. 's book of interviews, Moscow Women, Pantheon, 1983

Quoted in MacKinnon, C. 'Feminism, Marxism, Method and the State: An agenda for theory', Signs, Spring 1982

There are differing definitions of patriarchy but most of them agree that it describes a power relation existing between the sexes, exercised by men over women and institutionalised within various social relations and practices among which can be instanced the law, the family, and education

There are still inequalities in both the theory and practice of the law, for example, in divorce, where it is easier for women to be divorced for adultery than men

There is a third usage of the term 'interest' found in Marxism which explains collective action in terms of some intrinsic property of the actors and/or the relations within which they are inscribed. Thus class struggle is ultimately explained as an effect of the relation of production. This conception has been shown to rest on essentialist assumptions and provides an inadequate account of social action. For a critique of this notion see Benton, E. 'Realism, Power, and Objective Interests' in Graham, K. (ed) New Perspectives in Political Philosophy, Cambridge 1982

; and Hindess, B. 'Power, Interests and the Outcome of Struggles', Sociology , vol.16 (4), 1982

The current work of Zillah Eisenstein, editor of Capitalist Patriarchy, is a good example: she has recently produced a sophisticated version of the argument that women constitute an 'sexual class' and that for women, gender issues are primary

It is precisely around these issues, which also have an ethical significance, that the theoretical and political debate must focus. The list of strategic gender interests noted here is not exhaustive but is merely examplary. This question is discussed further and more fully in a forthcoming paper

See for example Temma Kaplan , 'Female Consciousness and Collective Action: The case of Barcelona 1910-1918', Signs, Spring 1982; and Olwen Hufton , 'Women in Revolution 1789-1796', Past and Present, No.53, 1971

The issues around which women mobilise and their role in social change and revolutions is an underdeveloped area of research. Hufton's work op. cit. is one of the few examples which documents women's initial support for and participation in the French revolution and explains why they turned against it

For a fuller discussion of socialist policies with regard to women and the family see my 'Women's Emancipation Under Socialism: A model for the third world?' in World Development, Vol.9, Nos.9/10, 1981.

Also published in Monthly Review, July 1982

, and in Leon, M. (ed) Sociedad, Subordinacion y Feminisme , ACEP, Colombia, 1982

Speech by Thomas Borge on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of AMNLAE in September 1982

These guidelines were passed as resolutions at the Second Congress of the Comintern in 1921. For more details see Woolf Jancar, B. Women Under Communism, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore , 1978

See, for example, Petras, J. 'Nicaragua: The Transition to a new Society ', Latin American Perspectives, No.29, Spring 1981, Vol.8, No.2

In 1981 one Managua hospital was admitting an average of twelve women a day as a result of illegal abortions. The main maternity hospital there records four to five admissions weekly of women following abortions. In press reports in 1982 the number of abortions was said to be rising. Quoted in Deighton et al. Sweet Ramparts, 1983

This has to be compared and contrasted with many nationalist movements which call for the sacrifice of women's interests (and those of other oppressed groups) in the interests of the nation

Data from the Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas y Censos, December 1981

AMNLAE argues that the implications of women conserving resources under a socialist government are radically different to those under capitalism because the beneficiaries are the people in the first case and private interests in the second