NICARAGUA overall improvement in the situation of the people, and where the distri- bution of property is based on great inequalities. How, then, can we. explain the Women and the "apron economy"
Thus, this subsector has an average annual growth of 23.9%. In part, this growth has been fed by skilled workers, technicians and professionals who have switched over to more lucrative jobs as merchants.
Besides offering higher incomes, the informal sector provides other advantages: It offers job opportunities for a workforce with a low level of skills emigrating from the country to the city. It is easy to get into, since it requires little or no capital. The working hours and conditions are more flexible. Women want to be free and independent
Because of their lack of schooling, their need to contribute to the support of the home and at the same time to go mainly into this sector.
In her study, Redondo high percentage 25 and 44 years of age. The majority of them - 70% - were heads of
27% had husbands fact provided the family's support through their activity in the informal sector.
Through their personal experience, these women managed to overcome the belief that they needed a husband
"I prefer not having a husband, because that way I am free independent." overcame the notion that they had to submit to their husband's will.
These women display a self-esteem that comes from being workers and women of great fortitude, who have been able to provide for themselves and their children through their own labor, despite difficulties
"Women need to work and not to live under the thumb of a man. I don't need one. Only when I have things to communicate to someone. What men give is little, and they take more than they give." alone does not solve other concrete average age of the children of these working women is four. Although the majority were over seven, others were small. These small children are left in the care of some family mem-
The Centros de Desarrolla Infantil (CDIs - Child Development Centers) do not meet the needs of these women because their hours are incompatible with the working day of women whose toil begins at 5am. "Besides making enough to survive, we can take care of our children, when we do not have
International Viewpoint 23 March 1987 anyone to look after them." The possibility of looking after the little ones while they work is another one of the attractions of this activity.
The amount of schooling have is not as low as the average for the sector - 42% have completed up to secondary school. As for their schoolage children, they have a real chance to study, and among their adult chilwe find technicians and even professionals. This is another aspect sector here other countries where the levels of subsistence barely make children alive, set them on a road to a the other hand, these women, even in Managua, lack any preparation to take on specialized
The study demonstrated that these women came into the working world
About 33% started as domestics (maids, cooks, ironers). Some 32% were peasants and agricult ural workers. Others tried to be seamBut the majority opted to become merchants owing to the possibility against working for a boss or for a wage."
Women working in agriculture now do many jobs once reserved for men (DR)
Like other Latin-American peddlars, tortillas, atol [a non-alchoholic corn flour drink] pinol [a popular drink made from germinated maize crushed in water], etc., capital. Many of them were trained by their mothers, who were in the business before. Others had relatives or friends that helped them, giving them products to sell or teaching the "technique" of selling their stock in "In Nicaragua, we call it the apron economy"
The entry of women technicians and professionals into petty trade is a common phenomenon not only in Managua, and it has distinctive expressions - from secretaries who sell their goods between dictations, to professionals shifting from their offices to the market.
The view of a female bookeeper illustrates the possibilities the informal sector offers for the unemployed or underemployed population. "As a bookkeeper, I could not support
23
The changing role of Nicaraguan women
THE WOMEN'S Bureau of the government has published a report on the situation of women today in Nicaraguan society. Since the the social structures, which this inequality perpetuates, requires changes in
Code, ideology, attitudes and personal relationships." and criminal law, the system of land ownership, the Work my children. under Somoza, you didn't make so much because to get work you needed
Today, you can get work, but you earn less at it than selling."
Doing their business as an extension overthrow of
Somoza in 1979, thousands of women have become more integrated in both of the family economy, the peddlar the workforce and in social and political organizations.
Seven years after the revolutionary victory, many more women now work women do not keep accounts of their outside the home. This is due to the war, which has mobilized tens of thousands of men, and to the grave economic crisis that is threatening the country.
we have an apron economy. You put it into an apron pocket
Women represent 35% of agricultural workers.
"Women constitute the bulk of the workforce"
and take it out."
For their calculations, they base work that has until now been a male preserve.
