Gloria Ardaya S.¹

 It is commonplace nowadays to say that Bolivia is experiencing the worst crisis of its history; wherever one looks the signs of a severe crisis are evident. In spite of this, social and political scientists and commentators have been bogged down in analyzing and diagnosing the situation, and have been unable to turn their analyses into concrete proposals and solutions.

The political and economic crises facing Bolivia are interrelated; they are not isolated or independent phenomena. Thus, the economic crisis, which is the worst in Bolivia's history, causes a political crisis which, in turn, creates more economic problems. A series of connected factors from outside the country exacerbates the structural crisis which has older origins in the deterioration of the state-owned mining system and the rural minifundista² economy. The decrease in growth of mineral production, fundamentally tin, is due not only to the closing of the world mineral market, but also to internal factors that are not relevant here.³

In Bolivia, the level of participation by low-income women in the economy is high. This already high level of participation has increased in recent times, as poor Bolivian women increase their economic and social activities in search of solutions to ensure their families' survival. These women carry out the important domestic work and, in addition, do "productive" work in both public and private spheres. Their work has become the backbone of family survival strategies.

Because of women's subordinate position in the patriarchal state and society, the current crisis affects women in different ways than men. They must endure the rigid sexual division of work in the home at the same time as they compensate for the fall in salaries and loss of social services, which are the effects of the new government's implementation of a neo-liberal economic policy. Further, the activity of the Bolivian woman occurs in diverse economic, social, cultural and regional settings. For this reason, it is versatile and creative, as compared to other Latin American countries.

Although there is no doubt that the crisis strongly affects all poor women, this article will emphasize the situation of the women of the mines, who, in addition to sharing the impact of the crisis with women from other sectors, must in addition undergo a change in an identity forged through many years of resistance and struggle.

the housewives' committees

Between 1956 and 1968 the working class drew away from the National Revolutionary Movement (MNR)⁴. "Imperialism has imposed its plans on the government", said the platform of the Federacion Sindical de Trabajadores Mineros de Bolivia" (FSTMB) [Labor Federation of Bolivian Mineworkers] on July 13,1958 in Colquiri. During the period from 1952 on, Bolivian unionism "developed advanced political programs to compensate for the poverty of the existing political organizations⁵". The greatest experience of this advanced working class movement was the Popular Assembly of 1971.

Bolivian mineworkers have almost never conceived of their unions as mere unions. For example, the FSTMB, which was the most prestigious union organization in the country, has had a decisive presence in all of the most important events in the country during the past few years. Its political radicalization, its tight cohesion, and its notable influence in the process of popular movements, places mine unionism in a singular category. Its influence goes beyond the unions and marks it as one of the most energetic actors in the organization and mobilization of the Bolivian lower classes. In this sense, the "FSTMB was always more important and powerful than the political parties to which its members belonged."⁶

After their decisive role in the popular insurrection of 1952, Bolivian miners acquired still greater influence within the context of the class struggle. Their two most important achievements, in addition to the nationalization of the mines, were the formation of armed militias made up of workers from the city, the mines and the countryside, and the "veto right" of the worker.

The "veto right" in the nationalized mines, which was agreed upon on December 15, 1952, was one of the great victories of the working class in Bolivia; it was a victory which permitted mineworkers to participate in the administration of the nationalized mines. This power of co-direction rested on three essential rights: the right to supervise the administration and financial matters of the mines; the right to veto all agreements believed to be contrary to the interests of the workers; and the right to elect representatives to local and central boards of directors of the Mining Corporation of Bolivia (COMIBOL), the state mining company.

During this period the unions of Catavi and Siglo XX (in Potosi) were the most organized and politicized of miners' unions. Beginning with the Stabilization Plan⁷ which represented the reentrance of imperialism into the management of Bolivian affairs, the miners' unions opposed the MNR and, contrary to other unions in the country, issued separate statements and acted independently of the government.⁸

These confrontations between the mine unions and the government resulted in the first acts of political and economic repression against the mineworkers. It was within this context that the first organization of miners' wives arose, called the Housewives' Committee. It began in 1961, when a group of 60 women organized to obtain the release of their husbands—union members who had been imprisoned for demanding better working conditions. After undergoing a 10-day hunger strike, their demands were met. After the strike they decided to organize themselves into a group called the "Housewives' Committee of Siglo XX".⁹

According to Viezzer, "from that moment the Committee was an equal of the unions and other working class organizations; it fought for the same causes, and was ready to raise its voice and carry out actions on behalf of the working class".¹⁰

Initially, the Housewives' Committee of Siglo XX was made up of approximately 60 wives of mineworkers. Their first leader was Norberta de Aguilar. Later similar groups were begun in other mining centers, due to the demands of the political struggle.

From their beginning in 1961, the Housewives' Committees constituted a combative grouping in support of the struggles of the mineworkers. Nevertheless, their activity was more visible in moments of social or political crisis and was accompanied by the participation of other social groups and classes. In times of crisis, however, gender-specific demands were eclipsed by the central mining issues.

