Feminismo Balaguerista: A Strategy of the Right
NACLA
The topic of feminism in Latin America is a timely and crucial one. While feminism, as both an imported and indigenous phenomenon, touches the lives of only a small minority of women in these...
...We shall attempt to show an historical continuity between these two groups, as expressed in their willful collaboration with the Trujillo and Balaguer regimes, respectively...
...Current support for the candidacy of a woman, Altagracia Bautista de Suarez, for the Vice Presidency of the Republic is the most recent example of upper class feminism in the service of bourgeois politics...
...However, feminist movements cannot be granted political or ideological immunity...
...Maternalism" has become a key element of demagogic politics...
...Given this monoply of power, the dictator represented the only immediate possibility for women to win their civil and political rights...
...It is this very system which prevents the possibility of liberation for the masses of Dominican men and women...
...Feminist Action centered its attention on the moral issue of the times: breakdown of the family, prostitution, child abandonment, alcoholism, drugs, etc...
...An entire book could be compiled of such quotations, while references to the need for creating more jobs and industrial schools to train male and female workers are almost non-existent...
...February 21, 1974, p. 3. 11...
...damentally altered, but simply widened to include the public sphere.12 In line with this view, current feminist activity has centered on two aspects-education and legal reform-as a panacea to discrimination and the oppression of women...
...This conspicuous presence of women in the workings of government has been interpreted, both at home and abroad, as a sign of political progress for women under the Balaguer regime...
...Un estudio casuistico de dictadura hispanoamericana, 4th ed...
...For what characterizes the traditional feminism of both historical periods is its compatibility with the existing social, political and economic system-and its interest in protecting the capitalist system...
...their demands were timid, incomplete and badly formulated, but they were real demands, nevertheless...
...Since that year, women have served as Secretary of State, Under Secretary of State, ambassadors, ministerial advisors, senators, deputies and members of the National Development Council...
...9. Lara Fernandez, op.cit., 31...
...In spite of increases between 1935 and 1938, in the age group 15-19, it is difficult to justify the official figure of 344,909 women of legal voting age for the 1938 elections...
...At the same time, a series of laws were passed to reinforce the maternal role of Dominican women, and thereby soften the potential consequences of a strong feminist movement...
...yet, the class composition of the Dominican feminist movement-petit bourgeois and upper class women--created the logical basis for embracing Balaguer's policies and collaborating with his government...
...female relations, has never existed in the Dominican Republic...
...23, 1971...
...continued from p. 27) It's important to emphasize that the spirit of unity which develops among the masses reaches the political prisoners as well...
...1 9 In some cases, personal favors take on an "entrepreneurial" dimension: vending booths are apportioned in the market place, Mothers' Centers are established in which women's handicraft work is later sold at ridiculously low prices to "tourist" shops, etc...
...Feminism in the Dominican Republic has been the exclusive domain of upper class and petit bourgeois women, with the resources, education and leisure to fight for and benefit from liberal reforms...
...The feminist movement of the 1930's and '40's did achieve its basic objectives...
...Licelott Marte de Barrios, "La mujer deberia participar mas en el desarrollo de la comunidad,"El Caribe, December 2, 1972, p. 7-A...
...Thirdly, efforts to integrate lower class women into a more farreaching feminist struggle have met with limited success...
...The rigid structure of Dominican society made liberal reforms of any sort thoroughly irrelevant for the overwhelming majority of Dominican women...
...as well as their remedies, areoutlined in: Carmenchu Brusiloff, "Muler RD se entrenta discrimen legal," El Caribe, July 5, 1973, pp...
...Ibid...
...The Balaguerista feminists, like their predecessors of the Trujillo era, can never achieve fundamental improvements for the masses of Dominican women, much less "liberate" them from oppression...
...Arte y Cine, 1946), 11...
...Trujillista Feminists In 1931, a group of women formed an organization called "Dominican Feminist Action," which was to shape the course of feminism in the Dominican Republic for many years to come...
...Given these specifications, members were generally "ladies" of a certain social standing and educational level, members of the so-called "aristocracy" of the period...
