Susy Sanchez
This paper brings together the political involvement and representation of womanhood in Nicaragua at the beginning of the long-standing Somoza’s military dynasty (1937-1979). It analyzes two key events: the 1936 Somocista coup d’état and the repression of the first female “mourning parade” of 1944. In 1936, a small number of women propagandized Anastasio Somoza García, as the Savior of the Nation and the New Leader of Nicaragua. The Somocista narrative identified women playing politics at public level as “virile” actors. The masculinization of women responds to the fascist political background of Somocismo. In that year, Somocista’s leaders across Nicaragua openly proclaimed their political identification with fascist ideology. However, from 1939 to 1941, due to World War II, the dictator Anastasio Somoza García pledged allegiance to the United States. As American diplomats recognized the Somocista political leaders mutated and experienced a “political conversion” from fascism to democracy. Nevertheless, the Somocista institutionalized practice of making spectacles of violence unveiled its fascist roots. In 1944, a woman considered a “patriotic prostitute,” named Nicolasa Sevilla played a greater role in repressing a march led by Conservative women denouncing the incarceration of their husbands and sons. At this point, my paper following the pioneering approach of Victoria Gonzales, presents the gendered political participation of Sevilla and Conservative women at the political arena. Sevilla embodied and propagandized Somocista’s machinery of terror while Conservative women represented Nicaragua as an imprisoned motherland. By identifying and demonstrating the fascist background of Somoza García, my work contributes in rethinking Somoza dictatorship, its institutionalized violence as public spectacle and the role of women in shaping politics in Nicaragua.