Notes 203 Notes Introduction 1. The results were published in Young (et al.) (1984). 2. Research for these various projects was undertaken in South Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Cuba, Russia, Azerbaijan, Hungary and Iraq. The resulting publications include: The Ethiopian Revolution (Halliday and Molyneux, 1982); State Policies and the Position of Women in the PDRY (Molyneux, 1982); ‘Women’s Emancipation under Socialism: A Model for the Third World?’, World Development (Molyneux, 1980); ‘Legal Reform and Socialist Revolution in Democratic Yemen’, International Journal of the Sociology of Law (Molyneux, 1986a); ‘ “The Woman Question” in the Age of Perestroika’, New Left Review, no 183 (Molyneux, 1990); ‘The Woman Question in the Age of Communism’s Collapse’, in Mary Evans (1994); and ‘Women’s Rights and Political Contingency’ (1995). 3. La Voz de la Mujer (1997). 4. These include De Beauvoir (1953), Mitchell (1965), Rowbotham (1972). Chapter 1. Anarchist Feminism in Nineteenth-Century Argentina 1. The research on La Voz was carried out in the archives of the Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. 2. See Abad de Santillán (1930), Nettlau (1971) and Oved (1978). 3. O Jornal das Senhoras, for example, appeared in Brazil in 1852 and was dedicated to the ‘social betterment and the moral emancipation of women’ (Hahner, 1978). 4. Ferns (1960). 5. Bourdé (1974). 6. On the eve of World War I, 30 per cent of the Argentine population were immigrants in contrast to 14 per cent of the US population in 1910 (Solberg, 1970). 7. Ibid. 8. Anarchist ideas were not all imported. There were indigenous anarchist currents in Argentina and forms of spontaneous popular resistance – but these were unable to achieve a stable organisational expression. Gauchesque culture became a central theme for anarchist playwrights and poets from the 1890s onwards (see Franco, 1973 and Yunque, 1941). 9. Rock (1975). 10. Solberg (1970). 11. Marotta (1960). 12. Bourdé (1974). 13. Teresa Mañe, the Spanish teacher and activist, often wrote under the name of Soledad Gustavo. She was born in 1866 and was married to another anarchist, Juan Montseny. 14. Solberg (1970). 203 204 Women’s Movements in International Perspective 15. Unfortunately, there are too few listings to form an accurate picture. Oved (1978) argues that in Argentina, as elsewhere, anarchist support was primarily from unskilled and semi-skilled workers. 16. Segundo censo (1898). 17. Marotta (1960). 18. Segundo censo (1898). 19. All translations by author. 20. Mentioned in the literary journal Caras y Caretas, 1901. According to Abad de Santillán (1930), Creaghe was ‘much loved’ by the Argentine anarchist movement. Before leaving Britain, it seems, he had been active in the workers’ movement in Sheffield and had brought out a newspaper called the Sheffield Anarchist. 21. This ambivalence in the movement’s attitude toward feminism and women anarchists’ successes and failures is discussed in the context of Spain up until the Civil War by Kaplan (1971) and Alvarez Junco (1976). 22. Rowbotham (1972). 23. From the 1900s onwards, the statutes of some of the workers’ groups in which anarchism was strong contained demands for equal pay for women and for the abolition of marriage. The latter demand appeared in the anarchists’ proposals for the statutes of the Federación Obrera Argentina, Argentina’s first workers’ federation, but was dropped from the final list of demands, probably on account of socialist opposition (Marotta, 1960). 24. Marotta (1960). 25. According to Cavas y Caretas, María Calvía also founded a group called ‘Los proletarios’. 26. Quesada (1979) reports that one of the editors turned up in Rosario between 1900 and 1903. He writes that the visitors to the newly built Casa del Pueblo included Pietro Gori, and many others used to gather there: ‘the Marchisio woman, who together with Virginia Bolten founded “La Voz de la Mujer”, the latter publication called the Rosarian (Louise) Michel due to the ardour of its oratory’. (From other sources it would appear more likely that it was Bolten, not La Voz, who was dubbed ‘the Rosarian Michel’.) 27. No. 6 is unavailable. The first four issues measured 26 cm by 36 cm, whereas the remaining ones were slightly larger and varied in size, suggesting the use of different presses. 28. Some of these poems were written to be read at meetings. No. 8 of La Voz carried a 207-line poem by ‘Pepita Gherra’ that was, according to the editors, to be read at the Spanish Workers’ Union meeting. 29. See Alvarez Junco (1976) for a discussion of the family, free love and feminism in Spanish anarchism. 