...For more of the same, in a gentler tone, see: Licelott Marte de Barrios, "El por que de una muler en la vicepresidencia de la Republica," Listin Diario, February 18, 1974, p. 3. 12...
...2 Nevertheless, Feminist Action did play a part in the political arena...
...Data is from the 1970 Census...
...This paternalistic and reactionary method of working among the masses has produced magnificent results for the Reformist Party, primarily in its campaign among women of the lower strata...
...This is not to deny the use Trujillo made of the movement-which would be tantamount to affirming that Feminist Action escaped the organizational norms universally imposed by the dictatorship...
...2 1 (Emphasis added...
...See: United Nations, Demographic Yearbook, (1948), p. 111...
...4 Trujillo, of course, was to encourage this unthreatening concept: "I sympathize with this movement toward social justice for women...
...Feminist Action, as a movement unto itself, gradually disappeared from the political scene in the Dominican Republic...
...1 and 12, and also: "Recaba incorporar muier a labor desarrollo del pais," Ibid., August 3, 1973, p. 6. 18...
...Nevertheless, the political behavior and activities of women's groups since 1966 do have common characteristics...
...2 0 Thus, the Balaguerista feminists appear before the masses as fairy god-mothers, who feed and clothe the poor...
...Leonor Tejiada (pseudonym), "La muier y el continuismo," Ultima Hora, October 24, 1973, p. 11...
...p. 13...
...In the electoral campaign of 1966, Balaguer was presented as the candidate of the "bloodless revolution," while his opponent, ex-president Juan Bosch, was linked to the sector which had "initiated" the bloody civil war of 1965...
...cit., 22...
...Statements by the director of a technical school for women in: Manuel A. Quiroz, "Afirma mulerdominicana avanza a conquistar metas," El Caribe, April 7, 1973, p. 3-B...
...Given the historical precedent of Trujillista feminism, however, such affirmations must be met with extreme skepticism...
...For a description of this see: Olga Baez Berg, "Una candidatura aglutinante," El Nacional de Ahoral...
...AMBG: We will fight without rest for our freedom and for the return of those in exile...
...Howard Wiarda, Dictatorship and Development: The Methods of Control in Trujillo's Dominican Republic, Latin American Monographs, Second Series, No...
...5 (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1968...
...A potentially volatile social situation was emerging in the cities, and the politically shrewd dictator recognized the need to increase his control over vast sectors of the population...
...As Lara Fernandez, one of the founders of Feminist Action, has written, "women must be prepared to sustain the moral and material equilibrium of the home...
...Concessions to feminist demands in this period represented a convenient mechanism...
...Several of these "specific deficiencies...
...5 The significance of feminism in this period must be understood within the specific context of Trujillismo...
...Thus, in 1973, a special Commission, composed of six women, was given responsibility for revising legislation to ensure "complete legal equality, both civil and political, for women.16 Thus, the problems of Dominican women are viewed as "specific deficiencies,"l17 whose remedies are entirely compatible with the political and social system in existence...
...26.4 per cent completed 1-3 years of primary education...
...This has usually taken the form of mobilizing feminine support from all social classes in periods of electoral activity...
...This delay can only be understood in terms of the improved bargaining position of women, its relation to the changing needs of the Trujillo regime and the increased mobilization of women...
...Other "authors-all male-who have studied the dictatorship completely ignore or barely mention these women...
...Among others, see: Juan Bosch, The Unfinished Experiment: Democracy in the Dominican Republic (New York: Praeger, 1965...
...In the present article, we will attempt to demonstrate how the lack of a feminist movement imbued with a revolutionary ideology has led to elitist feminism in the service of reaction...
...See Falcondo Annual Report, 1973, p. 8. 46...
...Dominican women, however, voted constitutionally for the first time in the 1942 elections, and had already voted "symbolically" in 1934 and 1938.* Married women achieved recognition of their civil status in 1940, with the passage of law 390...
...The undynamic nature of feminism in this period predetermined its own disappearance...
...That is, the Dominican bourgeoisie has become more sophisticated, more practiced, in manipulating the political activity of women to serve its own ends...
...On the one hand, the industrialization process in the Dominican Republic was rapidly gaining momentum, accelerating rural-urban migration and the general proletarianization of the masses...
