By Marc
For many leftist academics and solidarity activists, the 1994 Zapatista
uprising was seen as opening important political spaces for Indigenous
women in a broader male-dominated, machista society. Three images helped
shape these views:
1. Although the charismatic Subcomandante Marcos often captured the
media spotlight, at the peace talks in the San Cristóbal cathedral and
elsewhere he was matched with the diminutive and increasingly frail
Comandanta Ramona who had gained her own cult following.
2. Media images of unarmed Indigenous women chasing soldiers out of
their communities, including those in Saul Landau’s documentary, The
Sixth Sun, and a famed January 1998 photo in one of Mexico’s principal national newspaper, La Jornada, reinforced this idea that Indigenous women often led subaltern protest movements in southern Mexico.
3. The Zapatista Revolutionary Women's Laws. In 1994, we were told that
a significant portion of the Zapatista army were made up of Indigenous
women, and that the EZLN was committed to equal rights and would not
tolerate sexism within its ranks. The ten Revolutionary Women's Laws
stated:
1. Women, regardless of their race, creed, color, or political
affiliation, have the right to participate in the revolutionary struggle
in a way determined by their desire and ability.
2. Women have the right to work and receive a fair salary.
3. Women have the right to decide the number of children they will bear
and care for.
4. Women have the right to participate in the affairs of the community
and to hold positions of authority if they are freely and democratically
elected.
5. Women and their children have the right to primary attention in the
matters of health and nutrition.
6. Women have the right to education.
7. Women have the right to choose their partner and are not to be forced
into marriage.
8. Women shall not be beaten or physically mistreated by their family
members or by strangers. Rape and attempted rape will be severely punished.
9. Women will be able to occupy positions of leadership in the
organization and to hold military ranks in the revolutionary armed forces.
10. Women will have all the rights and obligations elaborated in the
revolutionary laws and regulations.
Mexico has long been plagued by what is called the “dead letter of the
law,” a serious gap between delightful proclamations and the
shortcomings of lived realities. These laws say more about desires than
reflections of realities. But ten years on, has any real progress been
made? Is gender equality even a goal? Does equality extend any farther
than trite tokenism?
Chiapas
Within Zapatista communities and more broadly in Maya society, there
appears to be a gap between what leadership projects and what
communities experience. For example, at the Junta de Buen Gobierno in
the Caracol of Morelia we met with a directiva comprised of three men
and three women. The four plenaries I attended at the encuentro in
Oventic were heavily dominated by women. But when we went to the
community of Olga Isabel, we only met with three men and it appears that
women played an insignificant role in community governance.
Furthermore, when we met with the Junta de Buen Gobierno at Morelia it
was a man who led the discussion with a woman adding her voice of thanks
at the very end. Some said that this was a simple function of literacy.
Historically, it has been men who have had most contact with the outside
world and hence have gained most fluency in the dominant colonial
language. Women, on the other hand, have remained at home and in the
private sphere which leads anthropologists to see them as the bearers of
tradition and culture since they tend to hang on to Indigenous languages
and dress longer than men.
Very possibly, talking to a man was simply a pragmatic function of having the one most skilled in the Spanish language carrying on the conversation. It appeared that one of the women spoke little if any Spanish, and we spoke no Tzotzil.
Two days later when we met with people in El Nuevo Paraiso, a community of the Abejas, which is a pacifist indigenous movement with ideology similar to that of the Zapatistas, it was Manuel, a male representative of the community, who
guided the conversation and translated for everyone, including both the men in
western dress and rubber boots and the traditionally dressed, barefoot
women. First, all the men shared their stories and then the women had their turn. Manuel paid little attention to the women as they spoke. Was
this a dismissive attitude, or did he know the stories so well that he
did not have to listen closely? Was this an example of a domineering
personality who insisted that everyone speak through him, even though
others may also have spoken Spanish? If we had translation from the
Tzotzil at El Nuevo Paraiso, could we not also have had this translation
in Morelia at the Junta de Buen Gobierno?
