After Liberation

Hilary Matfess is an Assistant Professor at the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs, University of Denver.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Linking Women's Wartime Contributions to Former-Rebel Parties' Positions on Women's Rights and Representation2. Looking for Continuity and Moderation in Cross-National Perspective3. A Background to the TPLF4. The Ones Who Rebelled at Heart: Women in the TPLF5. Sweet but Not Sticky: Women and the TPLF's Rebel-to-Party Transition6. SWAPO Women: Everything According to PLAN7. Women's Ambition Meets "Ambivalent Moderation": The Experience of the FMLN8. Feminism and Fragmentation: The CPN-M's Transition from Party to Rebel and Back AgainConclusions and Next StepsAppendix A: Women's Activities in Armed Rebellion VariablesAppendix B: Former-Rebel Parties and Wartime CharacteristicsNotesReferencesIndex

"When they become ruling civilian parties, why do most winning women-inclusive armed insurgencies become so blatantly patriarchal? Hilary Matfess takes a deep dive into post-war gender dynamics of insurgencies-turned-political parties in Ethiopia, Namibia, El Salvador, and Nepal. With her close scrutiny of party organizations, intriguing first-person interviews, and cross-national comparisons, Matfess makes a genuine contribution to unknotting this crucial puzzle."—Cynthia Enloe, Clark University"Leftist rebel groups may be willing to incorporate women into their fighting ranks, but do not count of them to free women. Through an in-depth analysis of the Ethiopian civil war, Hilary Matfess unveils a disturbing truth: after liberation, as the rebel victors sought to transform their group into a broad-based electoral coalition, they sacrificed women's rights on the political altar."—Dawn Langan Teele, Johns Hopkins University"Guerillas driven by revolutionary ideals may win their wars, but they have a mixed record of liberating their societies from patriarchy. Hilary Matfess explores the neglected question of what happens to female combatants when liberation movements transition to political parties in power. This is an extraordinarily thorough study that is destined to become the go-to reference on this topic." —Alex de Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation