Amazons of the Huk Rebellion

Gender, Sex, and Revolution in the Philippines

Vina A. Lanzona

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780299230944
• eBook ISBN: 9780299230937
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Labeled "Amazons" by the national press, women played a central role in the Huk rebellion, one of the most significant peasant-based revolutions in modern Philippine history. As spies, organizers, nurses, couriers, soldiers, and even military commanders, women worked closely with men to resist first Japanese occupation and later, after WWII, to challenge the new Philippine republic. But in the midst of the uncertainty and violence of rebellion, these women also pursued personal lives, falling in love, becoming pregnant, and raising families, often with their male comrades-in-arms.
    Drawing on interviews with over one hundred veterans of the movement, Vina A. Lanzona explores the Huk rebellion from the intimate and collective experiences of its female participants, demonstrating how their presence, and the complex questions of gender, family, and sexuality they provoked, ultimately shaped the nature of the revolutionary struggle.

 

Winner, Kenneth W. Baldridge Prize for the best history book written by a resident of Hawaii, sponsored by Brigham Young University–Hawaii

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: Capturing the Huk Amazons
• 1 Women at War: Huk Women andthe Japanese Occupation
• 2 Comrades in Arms: Huk Women, Nationalism, and Communist Revolution
• 3 Women on Top: Amazons and Leadersin the Huk Movement
• 4 Love and Sex in the Time of Revolution:Men-Women Relations in the Huk Movement
• 5 Amazons in the Unfinished Revolution
• Appendix 1. Politburo Exhibit I-38:“Marriage Contract”
• Appendix 2. Politburo Exhibit I-15:“The Revolutionary Solution of the Sex Problem”
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index