Gendering the Guatemalan Revolution: Ladinas and the Second Revolution, 1944–54

Gender analysis of the much studied Guatemalan Revolution shifts our gaze from the traditional sites of contested power such as the rural male voter and the anti-revolutionary movement. From its inception, Guatemalan gender norms were not fundamentally shifted either by the revolution itself or by those who increased the civic participation of women. The public perception of what constituted political action remained unchanged and male privilege remained intact particularly within the sacrosanct political realm. Revolutionary politicians were unable and largely unwilling to address reforms initiated by women, failing both to project their social ideals onto the general populace and incorporating their untapped energy into the national project. This lack of civic participation, in turn, solidified notions of Guatemalan women defenders of the home, the traditional gender order and the Church, characteristics which created initial distrust for suffrage. Despite the emergence of such highly politicized feminist organizations as the Alianza femenina guatemalteca during the 1950s, they were unable to shift the perception of the political space as a highly masculinized space.

The political exclusion of a vast majority of women and its subsequent socio-political structure provided a unique opportunity for the anti-revolutionary movement. Ironically, the incorporation of conservative women into the body politic drew urban ladinas into the public sphere in order to retain traditional gender roles. Analysis of voting practices reveals that the female vote became a critical element in the ultimately successful anti-revolution campaign against both the Arévalo and Arbenz governments. The paradox of the Guatemalan revolutionary period is that a majority of women who registered and voted were neither the pro-revolutionary middle-class nor the poor working-class for whom many of its social reforms were designed but rather the conservative urban supporters of the Catholic Church.