Indian Women in the
Zapatista rebellion
International Viewpoint #266 May 1995 by Marcela Lagarde
One third of the EZLN ("Zapatistas')
are women. An impressive proportion considering that Mexican society and institutions overwhelmingly patriarchal and masculine, and that in indigenous communities, patriarchy is reinforced by other types of domination.
Indigenous women suffer several combined forms of oppression:
gender, ethnic, class, age, religion and political. The gender division of the indigenous world is very rigid, and women are subjected to different levels of domination by their fathers, mothers, brothers, sons, the village authorities, community leaders, sometimes and local
"mestizos" (the mixed race elite). In this society, the marital relationship is a family and community commitment.
Women are married by their fathers while they are still virtually children. They have no say in the choice of their
They husband.
are immediately taken from their homes and live in quasiservitude in their new family, under the domination of their husband and mother in law, for whom they work. They are excluded from the circles of community and national power and control. Men are the bosses — they give orders according to strict norms of behavior and inflict punishments including social exclusion, divorce and public disgrace. In the hills of
Chiapas state and in the forest, as in almost the whole country, marital and family violence against women is a serious, daily problem. The women of the different ethnic groups cannot participate in public life, let alone intervene in politics. The community leadership is for men.
Death and health
One of the moral arguments used by the indigenous [Indian] population to justify their military uprising is the daily presence of death due to unsatisfactory hygienic conditions. One EZLN press release states that "in the past year, more than 15,000 people died of easily curable diseases.
Death is already among us: why not struggle and die for our dignity if we must die anyway of cholera, of infections, of breathing disorders and malnutrition?"
And in childbirth, one should add.
The under-development of health affects the majority of the Mexican population. Mexico comes 53rd out of 173 countries assessed for their Human Development Index (HDI). Sweden comes fifth. If one adds a rating for the status of women to the HDI, Sweden moves up to first place, and Mexico drops to 82nd. For the indigenous population, health is the most basic, the first of human rights: the right to life. A feminist perspective
Captain Silvia told how, in the guerrilla, she learnt Castillian ["Spanish"], to read and write, how she married another captain, and that she uses birth control. (La Jornada, 18-1-94). In her Indian community, any of these life-choices
Mexico would place Silvia, and other Zapatista women like her, at the limit of unforgivable transgression. So the armed uprising, despite its traditional macho character, its militarism, its hierarchical functioning, and its
—totally
'undemocratic' — right to kill, has introduced between men and women some measures of equality that would not have existed otherwise.
Unlike other guerrilla struggles,
Zapatista indigenous women have made all their communities vote on a "women's law", which sets out their demands.
With unprecedented strength, the women of the communities have proposed and obtained that the
EZLN fight for the demands of women: including "the right to marry whom we want, the right to have the children that we want and that we can take care of, the right to be what we want to be, including drivers, and the right to have responsibilities in the community." (La Jornada, 1994).
Because of the exceptional circumstances of the war, each of these women represents two worlds and two faces of the same identity, as a traditional native woman and as a modern native guerrilla. They complete their home-made huipil (traditional bodice of Guatemala and
Chiapas) and multiple belts by army boots, a rifle, and the infamous Zapatista balaklava helmet that protects their personal identity. Their mentality is complex, it includes elements of traditional culture and world-view, and knowledge and ways of thinking that come from military discipline, from the use of weapons, and from politics.
The native women in arms want childbearing and maternity to be a choice, not a fate. They also want to have their pregnancies and give birth in good conditions. They don't want to die so often, nor to see die those they take care of. Traditionally, they are the midwives of the communities, and the healers of those curable yet deadly diseases — linked to poverty. They know that it is not sufficient to turn to curative medicine, nor even to
27