4.2 The Path to Equality: Dominican Women in the Parliament
4.2.1 Political Historical Background
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4.2 The Path to Equality: Dominican Women in the Parliament.
4.2.1 Political Historical Background
Traditionally, the patriarchal model present in the history of ancient societies, which continues to manifest itself in contemporary societies, preserves the narrative of history from the male perspective that disregards or controls the participation and voice of women. It was not until the last decades of the twentieth century that the historiography began an exhaustive examination to include female prominence and develop history from a gender perspective, that is, the study of the social experiences that women go through because they are women and men because they are men (Silvestrini 1997). By including the gender perspective, research has been improved, adding elements and tools to analyze the participation of both historical protagonists.
Figure 6: Main Historical Events in Dominican Feminism.
In the Dominican Republic, the insertion of women in the world of politics has had many obstacles. With a view from the National Independence, we find that men acquire their political rights as citizens with the founding of the republic in 1844. According to Arvelo Tejada (2012), it is perceived that the exclusion of women from this right is based on the patriarchal conception that women are limited to the private space and that public
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51 life is exclusive of men. In almost all the countries of America, it was the normalistas11 who led the development of feminist thinking and women’s movements. Therefore, the Dominican feminists of the era were part of an international ideological and political network. Nevertheless, according to Candelario (2005) the fundamental bases of
positivism (progress, order and rationalism) and patriotism influenced in a particular way the Dominican feminism.
At the history’s root of Dominican feminist thought is Salomé Henriquez Ureña (1850-1897). In 1881, Ureña, the muse of the country, was the first to open a normal school for women: el Instituto de Señoritas. She promoted a pedagogical scientific curriculum for girls to be trained as professionals, as mothers, and as social reformers.
Prior to this, secular education for women was not for their own development, but to train them to be better mothers who in turn would raise better citizens (males of course)
rationalists, progressives, workers, and nationalists. As stated by Salome, “yesterday, it was impossible for women in our country to deny all aspirations outside the limits of home and family” (Candelario 2005, p. 44).
The normalista ideal and the early leadership of Salomé Ureña in women’s education made teaching a respectable job for women in the 1890s, and the fact that a cycle of economic crisis began at this time may have influenced the inclusion of educated women into paid labor (Alvarez Santana 1997; Mayes 2008). According to Mayes (2008) the normalista myth gave the population an emblematic language to change teaching into redemptive work that served national development since people realized that middle-class families relied on women’s income. The internal problems of the country generated by the imperialism of the United States (manifested as a financial intervention and military occupation), combined with the caudillismo12, the centralization of power, and then the
11 Teachers of primary education trained and qualified in a normal school.
12 A system of political-social domination, based on the leadership of a political-military leader, that arose after the wars of independence from Spain in 19th-century Latin America (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2015).
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52 Trujillo13 dictatorship, also contributed to the formation of feminine thought of the time (Candelario 2005).
The United States invaded the Dominican Republic in 1916 and established a military government that took place until 1924. During the occupation, acceptable female activity expanded when women activists organized patriotic associations to request the
withdrawal of the United States. In addition, the US military government extended the professional opportunities open to women, as some women worked in the state
bureaucracy as secretaries and typists during the military intervention (Calder 1984).
However, the military occupation of the USA caused a ferocious response amid
Dominican men, which placed these working women in a risky middle position between two groups of masculine authorities: while the US authorities considered the feminine reform as an advancement, Dominican men built a general agreement on the moral badness of the American military occupation by criticizing the behavior of women as an insult to the Latin culture (Derby 1998).
The insistence of male nationalists that women remain silent at home was a nightmare for elite women, but activists responded creatively to the ideological constraints of male nationalists by changing the “woman’s issue” to the international field (Miller 1992). For instance, in April of 1922, Ana Teresa Paradas, the first Dominican woman graduated as a lawyer, assisted as the delegate of the Dominican Republic to the conference of the Pan American Association for the Advancement of Women held in Baltimore and arranged by the League of Women Voters (Calder 1984; Mayes 2008).
Ana Emilia Abigaíl Mejía, a Dominican feminist activist, literary critic, and educator created the Club Nosotras, a literary exclusive club for women, in 1927. This was the first formal association of women in the country. In 1930, one of its members attended the First Conference of the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM), held in Havana, Cuba (Candelario 2005). At this time there was great feminist effervescence in
13 Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina was a Dominican dictator, who ruled the country from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961.
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53 the region and Trujillo’s dictatorship began in the Dominican Republic (Méndez 2008).
That same year, the aspirations of feminists regarding their civil and political rights clashed head-on with the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo and the movement began to decline. In this context, in 1931, the Acción Feminista Dominicana (AFD, Dominican Feminist Action) was formed by elite women and led by Abigail Mejía.
Immediately, the AFD established relations with the CIM and was in charge of the compilation and transmission of information on the legal and political status of women in the Dominican Republic for the CIM report (Candelario 2005). In that same year, the AFD sponsored the First Dominican Feminist Manifesto, signed by several hundred women, demanding equal rights in the Constitution (Mayes 2008).