...Balaguerista Feminists In 1966, Joaquin Balaguer, the newly-elected President, appointed women to the governorships of all twenty-six provinces...
...Nevertheless, the uniqueness of the feminists'political position lay in their bargaining power, in their capacity to mobilize new sectors of the population-women formerly distant from political partisanship--in favor of the regime...
...Such a candidacy would turn large sectors of the population toward reformism, not only among women, who would feel honorably 'represented', but also among other groups representative of Dominican society...
...Encuesta Demografica Nacional (Santo Domingo, 1973) p. 30...
...In its charter, the group states its basic membership requirements: "good conduct, over 18 years of age, and able to read and write...
...2. Carmen Lara Fernandez, Historia del feminismo en la Republica Dominicana (Ciudad Trujillo: Imp...
...The unity and political companionship which exists between us will outlast these bars...
...Crassweller, p. 319...
...5. Lara Fernandez, op...
...6 Such a unilateral viewpoint ignores the objective conditions of oppresion that characterized the lives of Dominican women, and which fostered a true feminist consciousness...
...LNS...
...The adjective "Balaguerista", then, refers to their support of Balaguer's policies and ideological leadership, rather than to formal party affiliation...
...Photos by Laurence Simon / Interworld...
...Dominican society would greatly benefit form the delicate sentiments that women would bring to the civic arena...
...The concept of political activity which guides the Balaguerista feminists is not substantially different from that of their Trujillista predecessors...
...The solidarity expressed in the demonstrations carried out by many organizations, newspapers, and national and foreign individuals which have all demanded our freedom, is beautiful, and we are very grateful for it...
...By 1945, there was a "Feminist Section" of the Trujillista Party, which later became the "Feminine Branch" of the Dominican Party, founded and headed by Trujillo...
...4. Thisconcept of politics as the extension of the maternal role into the public sphere is examined more extensively by Elsa Chaney, "Women in Latin American Politics: The Case of Peru and Chile," Female and Male in Latin America: Essays Ann Pescatello, ed...
...His power and personnal ambition, as well as a tyrannical style of govenrment, had been felt throughout the Republic...
...But its political demands were couched in the sugary speeches and general style of theperiod-and of the class to which its leaders belonged...
...Given the brutal character of Trujillo's dictatorship, it is difficult to believe that he "feared" the delicate demans of feminist organizations, except within the context of in- ternational public opinion...
...Prospectus for $50 million Falconbridge debentures issued by Dillon, Read, June 9, 1971, p. 42...
...Our freedom can be won when the proamnesty movement is able to join the individual calls for amnesty to the mass movement, and then link this together with a wide campaign of international solidarity...
...Balaguerista feminists can contribute toward preserving their class position, while finding outlets for personal ambition in posts newly opened to female "occupancy...
...Footnotes 1. Second National Population Census (1935...
...I believe that the spirit of individualism and blind impulsiveness, a product of our political immaturity, is now leaving us...
...This is not to deny the validity of traditional feminism as a struggle to gain basic civil and political rights for women...
...Trujillo * The symbolic votes of 1934 and 1938 were decreed on November 22, 1933...
...This third characteristic, the lack of political consciousness among lower class women and the absence of radical feminism in the Left, must be the subject of further study and analyses...
...Do you believe it is possible...
...Thus, the pressure was on to lend the tyrant's rule a more democratic facade...
...John Bartlow Martin, Overtaken by Events: The Dominican Crisis from the Fall of Trujillo to the Civil War (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1966...
...Q: What is the attitude of the political prisoner towards amnesty...
...In the present period of official Reformism, feminist participation in government is being used as an effective tool in the political struggle...
...Basically, they maintain that women's contribution to politics consists of a serene personality, tact and skill.10 The woman in politics is the mother who soothes in difficult moments, who tranquilizes a tumultuous world and, above all, who serves as "a permanent example of the moral principles which are the basis of our Christian traditions...
...The Movement for National Reconciliation, for example, if victorious in the May 1974 elections, has promised to enact far-reaching reforms in favor of feminism...
...John Bartlow Martin, Overtaken By Events (Garden City, Doubleday, 1966), p. 658...
