Before the Revolution: Women's Rights and Right Wing Politics in Nicaragua, 1936-1979

FAIN: FT-51038-03

Victoria Gonzalez-Rivera
Unaffiliated Independent Scholar (Imperial Beach, CA 91932)

The twentieth century witnessed four major women's movements in Nicaragua: first wave feminism, a Somocista women's movement, a Sandinista women's movement, and second wave feminism. I am requesting an NEH grant in order to complete a book manuscript that deals with the first two, the least studied and least understood of these movements. While most scholars argue that women in Nicaragua first organized politically as Sandinistas, and that their feminist awakening occurred quite recently, I contend that Nicaraguan feminism has roots in the nineteenth century and that Nicaraguan women's widespread support for the Somoza family (1936-1979) helped keep the dictatorship in place.