In 1932, the members of the AFD convened their first assembly with representation from all the provinces of the country. This assembly and other activities of the feminists were used by Trujillo to express his sympathy with the demands of women’s social justice. As proof of his solidarity, Trujillo proposed granting them the right to citizenship.
For the first time in the Dominican Republic’s history, these women felt supported by their ruler. With his promise, the dictator seemed to facilitate the goal that had already reached the suffrage allies of other American countries and, through this, managed to co-opt the feminist leaders, and thus the AFD became an instrument of the dictatorship. The feminists trusted in the promise of Trujillo, his offer motivated them to join the dictator's campaign for his re-election in the 1934 and 1938 elections, since for these elections Trujillo organized two trial votes to demonstrate the interest of Dominican women in the suffrage and the capacity of the AFD to mobilize the support of women to the regime (Fernández 1946; Herrera 2012, Nanita 1953). According to Manley (2006), these trial votes evidently were favorable and victorious. However, they were not successful in their goal of promulgating a law for women’s suffrage, for this reason, Ana Emilia Abigaíl Mejía, who served in the organization of the female trial votes in the 1934 elections, refused to offer her support in the 1938 elections.
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54 4.2.2 Women’s Suffrage in the Dominican Republic
Either for convenience or fear, feminists reinforced Trujillo’s image. There is a possibility that some feminists did not realize the manipulation they were subjected to, considering the short time that the dictator had been in power and the supposed economic stability that he had achieved when he began to attract them into his ranks. In addition, since its early years, Trujillo controlled the activities of all the organizations in the country and punished dissent with unemployment, imprisonment, and ostracism. It was not until the 1942 elections that Trujillo ruled that Dominican women exercised the right to vote constitutionally and that they also had representation in the legislature (Báez Díaz 1998; De Galíndez 1973; Farreras 1976). With the obtaining of the vote, the
organizational action of the local feminists disappeared and the AFD turned into the Feminine Section of the Dominican Party of Trujillo’s dictatorship (Mayes 2008). Once the cooptation was completed, the former leaders of the organization began to integrate the female contingents at the service of the dictatorship and to assume responsibility for the execution of their welfare plans. To a large extent, the transformation of the AFD took place because the essence of the relationship of women with the Dominican state transformed significantly between1930 and 1942. The first event was the drastic transformation in the national politics, since the state it went from being multi-party to being a state governed by a mass party. According to Mayes (2008), the first stage in the process of propagation of the Trujillo dictatorship among the Dominican population was the formation of the Partido Dominicano14 in the year 1932. It should be noted that the association in the Dominican Party was practically mandatory for citizens looking for employment in national industries, of which Trujillo was the owner, and even for those seeking for tertiary education (De Galíndez 1973).
Another element that transformed the relationship of Dominican women with the state was the connotative power of the female image of the regime, in particular, the state veneration of the bourgeoisie: the Latin woman (Mayes 2008). Derby (2000) points out
14 El partido Dominicano, or The Dominican Party in English, was the only "real" political party in the Dominican Republic during the dictatorship of Trujillo.
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55 that the Carnival celebrated in the country in 1937 presented an official model of what the Dominican or Latino woman should be like, who strongly opposed the
“Americanized” liberal female prototype. This utopian image of the Dominican women presented by the dictatorship offered the foundations of Dominican nationality, similar to the Latin American nationalism of the demonstrations against the American occupation back in 1916 (Mayes 2008). However, during the dictatorship of Trujillo, there were also liberal women who assumed feminism and the struggle for the suffrage of women. The women of this liberal-democratic side detected the first signs of terror that would prevail in the Dominican Republic with Trujillo’s dictatorship. They rejected and denounced the dictatorship (Castro Ventura 2003; Julia 2003; Landestoy 1946; Paulino Ramos 1987;
Vega 1986). Among the pioneers of this trend is Evangelina Rodríguez. She stood out as an educated and liberal woman, like many of those who supported Trujillo, but with the experience, vision and determination that some of the feminists did not have. She spoke encouraging people to abandon their inertia and face the tyranny that would drown them all (Zaglul 1997).
Due to international pressure, in 1946, Trujillo authorized the founding of political parties and organizations. This period of “tolerance” was used by some young people to integrate, along with other anti-Trujillo youth, the organization called Juventud
Democrática (JD, Democratic Youth). Although it was not a political party, the JD exercised great leadership in the opposition. The women were integrated into both the secret cells and the rectory of the JD. Some even wrote articles, letters and manifests read by many people. In addition, they dedicated themselves to distributing and selling the newspaper Juventud Democrática on the streets. They organized political meetings and gave political speeches. Taking advantage of the supposed “tolerance”, they risked publicly promoting democratic principles among university students and citizens in general (Herrera 2012). The members of the JD were women of different ages. Most of them belonged to rich families that the Trujillo regime tried to break. Several were university students who, along with the men, the young workers and the students, assumed the commitment of dissidence. Undoubtedly, they put the little tolerance of the dictator to the test (Martínez Bonilla 1946; Padilla Deschamps 1946).
