From Warriors to Wives: Contradictions of Liberation and Development in Eritrea

Abstract

During nearly three decades of struggle, the Eritrean People’s LiberationFront (EPLF) appeared to represent a model of a new kind of national-ism that was built from the bottom up by women and men together.EPLF was exemplary in terms of breaking down gender barriers in anumber of key respects. For one thing, while women in many othersocial movements participated as supporters, auxiliaries, or irregulars,in EPLF, women were integrated into the ranks as bona fide fighters intheir own right. Thus, Eritrean women, perhaps as none others beforethem, participated extensively and intensively in the armed strugglealongside Eritrean men. EPLF fighters appeared to transcend gender, asmen and women performed the same tasks and lived communally ascomrades in mixed units. EPLF, moreover, was far more than simply amilitary organization; it was an incipient state, organized into variousdepartments that carried out numerous functions aside from that ofwaging war.