...1.4 per cent completed university education...
...In the pot-banging campaigns of the Chilean right, in the mock vice presidency of Isabelita in Argentina, in the candidacy of Maria Eugenia Rojas Pinilla in Colombia, and innumerable other cases, we have seen the feminist issue exploited by the ruling class and imperialist interests...
...This attitude, in a broader context, corresponds to Balaguer's own "ideology of change...
...Thus, by 1942, the Trujillista feminists had effectively demonstrated their capacity to mobilize support for the dictatorship...
...The working woman of this country, as an integral part of society, of a class which has traditionally been exploited, is the ap- propriate victim of her own deficiencies and ignorance...
...Balaguerista feminists view their fight for equality with men as largely dependent on the revisions made in these codes and on the Dominican woman's awareness of her rights under the law...
...9 While the total count of female votes seems much too high there is no doubt that between the two elections, Feminist Action at the national level, and local feminist clubs in the provinces, carried out an intensive campaign to increase the number of women voters...
...Other parties along the political spectrum have "seen the light" and are in strong competition for the favors of Dominican women...
...Thus, women of low economic and educational status were automatically excluded from the feminist movement of the thirties...
...It is very probable that Galindez' treatment of feminism in general stems from the lack of importance that he and other authors attribute to the movement...
...Patrick Hughes...
...We must again examine the ideological and class basis of feminism, and its relation to the Dominican political process in general, in order to evaluate its social and political significance for the contemporary period...
...Conditioned throughout their lives to be practical . . . women easily fall prey to such vote-buying politics...
...Wall Street Journal, Sept...
...The traditional means of attracting the masses on the basis of personal bribes, offers of housing, sewing machines and baskets, cultivated over the years by the Trujillo regime, is today maintained in full force...
...So far we have had an excellent response to the questionnaire published in the March 1947 Report...
...While he was president of Ventures, Eisenhower reportedly asked him to replace Nixon on his 1956 re-election ticket (see Washington Post, "July 16,1970...
...North American women won the vote in 1920, and Ecuadorians in 1929...
...It means simply, that more women occupy positions of power and can, in turn, be used by the existing power structure to further its objectives...
...Casilda Pelaez,"La Oficina Nacional de la Muier," Ultima Hora, July 20, 1973, p. 9.32 14...
...The distribution of 26 governorships and a variety of other posts was a foretaste of what women can expect from working within and for the system...
...Selden Rodman, Quisqueya: A History of the Dominican Republic (Seattle: Ugiversity of Washington Press, 1964...
...Their demands were necessarily undynamic, since the system could not withstand profound changes, only subtle modifications...
...As an indication of the educational level of Dominican women, in the age group 1549: 25 per cent had no education...
...continued from p. 14) contract with Trujillo...
...The motto of "bloodless revolution" meant in 1966-and still means today-that necessary changes can and should be achieved through gradual, non-viOlent reforms, with respect for the rights of the individual and private property...
...Martindale Hubbell Law Directory...
...See the text of a speech given by Jaime Manuel Fernandez, President of the Movement for National Reconciliation, in: "Afirma MCN aspire un regimen democratico," Listin Diario, July 31, 1973...
...6. Jesus de Galindez, La Era de Trujillo...
...Politics was seen as a depressing and savage spectacle, a bloody struggle that the soothing and charitable hand of women could help to civilize...
...First, we must consider the class nature of women's organizations fighting for political rights and positions...
...Above all, these women aspired to secure their rights as full citizens: "If we have good rulers, she (the women without rights) will be unable to lend them support...
...if we have bad rulers, she will be unable to prevent their emergence, nor persuade them to mend their ways with soft meditations...
...But in most countries, the struggle took much longer: 1949 in Chile, 1955 in Peru, 1957 in Colombia, 1961 in Paraguay...
...A 1973 demonstration in support of Balaguer by the Crusade of Love...
...Thus, women could apply to politics, to the public sphere, what29 they had traditionally done in the home...
...Balaguer's victory in 1966 was, in part, won by the women's vote...
...While feminism, as both an imported and indigenous phenomenon, touches the lives of only a small minority of women in these countries, it is precisely this minority that is increasingly being mobilized in support of reactionary forces...
