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→Women in the Shining Path
In 1982, Edith Lagos, a member of the Shining Path, or Senderista, died at the hands of the police. Earlier that year she had helped mastermind the Ayacucho prison break, and was, according to Robin Kirk, “the most famous Shining Path member after Guzman.”<ref> Kirk, <I>The Monkey’s Paw</I>, 80-81.</ref> Lagos was misti, or a Peruvian with non-indigenous features, well-educated and the daughter of wealthy parents. Her life an example of the emergence of politicized Peruvian women into the public sphere, and her death an illustration of the power of the image of fierce, dedicated Senderistas. Lagos’ funeral in Huamanga drew ten thousands mourners, who appeared in an amateur video of the event as a “solid carpet of people”.<ref>Kirk, <I>The Monkey’s Paw</I>, 83.</ref> Since her death, Lagos’ grave has been destroyed three times, attesting to the military’s recognition of the power of her martyrdom to inspire Shining Path members and sympathizers. The Shining Path continued to use her as an icon seventeen years after her death, extolling her dedication and martyrdom in a presentation given in San Francisco by a member of the Committee to Support Revolution in Peru at a gathering on International Women’s Day called “Women Hold up Half the Sky, The Role of Women in the Revolution in Peru.”<ref>CSRP, “Women Hold up Half the Sky, The Role of Women in the Revolution in Peru,” 1-2.</ref>
The Shining Path appealed to women within Andean communities, building its membership and ideological legitimacy. They did this by holding trials of wife-beaters, adulterers, and rapists.<ref>Kirk, <I>The Monkey’s Paw</I>, 80.</ref> Later publications of Shining Path propaganda recount their role proudly, “Peru’s traditional Andean peasant culture is quite a lot more rigid than prevailing in the urban areas. Peasant women who would stray from their husbands are severely punished but sexual harassment and adultery on the part of men is rather prevalent. On the other hand, where the Party established its influence, divorce is introduced and sexual harassment is not tolerated.”<ref>CSRP, “The Other Half of the Sky,” 5-6.</ref> Previously “invisible,” in the words of Isabel Coral Cordero, and trapped within a system that recognized only their domestic contributions, the Shining Path gave Peruvian women education, social justice, and opportunities to act alongside men in the People’s War.
Yet at the same time, gender issues were not part of the Shining Path’s platform, only their rhetoric. Guzman, like the primary influences in his life, Marx, Lenin, Mao and Mariategui, found gender insignificant in comparison to class struggle, but recognized the necessity of women’s involvement in the Revolution. “Only the direct and massive participation of revolutionary women, principally working women,” Guzman is quoted as saying “…in the (the revolution) remains the sole guarantee of genuine defense and promotion of women’s rights within a real and concrete path of liberation.”<ref> CSRP, “The Other Half of the Sky” 6.</ref> The Shining Path recognized the need for women in the movement, yet it cannot be said that they offered Peruvian women emancipation or political agency, only that they sought their support through policies and rhetoric that validated their significance within Peruvian society and the revolution.