Women's participation in the public sphere as members of the Housewives' Committees began as an extension of their traditional roles as spouses, mothers and housewives, roles which were approved by society. They were working for the common good, not seeking power or challenging the union. Because their organization and politicization came about through the traditional mode of doing men's politics and through their fulfillment of traditional roles, the women's struggle was not aimed at transforming private relationships. In this context, the demands of the Committees followed three general lines¹¹:

• Demands directly related to the mine protests, including demands for political liberties, increased salaries, freedom for prisoners, etc. These demands were primarily directed at the State and, in making these demands, the women of the Committees assumed the role of "miners' wives".
• Demands for improved social infrastructure such as food programs, housing, education, health services, transportation, etc. These demands were directed at the state mining corporation, COMIBOL. In making these demands, the women too were acting in the role of housewife.
• Demands related to their problems as women, particularly their search for work and solidarity with the widows of miners. These demands were made of the State, and also of the union leadership, and reflected a growing desire to achieve greater autonomy from the union and from the FSTMB.

As can be seen, the principal enemy of these women was the State, particularly the government, and its internal and external allies. Women spoke and acted in the name of the union, and defined the adversary as those outside of it. Thus, the autonomy of the Committees was minimal. Women's activities were not designed to change private relationships nor the sexual hierarchy which governed their everyday lives in the home, but rather to bring down the capitalist system and to construct socialism.

This way of doing politics had its contradictions. While the majority of Committee members were housewives who came from positions of total subordination, they willingly did "male" politics in order to achieve a more just and egalitarian society.

Further, the crisis which is occurring in Bolivian society has introduced new elements into women's situation. Government policies and the crisis in the mining sector have drastically affected the employment situation in nationalized mines. More than 20,000 miners have been "relocated", or discharged, drastically affecting the leadership of the Bolivian mining union movement. Because the miners needed more allies in their struggle against the government, women from the committees formed a "National Federation of Housewives' Committees" as an affiliate of the FSTMB. Their incorporation, however, did not mean that women were fighting for their own specific demands, but rather that they were offering resistance to government efforts to break the mining sector by expelling discharged workers from the mining camps. In spite of the tenacious resistance of the mining sector, however, these new economic policies have weakened the mining movement. Within this context of unemployment, the women, "in addition to sharing the hardships the men experience, and as a consequence of the deterioration in their living conditions, also suffer in their role as housewife. The housewives are the ones who must find ways of compensating for the changes in the labor market and the lack of social services. They must seek a permanent solution to these new problems"¹². In circumstances of forced migration from the mine to the city, women are the ones who adapt more easily to the new labor situation and find new salaried work even though they were not previously connected to the "world of work". They are incorporated more easily into the informal economic sector which offers them jobs as street vendors and domestic workers. For their husbands the change is turbulent and difficult. The trauma of the change from "vanguard of the proletariat" to anonymous city worker has not nor will be soon overcome.

Thus, the crisis weighs more heavily on the miner's wife, because it means not only that she has to join the work world, but that she must also deal with the family crisis provoked by changes in lifestyle and work. These changes often bring about more cases of desertion by the men and increasing domestic violence and alcoholism.

In spite of the adversity of their new situation, the mining women in the cities have been able to reproduce their organizations, which constitute for them both a form of resistance and a way to preserve their past identity. From within these committees, the "Committees of Relocated Miners' Wives", the women make demands of the State relating to their employment, housing, etc. Other important links of solidarity and support among women in the city have been formed as well. The women have joined together in neighborhoods to form cooperative soup kitchens, for example, which help them to preserve their identity as miners' wives and the collective memory of decades of heroic struggles.

some conclusions

A brief review of the data reaffirms that the social crisis in Bolivia affects women from the mining regions in distinct and varied ways. Women not only suffer from the rigid sexual division of labor in the labor market and the home, but also begin to lose the identity they gained through long years of organized struggle—a struggle which was in the past against the government, and which more recently is occurring within the unions.

The crisis has caused them to form a national organization which supported the miners' struggle, but, as a result of that experience, the women were forced to confront the patriarchal power of the men who ran the unions and to recognize and verbalize the discrimination to which they have been subject.

The other face of the crisis is manifested in the incorporation of "relocated" women into a labor market where job opportunities are scarce. Thus, the majority of women become street vendors or domestic workers, which enables them to earn an income while carrying out household work. In spite of high rates of unemployment, women have been able to generate their own work and become integrated into the informal economic sector quite easily. Many of them have become heads of household because they have been abandoned by their spouses, and thus must rely solely on the income they themselves can generate.

Because migration to the city causes great trauma to their spouses, women not only support the family economically but emotionally. They do this by transferring the forms of organizing they used in the mining villages to the cities.

Finally, women's assumption of new roles in the crisis, both within the "Housewives' Committees" and within the family, has given greater legitimacy to their demands and will enable them in the future to create a new social identity as women.