30. The Santa Cecilia Colony in Brazil is the best known of these. El Oprimido was at the centre of a debate on this question, having apparently sponsored the publication of the pamphlet An Episode of Love in the Socialist Colony ‘Cecilia’, which advocated multiple relationships, abolition of the family and communal care of children. Ruvira (1971) says that these Argentine anarchists did have their free unions and that their children appear in the civil register with names such as ‘Anarquía’ (Anarchy), ‘Acracia’ (Free spirit (fig.)) and even ‘Libre Productor’ (Free Producer). Notes 205 31. Rock (1975). 32. In 1900 Cecilia Grierson founded the National Women’s Council and five years later a feminist centre was set up in which the core members of the Argentine suffragist groups came together. 33. Little (1978). 34. Two English writers of the period, of Church of England persuasion, lamented that by 1891, 37 per cent of all marriages in Buenos Aires were civil ceremonies, following the legalisation of secular marriage in 1887 (Mulhall and Mulhall, 1892). Chapter 2. Women’s Interests, the State and Revolution in Nicaragua 1. Author’s interview (1982). Nora Astorga was Deputy Foreign Minister at the time. 2. The Association of Women Confronting the National Problem was founded in 1977 to counter Somoza’s excesses and promote gender equality. Its general secretary was Lea Guido, who later became Minister of Health. See AMNLAE (1981) for an account of AMPRONAC’s history and its list of aims; and Randall (1982). 3. For firsthand accounts of these activities see Randall (1982), Deighton et al. (1983), and Ramírez-Horton (1982). 4. The women writers have been more interested in this question. See especially Maier (1980). 5. Corraggio, (1983). Corragio’s paper was also published in Slater, (1985). 6. Randall (1978, 1982). 7. This is usually translated as ‘poor neighbourhoods’. 8. This organisation is involved in various anti-imperialist and pro-peace campaigns and gives support to the bereaved. 9. For examples of women’s attitudes. See Hansson and Liden (1983). 10. Quoted in MacKinnon (1982). For critical discussions, from differing perspectives, of the record of socialist states, see Markus (1976) and Stacey (1983). 11. This discussion necessarily leaves out the specific situation of women in Nicaragua’s ethnic minorities. The Miskito Indian communities in particular require separate consideration because they have, and have had historically, a very different relationship to central government than that which is described here. 12. There are differing definitions of patriarchy, but most of them agree that patriarchy describes a power relation existing between the sexes, exercised by men over women and institutionalised within various social relations and practices, including law, family and education. I return to the issue of patriarchy in Chapter 5. 13. 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 relations of production. This conception has been shown to rest on essentialist assumptions and provides an inadequate 206 Women’s Movements in International Perspective account of social action. For a critique of this notion, see Benton (1982) and Hindess (1982). 14. Zillah Eisenstein, editor of Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism (1978), developed a sophisticated version of the argument that women constitute a ‘sexual class’ and that for women, gender issues are primary. See Eisenstein (1983). 15. 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 or definitive, but is merely exemplary. 16. See, for example, Kaplan (1982) and Hufton (1971). 17. Borge’s speech was delivered on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of AMNLAE. It was published in Barricada on 4 October 1982 and is available in translation from Pathfinder Press (1982). 18. Ibid. 19. Approximately 20 per cent of economically active women were in agriculture, with similar percentages for personal services and marketing activities. Women accounted for only 15.25 per cent of the formal sector urban workforce. See Deighton et al. (1983). 20. Data are from the Oficina de Mujer, the office which coordinated the activities of AMNLAE with the FSLN. 21. Substantial numbers of women were in favour of conscription and bitterly resented the Council of State’s decision in 1983 to exempt women. AMNLAE fought a popular campaign to revoke the decision, which resulted in women having the right to volunteer. I discuss this in Molyneux (1985b). 22. This viewpoint has to be compared and contrasted with many nationalist movements that call for the sacrifice of women’s interests (and those of other oppressed groups) in the interests of the nation. 23. In some of the regions affected by the war (Matagalpa, Jinotega), where conscription was high, women had come to represent as much as 40 per cent of the workforce by February 1984 (interview with Magda Enríquez, a member of AMNLAE’s national directorate, March 1984). 24.