In the towns, especially the capital Managua, the textile, garment, canning and pharmaceutical industries. In many factories week, and the general in these sectors, they represent 80% of the workers.
keep shrinking.
work in the "informal sector" (see article). 70% of shopkeepers are women.
The peddlars of fruit and vegetables are considered the poorest, because of notably the strain of the double workday. In an underdeveloped country like the kind of produce they sell. They
Nicaragua, which in addition has glaring shortages, the hours spent on domestic do not have much of a profit margin, work necessary to reproduce the family weigh heavily, since these tasks are being shared. In a family where the man and woman both work because part of their merchandise ends up in the garbage cans, since outside the home women spend 56% of their time on domestic work as opposed to 9% for men. In the countryside the women's total work time is it is perishable.
currently up to a total of 18 hours inside and outside the home, while in the that and the debts that they sometimes get into, the waste of meat and milk products, the lack
Discrimination at work of access to the basic grains, and their they hardly
Examining the relationship of women to work, the report finds discriminaenough to live, these peddlars have tion in training and promotion, and towards pregnant women.
equal, if not exceed,
Because abortion is illegal in Nicaragua, many women die each year after those of technical professionals.
backstreet abortions. What is more, it is the main cause of maternal deaths - making up 27% of the total. The majority of women who have had backstreet fruit and vegetables, abortions already have children, and only 23% of them are single. The report face difficulties contradicts the commonly held belief that getting these products and resort abortion is resorted to by single women not wanting to suffer social ostrato the black market, thereby exposing themselves more to fines and penalties.
fact that they criticize cooperative movement, has laid the basis for equality in the countryside, but the official policies, they also support done for this equality to become a reality.
cooperatives have women members, but still women only represent 6% of the total membership. The idea still prevails "that they 'help' their husband with possible alternatives for solving problem of growing inflation:
agricultural work, and that they are not themselves full producers.
are reluctant for their wives to become full members of the cooperative, and rise in prices is a result of they are not very motivated by the growth of women's involvement in social the fact that we have to buy on the black market in order to sell to the
Laws inherited from Somoza who cannot get these
Notable progress has been made where agricultural workers are concerned,
This will end when the government even if their participation in trade unions is still far from being equal with sell our products again. What that of men. They explain that this is because of the extra work that childcare and responsibility for domestic work gives them. But even if these obstacles ourselves and remain, 81% of women agricultural workers are now unionized.
police control the
In its conclusions, the report stresses that some women's problems originate in the laws inherited from the Somoza dictatorship.
with meat."
laws established by the revolution coexist, creating obstacles and contradic-
There is a fear among these women tions which prevent them from being resolved."
of being driven out of business. A lot centres for battered women have been set up since the revolution, this violence of them say that they are not prepared against women is not punishable by law. 51% of women turning for help to to do any other kind of work, and the Women's Offices set up by AMNLAE are fleeing domestic violence. They that spending so many years in trade also go there for abortions: "The criminalization of abortion is a danger for this activity the health of women. It increases female mortality, puts a strain on hospital budgets and is in flagrant contradiction with government action to improve
"We worry about being forced out of business.
We feel that trading is the report concludes on the necessity for a revision of the government's policy towards women. "The war, the economic crisis and the a part of us. The happy time that we social changes in the country have changed the role of Nicaraguan women.
spend here will be taken away from
Today they assume enormous responsibilities and are increasingly integrated us. Now we feel more like working
But until now no policy has redefined the people and more united."
role traditionally given to women in society. The traditional sexual division of
Contrary to the stereotyped image labour has not been challenged, no more than the ideology which assigns a that exists of merchants as reactionaries, speculators, and so on, Redondo and for the defence of the revolution as a offers a more rounded view.
whole, to overcome these inequalities between the sexes, to resolve the problems of women in order to construct a new society.
Many of the women interviewed participated in the insurrection, and today belong to one or another mass organization, have a high estimation
24 some regions,
The report deals
"This reality
The agrarian reform established by management."
conditions of health in the country."
in the whole production process.
role to each of the sexes.