But for the first time we were “hearing” women’s voices. Before traveling to El Nuevo Paraiso we stopped at Acteal where we met with the Abejas leadership–all men, even though they consciously addressed us as “sisters and brothers” rather than the more traditional but exclusive “brothers” (hermanos).
The contrast between male-dominated communities and an overt female
presence at the Zapatista encuentro alternatively points to either a
serious desire to engage issues of sexism and exclusion, or it simply
highlights the level of tokenism on which these issues are addressed.
For example, in the fifth plenary on women, Lora read a statement that
she had written with María Luisa and Verónica on the issues that women
faced in Zapatista communities.
Women, she read, were mistreated, ignored, forgotten. But rather than blaming Indigenous cultures, it was the Bad Government that treated women as if they served no purpose except to have kids and take care of animals. Lora emphasized that at first there were few women in charge of community responsibilities, and that there is need for more formation and training so that women can do more work.
Both the presentation and follow-up questions seemed to follow
preconceived notions instead of deeply probing the contradictions we
observed in the communities. The Zapatista General Command has declared
that women have equal rights, and if there are problems the Zapatista
authorities in autonomous communities take care of them (although the
presenters were very thin on how such problems would be dealt with). The
presenters, however, did seem to concede how difficult it is to change
cultural traditions when they acknowledged that while some men try to
help out domestically very few of them make tortillas.
Women’s empowerment issues were engaged more directly in the subsequent
plenary on collective work. Paulina read a statement prepared by her,
Daniela, and Juan Manuel in which they explain how they had formed a
cooperative so as not to have to sell their artisan crafts so cheaply.
She explained how they took advantage of participating in the Zapatista
struggle to avoid what they had suffered for years, and that a
cooperative was a way for Indigenous women to improve their lives.
Oaxaca
For me, the disappointment in the lack of serious engagement of gendered
issues was further reinforced in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. My images
of the region had largely been shaped (and perhaps reified) by Maureen
Gosling’s excellent film Blossoms of Fire in which she depicts a strong
matriarchic society. Instead, we met with two social movement
organizations at Santa María Jalapa de Marqués and La Venta that were
exclusively dominated by men.
At Jalapa, one woman sat at the front table during our meeting, but she was never given the opportunity to speak. Many women, however, were in the audience and when we left they proudly greeted us, hardly appearing to be marginalized or intimidated. At La Venta, women showed up only to play the traditional role of serving us drinks while men held forth on the more serious issues of the day. All of this seemed to replicate the traditional gender relations that we commonly see around us.
Ironically, we met with stronger women leaders during our first week in
Oaxaca where I was not specifically looking for it.
The group that perhaps impressed many of us the most was the
Coordinadora de Mujeres Primero de Agosto (COMO). We met with Estela Río
González and Itandehuí Santiago Galicia who told us their history of
taking over the state TV and radio station last year in the aftermath of
the APPO protests against Ulisis Ruiz.
The Coordinadora emerged out of a group of women who decided to support the striking teachers, and realized that they needed to organize themselves to achieve their objectives. Copying protests in Argentina and Chile, they rejected their traditional domestic roles and instead carried out a march of banging on pots and pans. They expected a couple thousand women to join them, but 15,000 showed up for a march on government buildings. With this
momentum, they seized 28 buses to travel from the Zocalo to take over
the state TV and radio stations.
Originally the women only demanded 30 minutes on air to present their
demands, arguing that as a state-run radio they had a right to have
their voices heard. When the station refused this request, they took
over the station. They decided that having men join them would be too
provocative, so only women entered. Men remained outside as guards. The
women deliberately chose to be respectful and not to destroy anything.
No one knew how to use the equipment, so they had to coerce the
technicians “con cariño” (with love) to show them how to run the station.
