CHAPTER 12 WOMEN AND GENDER IN MESOAMERICA 455Women’s Participation in the Mexican Revolution
Women’s participation in the Mexican Revolution was extensive (Figure 12.5). They
were incorporated into both the popular and the constitutionalist armies. Because
of the promise of lands, peasant women overwhelmingly supported the revolution.
They streamed onto battlefields in large numbers, not only following their husbands
in order to care for their needs but also acting as nurses, spies, arms providers, and
even as combatants. Some women dressed like men in order to get to the front lines.
One woman commanded a battalion composed exclusively of sisters, daughters, and
widows of dead soldiers. In a few cases, women led male soldiers in combat on spe-
cific missions. Women were startled, however, to learn that the Mexican Constitu-
tion of 1917 denied them the right to vote. Congressmen argued that, although there
were exceptions, most women had not yet developed a political awareness because
of having been restricted to the domestic sphere. There was no point, they argued,
for women to participate in public life.
Figure 12.5 Mexican women carried out a variety of tasks during the Mexican Revolution,
including fighting, nursing the wounded, spying, and providing food and arms to the
combatants. Reprinted with permission from Esperanza Tuñón Pablos, Tambien Somos
Protagonistas de la Historia de México, Parte PrimeraMexico City, Mexico: Equipo de Mujeres
en Acción Solidaria (EMAS), 1987, p. 8.