A Revolution in the Binary? Gender and the Oxymoron of Revolutionary War in Cuba and Nicaragua

Abstract

This study addresses a gap in the literature on gender and war by focusing on revolutions in smaller states. I examine how individuals, revolutionary societies, and other states were engaged, marginalized, and defied through certain gendered logics, broadening our understanding of wars and security events beyond those of the global military powers. The cases of Cuba and Nicaragua do not exhibit the masculine logic of superpowers: these smaller nations could not claim masculinity on the basis of traditional military strength, and they purported to challenge hierarchies in their quest for revolutionary social transformation. Yet I argue that the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions did rely on certain gendered logics that organized the way war and security events were interpreted, creating an alternative privileged masculinity that in some instances drew on race hierarchies. Revolution relied on and reproduced gendered oppositions, and thus gender in these revolutionary contexts continued to mark hierarchy. Although these revolutions were officially committed to the liberation of women, the devaluation and rejection of the feminine suggests how gendered inequality was maintained.

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