"It is necessary for women,
The report underlines that in and are doing women are in a majority in
A much larger number the obstacles encountered by the revolution, and the growth of the
Half of the
"The old laws and the
Thus, although numerous
The transformation of
International Viewpoint 23 March 1987
bespierre, Acct 230179/90. Postal transfers to PEC, CCP No. 2 322 42T Paris.
of themselves and of their work, are united by a feeling of solidarity and exhibit various degrees of consciousness and collaboration with the revolutionary process.
All these women belong to a Sandinista Defence Committee (CDS), and the great majority of them stand revolutionary guard duty. They take their personal problems or those of the association to which they belong to the CDS, since all of them are organized in accordance with their stock in trade - meat, dairy products, perishables or groceries. Contradictions of an economy in transition
Some of the peddlars were in the militia, but they are not active for the moment. Nonetheless, their willingness to do active duty in the event of an invasion of Managua. For now, they express their solidarity with the Batallones de Lucha Irregular [army units specialized in combating the contras], and take part in the cotton-picking brigades. Some of them think that if a different sort of attitude were taken towards the less conscious merchants, more peddlars could be won to the revolution.
Without wanting to get into the theoretical debate on the informal sector, we agree with Redondo that the recent expansion of this sector in Nicaragua reflects the contradictions of an economy in transition. Therefore, more than attempting to offer conclusions, the need is to continue and deepen interdisciplinary analyses in order to confront the problems of this sector.
Despite the advantages that women
(AMNLAE) and the market administration could be a step forward toward breaking from the prevailing economic outlook. An attempt has been made to advance with other sectors - workers, peasants, and so on, but not with women as a whole, who lack security economic activities and their own special problems.
In this way, not only is the creativity and fortitude of this extensive sector being wasted, but in the long run we are running the risk that this potential power will take on a negative form for the revolution.
Waiting at a health clinic in Managua (DR) organizations have made it possible to overcome, to some extent, the competition and marked individualism typical of women workers in the informal sector in other countries such as Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, for example, where these activities have helped to fragment the working class and its organiNicaraguan informal sector will not only benefit the revolutionary process hut offer another perspective for the work of academics, leaders and women
(higher in petty commerce enjoy incomes, access - in principle - to social benefits, a level of organiza-
INTERNATICNAL tion) concrete problems persist, such lack of childcare facilities, as difficulties in obtaining medical ser-
MARXIST REVIEW vices (since they cannot wait in the of hus-
Health Centers), alcoholism bands and sons in law, physical abuse
THE SPRING 1987 issue of the English language theoretical jourto offer another and the inability alternative when children do not want to study and spend the day in the
• Women and work in Western Europe — Jacqueline Heinen
• The ideological crisis of the Italian workers' movement -
As one of the peddlars pointed
"being in the market is not the discussion between Democrazia Proletaria and the LCR out, same thing as being of the market."
Document of the Fourth International
This phrase sums up the problems of the peddlars and points to the need government - Steve Bloom to offer overall solutions. The answers involve not only the women and their
Available from PEC, 2 rue Richard Lenoir, 93108 Montreuil, France (please mark have a greater social families, but
"IMR"). Individual copies £2.50/$5. Subscriptions for 3 issues: Surface mail all countries £8.50/$14/90FF; Airmail Europe £8.50/100FF;
impact.
Airmail outside Europe $18. Cheques to "PEC". Bank transfers to PEC, BNP Ro-
A joint effort among the peddlars, the Ministry of Internal Trade, the
Women's
Association
Nicaraguan
International Viewpoint 23 March 1987
Despite the economic crisis, these
Fourth International, nal of the
It contains the available.
now
Livio Maitan
• Italy:
PLO
Crisis in the
Yemen - conflict in
Bloody
Anti-apartheid struggles and and farmers'
• Workers' throughout the continent.
Marxist Review, is
International following articles:
Salah Jaber struggles - Claude Gabriel
25