...Listin Diario, June 7, 1972...
...The bankruptcy of this ideology has been proven not only in the Dominican Republic, but throughtout Latin America and the world...
...8 In the 1934 election, only 96,427 women out of an adult female population of about 280,000 went to the polls...
...At the same time, Balaguer plays on feminism in much the same manner as Trujillo did, using it to bolster the stability of his regime.31 Nevertheless, there is a qualitative difference in the political tactics employed by Trujillo and Balaguer with respect to feminism...
...22.7 per cent completed 4-6 years of primary education...
...See text of Juan Bosch radio talk on "Tribuna Democratica," El Caribe, July 18, 1972...
...In 1938, however, 344,909 women voted...
...Thus, the benefits are enticing for both sides...
...Radical feminism has been submerged in the activities of the Dominican Left, where male chauvinism still has a hold...
...In the international arena, the extreme brutality of Trujillismo was known throughout the world...
...military invasion...
...3 The leaders of Feminist Action had a very specific concept of politics and of what female intervention would entail...
...15 Equal emphasis has been placed on the need to enact legal reforms, primarily in the Labor and Civil Codes...
...Its demands presented no real threat to the system, and on the contrary, directly contributed to the stability of that system...
...Chaney, op.cit., 104...
...23, 1971...
...Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973) 10...
...See: Gilberto Sanchez Lustrino, Trujillo: El constructor de una nacionalidad (La Habana: Cultural, S.A., 1938) 210...
...In comparison with feminist movements in other countries, and particularly in Latin America, Dominican women achieved their objectives at a relatively early date...
...8. One theory has attributed the symbolic votes of 1934 and 1938 to Trujillo's fear that feminism would get out of hand...
...One must deduct those women who died and emigrated, in addition to those who didn't vote...
...Anderson's and Connally's careers have followed remarkably similar patterns...
...7.2 per cent completed secondary education...
...Balaguer can no longer ignore...
...By 1933, "the Great Benefactor" had been in power for three years, and had consolidated his position as the indisputable boss of political life...
...For Anderson's more recent oil and other business ventures, see the Wall Street Journal, April 3, 1973...
...The reward for feminine support was rapid integration into the benefits of political partisanship...
...Perhaps the most blatant of these laws (No...
...Joaquin Balaguer, Decree 3587 of June 15, 1973, Listin Diario, June 19, 1973, p. 2. 17...
...The significance and political weight of the feminist movement was to increase over time, as a function of internal and external forces con- fronting the Trujillo regime...
...Also, Francisco Alvarez Castellanos, "Atribuye a mujer funcion en desarrollo," Listin Diario, June 20, 1972, p. 13...
...The National Council of Women, which emerged from within this party, is today affiliated with the InterAmerican Commission for Women...
...By the early 1940's, internal and external factors had converged to make "democratic liberalism," on a very superficial level, a political imperative for Trujillo...
...Watch for details in forthcoming NACLA REPORTS...
...We must not forget that the equilibrium of the home means the equilibrium of the nation...
...In the end, the role of feminism must be to mobilize women in the class struggle for socialist revolution...
...In return, upper class women could expect concrete concessions, while the female masses would gain the "right" to vote for Trujillo...
...But we would like as complete a response as possible so we have extended the deadline to May 15...
...Knowing the limits of words, we await our "second chance...
...Both are Texas lawyers who got their start managing Texas oil estates, became top lobbyists for oil and gas interests, became secretaries of the Navy (in the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, respectively)-the Navy being the world's largest buyer of oil-and later secretaries of the Treasury (under Eisenhower and Nixon...
...1 3 Technical schools for women must prepare them to achieve a higher educational level, and to perfect their knowledge of matters relating to the home.1 4 (emphasis added...
...The "try-out" feminine votes of 1934 and 1938 are a clear example of Trujillo's caution in dealing with the feminist movement...
...We have called the second group "Balaguerista feminists" although a cohesive organization as such does not exist in Dominican political life...
...The upper-class composition of most Latin American feminist movements, and thus their ideological separation from revolutionary movements, predisposes feminism toward complicity with defenders of the status quo...