For the first day the women did not eat or sleep as they ran the station. Long lines of women wanted to go on the air to talk and express their demands. As the occupation drug on, people brought food to the station. Husbands asked when they were coming home to tend to their homes, but the women said that the men would need to learn how to take care of themselves. Estela noted the problem of hard-headed and machista men, but their actions showed that women could do a lot. The broadcasts lasted from August 1 to August 21 when the government destroyed the station’s antenna to knock it off the air. The occupation remained until October 28 to care for the station so that they would not be accused to destroying the equipment.
Estela emphasized that this occupation demonstrated that women can do
more than be in the kitchen. They demanded justice, and conquered their fear of repression. Itandehuí noted how she was impressed with the initiative
shown by young women. People were surprised to see women able to run the
station. “The job was not easy,” Itandehuí stated. The women were well
aware of the repercussions of attacking a state institution. But they
grew stronger as they went along.
Out of this occupation, the women decided to form a broad, inclusive,
popular assembly of women. Their demands were to free the political
prisoners from the summer protests, and to address the issues of
disappeared and tortured protesters. More broadly, they dream of a
better world without poverty in which the government works for the
people and for freedom and justice rather than enriching politicians.
They want schools, hospitals, and funding for education. Itandehuí also
pointed to the importance of including Indigenous women in the struggle
since they are the most oppressed.
We also saw an example of strong female leadership in our meeting with
Dolores Villalobo from the Consejo Indígena Popular de Oaxaca “Ricardo
Flores Magón” (CIPO-RFM). Although she did not introduce herself as
such, she is the secretary of women’s issues in the CIPO. Although
often in organizations this becomes a marginalized and somewhat token
position, Dolores was clearly a central actor in the organization. She
spoke strongly and forcefully regarding a broad range of issues that
face her community faces.
Flores Magón, an Indigenous anarchist from Oaxaca, once said, “Cuando una mujer avanza, no hay hombre que retroceda”: when a woman moves forward, no man will be held back. In other words, we all move forward together. The slogan has become among the most commonly repeated in the Oaxacan social movement.
Although obviously not necessarily a representative sample, in a visit
to the community of Tres Lagunas in the northern Oaxaca municipality of
Nochixtlan we met Domitla, a traditional healer, who explained the
benefits of midwives and the negative consequences of western medicine
that was too eager to deliver babies by Caesarian sections.
Unlike the women in the Maya communities we visited in Chiapas, she did not hang back but talked as an equal with the men around her. Domitla spoke
Spanish and the community had strongly felt the impacts of immigration,
which perhaps meant that, unlike in rural communities in Chiapas, women
were more acculturated and had more exposure to the outside world. Did
this give her more strength to speak?
If acculturation translates into stronger female leadership this
contradicts assumptions that Indigenous (ie, traditional) societies tend
to be more egalitarian and place value on women’s participation. From
this perspective, discrimination is a function of the imposition of
hierarchies and state structures, and that machismo is a European import.
Alternatively, scholars have examined how subalterns invert dominant
paradigms to their own advantage. Specifically in this case, women take
marianismo (the cult of the virgin Mary) and use it to create spaces for
protest. In the famed La Jornada photo, the assumption is that if it
were men who were pushing back at the soldier they would be hit and
imprisoned. But because they were women, the soldier was helpless to
respond.
A colleague observed, however, the gendered nature of such oppression.
It is not that the soldier would not hit the woman, but that he would
not be allowed to do so in public and in the eyes of the media. Away
from the cameras and the public eye, the women would be raped, tortured,
killed. And, indeed, this is what we saw in Pinochet’s prisons in Chile.
Marianismo did not protect women, and even worse women sometimes faced
the worst abuse for having stepped out of their traditional roles.
Rather than reinforcing our assumptions regarding special spaces for the
unique and positive construction of gendered relations in Indigenous
communities, the Zapatista and APPO experiences would seem to indicate
that more–not less–exposure to the dominant culture reinforces strong
female leadership?
