Anne Miner and Dr. Valerie Hudson, Political Science
My analysis of women’s nonviolent resistance focused on two historical case studies. The first was the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo who opposed the military regime of 1977 in Argentina. Their nonviolent resistance began in opposition to the disappearance of family members, particularly their children. These desaparecidos were among approximately 30,000 Argentinians kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in a governmental effort to induce fear and maintain power. The second case was women’s involvement in the nonviolent Philippine Revolution of 1986 opposing the dictatorial rule of President Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos had imposed martial law since 1972. Nonviolent resistance began in response to the brutal assassination of opposition leader, Ninoy Aquino, in 1983. The resistance movement was led by Ninoy’s wife, Corazon Aquino, who eventually became president. Women from all backgrounds, particularly nuns, played a significant role in organizing nonviolent protests, including mother’s rallies, sitins, and prayer rallies.
These case studies were fascinating because in both instances women acted without traditional forms of power such as weapons, money, or political clout, yet they were able to exert significant influence, aiding in the removal of powerful military regimes. Unfortunately, the scope of my initial research proposal was too broad, so I narrowed my research to focus on what specific factors or sources of power allowed these women to effectively use nonviolent resistance.
The women involved exerted power through their ability to reach out to the local and world community, attracting the attention of media, human rights groups, and international organizations. Political struggle was then moved from a small tyrannical system into the world arena. Interestingly, these women originally had very little interest in politics. They became involved in these political struggles because governmental violence toward family members directly affected them in their roles as caretakers.
Outside support grew from the grassroots response to the atrocities being committed. This was the preliminary power behind their success and involved four key factors: organization, mutual support, courage, and non-cooperation. Organization, including a headquarters and a spokesperson, was vital to their effectiveness and allowed them to maintain communication, solicit support, contact media, conduct training, develop strategy, and centralize activities.
Mutual support sustained these women through years of struggle, gave them courage, and unified them in striving toward a common goal. One Mother wrote, “I met the Mothers and really it was the best thing that could have happened to me. To meet this group of women who had the same pain, spoke the same language and who understood each other better than our own families” you found out that other mothers had lost two, three children and their children were just as excellent as your own “At first we cried a lot but then we realized we had to fight for them all.”1 Gathering to protest filled an emotional need for support while uniting them toward a common cause.
Both the amount of self-suffering necessary to maintain nonviolence and the potential cost of their resistance was so high that great courage was required. Interestingly, the governments= actions helped create a group of fearless women. What fear is greater for a woman than her husband being murdered or her child being brutally kidnapped? In being forced to confront their greatest fears, they gained courage to stand up, even risking their lives to demand truth and justice. In both cases key participants of the resistance movement were murdered by the government, yet these women had the courage to persevere in speaking out against oppression.
Non-cooperation “refusing to cooperate with an oppressor’s demands” is an important tool of nonviolent resistance which withdraws power from the oppressor. Gidden explains, “power relations are always two-way; that is to say, however subordinate an actor may be in a social relationship, the very fact of involvement in that relationship gives him or her a certain amount of power over it.”2 In both cases, the governments sought to control through fear. By refusing to be controlled or silenced by threat and coercion, these women gained power. Their decision to stand up and speak out, regardless of violent threats, was an essential first step in successfully aiding the removal of these military regimes from power.
The power underlying nonviolent resistance comes not only from one’s refusal to cooperate, but also from a persuasive ability to influence public opinion in the process. Emotional appeal and truth were key factors that helped attract public support. Women and children have natural emotional appeal, especially when mourning their dead. One may hear about political killings, but the abstract language takes on added meaning when confronted by grieving mothers or widows. As nurturers, these women possessed a heightened sensitivity to human suffering and injustice. Their expression of raw emotion “shock, anger, grief, and rage” moved the world to act.
Hebe de Bonafini declared Awe think that to be able to tell the truth, as difficult as it might be, to be able to face the powerful without violence, to face them as we do, gives us strength, a different kind of power, not their kind”.3 The power of truth embodies both word and action. By speaking out against atrocities at great personal risk while refusing to retaliate with similar violent acts, they allowed truth to stand on its own while starkly exposing the government’s brutality.
The power of these women=s nonviolent resistance was subtle, yet far-reaching. Though difficult to measure, it was sufficient to oppose the inhumane actions of unscrupulous military dictatorships. Organization, mutual support, courage, and non-cooperation were key factors in the founding of their movement, while subsequent success came from their ability to use truth and emotional appeal to gain support from a larger audience. The attention of media, human rights groups, and international organizations brought public awareness, intervention, and the ultimate removal of oppressive government regimes from power.
References
- Jo Fisher, Mothers of the Disappeared (Boston: South End Press, 1989), 30.
- Marguerite G. Bouvard, Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 1994), 253.
- Rosemary Ridd and Helen Callaway, eds., Women and Political Conflict: Portraits of Struggle in Times of Crisis (New York: New York University Press, 1987), 19.