Reviews
The Myth of the Male Breadwinner: Women and Industrialization in the Caribbean by Helen I. Safa, Westview Press, 1995, 208 pp., $55.00 (cloth), $18.95 (paper). Helen Safa has given us a...
...Although more and better weapons could not offset the tactical and organizational superiority of the FMLN, the modernization of the armed forces, Lungo now recognizes, created a new mentality among the officer corps making possible both negotiation with the enemy, and ultimately the acceptance of a more traditional social role for the army...
...In his book, he opted for the former answer to the question, although events soon after its publication supported the latter...
...After the electoral victory of ARENA, but before the historic peace process that ultimately resulted in a negotiated settlement to the Salvadoran conflict in 1992, Mario Lungo Ucl6s asked himself whether the events of 1989 marked a new phase in the struggle, or ushered in a whole new era...
...Not merely the party of the traditional agrarian oligarchy, ARENA came to represent a more urban industrial and cosmopolitan elite...
...He explains how the failures offoquismo combined with obvious territorial constraints led to the development of a peculiarly Salvadoran form of political-military organization coupled with a unique relationship between the guerrilla and the civilian population via the construction of an effective noncombatant rear guard...
...The postaccord epilogue written for this edition contains an interesting discussion of the FMLN's first halting steps towards reincarnation as a conventional political party...
...But it always remained one step behind the popular forces, unable to adapt to new circumstances while failing to overcome the low morale resulting from attrition...
...In any case, Lungo has produced a definitive and sophisticated analysis of the revolutionary war and of the evolution of its protagonists...
...Specifically, it examines the changes in women's roles brought about by the advent of export manufacturing in the 1970s...
...Such a class would not be inclined to fight an unwinnable war, nor would it tolerate an economically rapacious military...
...The book is a readable critique of the export-oriented development model now in place in the Caribbean, as well as a cogent analysis of the role that male domination plays in capitalist development...
...Believing originally in the thesis that revolutionary struggle must culminate in either victory or defeat for the popular forces, the peace accords, signed with neither the victory nor strategic defeat of the FMLN-FDR, have forced Lungo to conclude (in a newly written epilogue) that his central thesis was false, but that the basic elements of his analysis were indeed correct...
...Similarly Lungo analyzes the impact of U.S...
...Two strong chapters detail the evolution of the FMLN's political praxis and the closing years of the decade, the latter emphasizing the final offensive of 1989...
...The book contributes to understanding the concept of patriarchy by examing three diverse sites of male domination: family, workplace and state...
...patrons became increasingly professionalized and more sophisticated in its strategy of counterinsurgency...
...He provides a detailed account of the changes in military organization and strategy on the part of both the popular and government forces...
...His own analysis of the recomposition of the ruling class, evinced in the evolution of ARENA, might have suggested that a more modern, diverse and economically rational bourgeoisie would have sought an end to war as a step towards greater economic stability...
...A comparison with the Cuban experience highlights the role of ideology in creating opportunities for women in the public sphere...
...The army meanwhile, through the training and largesse of its U.S...
...Stressing the historical separation between the female-dominated private and the male-dominated public spheres (casa versus calle) in Hispanic Caribbean culture, and demonstrating the continued prevalence of gender-based job segregation at the workplace, Safa shows how "the impact of women's work may be stronger in the home than at the workplace or in the polity...
...But the myth has not spelled trouble at all levels of social interaction...
...Combined with the disappearance of male-oriented jobs in agriculture and domestic manufacturing, the export-manufacturing model has spelled trouble for "the myth of the male breadwinner...
...The book also discusses the economic plan put forward by the new ARENA government...
...Helen Safa has given us a concise historical account of industrialization in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean over the last two decades combined with an analysis of how that industrialization has affected-and been affected by-systems of patriarchy in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba...
...Safa shows how the Puerto Rican and Dominican models of exportmanufacturing development have relied upon "labor-intensive industries such as garment manufacturing because [those industries] require relatively low levels of capital and technology, but an abundance of cheap labor, provided chiefly by women...
...aid on the Salvadoran economy and of remittances from relatives abroad on the living standard of the population...
...El Salvador in the Eighties: Counterinsurgency and Revolution by Mario Lungo Ucles, Temple University Press, 1996, 240 pp., $54.95 (cloth), $19.95 (paper...
...Lungo did not detect, however, nor by his own account did he anticipate, the consequences of the significant degree of economic recovery in the late 1980s...
Vol. 30 • November 1996 • No. 3