...But spontaneous feminist consciousness was spreading among upper class women...
...This history is characterized by three important elements...
...The history of feminism in the Dominican Republic provides an appropriate case study of a feminist movement and its relation to reactionary political forces...
...7, 1971...
...Radical feminism, in the sense of fundamental changes in the hierarchy of male* Balaguer chose to run with his same Vice-President: Goico Morales...
...The wartime situation had deepened economic ties between the Dominican Republic and the United States, and Trujillo's "negative image" represented a political liability to Roosevelt's New Deal and "Good Neighbor" politics...
...Women are destined to fulfill a very important function in the field of education and social work, and the Movement for National Reconciliation is counting on them as magnificent reserve for the realization of programs . . which would serve as appropriate fields of endeavor for the delicate sensitivity of women...
...Santiago: Editorial del Pacifico, 1956) 333-334...
...The following statements by feminist spokeswomen are indicative of this tendency...
...There are those who maintain that feminism in the Dominican Republic had no autonomous origins or development, and that perhaps "Trujillo initiated this movement . . . to keep in step with contemporary currents of sexual equality...
...It is this characteristic-the class origins of the Trujillista feminists-which limited a priori the fundamental objectives of the movement...
...3. Ibid., 25...
...279) established an award-a medal and the "people's eternal gratitude"--to women who gave birth to eleven or more children.7 It must be remembered, however, that eleven years passed between the creation of Feminist Action in 1931 and the Constitutional Reform of 1942 granting women the right to vote...
...8.6 per cent completed intermediate education...
...Secondly, the political participation of women has been characterized by close collaboration with the ruling bourgeoisie...
...Washington Post, Feb...
...This executive decision was without precedent in the history of Dominican politics...
...Secretaries and Under-Secretaries of State, 26 governorships, The Crusade of Love and the ever-increasing activities of military wives bring promises of greater female participation and guarantee more effective means of penetration into these sectors.18 This type of activity, primarily carried out by an organization called "Crusade of Love," headed by Balaguer's sister, Emma Balaguer, and other women from the ranks of the oligarchy, is undeniably effective...
...Two specific groups will be the subject fo our study...
...Robert Crasweller, Truiillo: Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator (New York: Macmillan, 1966...
...New York Times, Feb...
...The feminist movement, therefore, became a political counterpart to male-dominated organizations, which asked, with patriotic fervor, that the tyrant continue in power...
...2 2 * Conclusion The extension of women's traditional role in the home to the political sphere implies no qualitative changes in the situation of women as a whole, nor in the political and economic system which perpetrates their opposition...
...A 1937 class at the women's School of Home Economics practicing a tea service...
...The lack of a genuine theory of feminine oppression, a coherent body of ideas to link the specific oppression of women as a sex to the aspirations of exploited classes in general, has frustrated the task of politically-conscious women of the Left...
...Our cases will come to represent a true national cause which the regime of Dr...
...Olga Baez Berg, op...
...Their private role is not fun* According to the 1935 Census, the female population between 20 and 85 years or older for that year was 314,461...
...Illiteracy was rampant in the country--about 70 per cent of the population in 19351--and predominant among the lower classes...
...We are very moved by the cry for amnesty which has sprung up throughout the country and the world...
...The first group, Trujillista feminists, represents an organized body of women active during the 1930's and '40's...
...The decree (No...
...858) conditioned granting the vote to women on their turn-out for the try-out votes.30 could magnanimously grant the vote to women, without running any major political risks...
...NACLA will publish in early 1975 a full-length pamphlet on the Dominican Republic to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 1965 U.S...
...Trujillo could demonstrate his new-found liberalism and show a wider base of popular support...
...In his electoral campaign, Balaguer appealed to the Dominican woman for support, to her enormous "reserves of maternal sentiment...
...In any case, our future practice will determine if we are faithful to the ideas we now proclaim behind these bars...
...7. Other measures included Schools of Home Economics, free milk distribution for poor women, the National Junta for the Protection of Motherhood and Infants, etc...
...l I Women see themselves, then, in the role of "super-mother" in the biggest of all houses--Congress, Municipal Government, etc.-which is politics...
Vol. 8 • April 1974 • No. 4