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56 Despite the promises of Trujillo to allow and respect the expressions of the opposition, the persecution and repressive measures were felt as soon as sympathy was reflected by the postulates of the Partido Socialista Popular (PSP, Popular Socialist Party) and those of the JD, which coincided in many aspects. The PSP, of Marxist tendency, represented mainly the working class, although many of its leaders were members of the bourgeoisie.
Some researchers maintain that the JD had its origins in the PSP, but that this organization acted independently and brought together young people from the bourgeoisie and different political tendencies (Cassá 2006; Franco Pichardo 2007).
The magnitude and the events of the activity of the PSP and the JD encouraged Trujillo to act decisively and without dissimulation against the leaders and their families.
He immediately closed the public manifestations, including the pamphlet and protest marches and the private organization. Many political activists who joined the opposition movement faced imprisonment, interrogation and in some cases even torture (Roorda 1998). Nevertheless, the repression was not enough to dissuade the JD leaders. They had their first meeting in the city of Santo Domingo on November 24, 1946. This meeting was attended by men and women, young and old, workers and professionals, people from different social classes. The president of the Dominican Party, Álvarez Pina, who was the dictator’s spokesman, publicly manifested himself against Josefina Padilla Deschamps and the other young people and students who made up the JD and the leaders of the PSP.
He accused all its members of being communists. This accusation was fundamental in Trujillo’s repressive campaign since it was used as an excuse to discredit and harass young people and all members of the opposition (Herrera 2012).
At the beginning of June 1947, members of the army and the Trujillo police attacked and destroyed the workshops of the newspaper Juventud Democrática (Democratic Youth). In the middle of June, Trujillo decided to officially eliminate the supposed democratic experiment that had begun in August of the previous year. Trujillo justified his repressive actions by taking advantage of the initial scenario of the Cold War and the United States’ call to fight the Soviet Union and communism (Cassá 1990; Vega 1982).
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In the same year, according to Candelario (2005), Trujillo sent a bill to Congressdeclaring communist groups and others of their same anti-democratic tendencies as illegal. It is clear that he was referring to the JD, the PSP, and other parties and
organizations that, although they acted within the legitimate framework that Trujillo had authorized, had a great impact on their campaign of denunciation against the regime at a national and international level.
The story of the fall of Trujillo’s regime of 31 years has been explained roughly only through the male protagonists. As more visible members of the resistance that led to the execution of Trujillo, Dominican men were seen as the main actors in the organization of the resistance, with only one important omission: the martyred Mirabal sisters15.
Nevertheless, women were not absent from the most important movements that led to Trujillo’s assassination in 1961. (Manley, 2012). The participation of women in this decade was a link in the chain of events that bonded them to resistance from the beginning of Trujillismo16 until its last days. Some of the female protesters, mainly the youngest, were forced into exilebut they continued the fight against the regime of Trujillo. Although the murder of the Mirabal sisters was a brutal and profoundly emotional occurrence for Dominican citizens, the killing of women completed the destruction of gender politics that the Trujillato17 had originated. The reputation of the three sisters, together with the increment of the tortures and the vanishings of those who dared to oppose the Trujillo regime, made this murder an event of great relevance in the Dominican history. The idea that women could die because of their unregenerate role in public policy destroyed the little trust left in the regime.
In the words of Julia Álvarez18 (1994), the key to explaining why the Mirabal sisters tragedy is so symbolic is that they give face and name to the disaster created by a violent
15 The Mirabal sisters, also known as Las Mirabal or Las Mariposas, (Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal), were three Dominican sisters who fervently opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo.
The three were murdered by the regime on November 25, 1960.
16 The political beliefs Trujillo.
17 The Trujillato is the name with which is denominated the period of thirty-one years of the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
18 An American writer of Dominican origin.
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58 regime that did not accept dissent and that had already three decades of homicides in the Dominican Republic. All those involved in the “ajusticiamiento”19 (execution), the series of events against the dictatorship that led to the death of Trujillo on 1961, when he was shot on a highway while traveling with his driver, affirm without exception that the murder of the Mirabal sisters was the drop that filled the cup.
4.2.3 Gender Quota in the Dominican Legislation
The political participation of women in the Dominican Republic achieved greater significance after the enactment of Law 390 of 1940, which established their right to elect and be elected. Two years later, in 1942, women exercised their right to suffrage for the first time. In the 1960s, women have a notable presence in political movements and community organizations. Many women participated in the demonstrations and protests of the time. Some even managed to occupy leadership positions within the parties, as happened in the 14th of June Movement20 and in the National Civic Union21. In this sense, it is emphasized that in 1962, Josefina Padilla was a candidate for the vice-presidency of the Republic by this last instance (Arvelo Tejada 2012). However, the governing bodies of the parties, almost all composed of men, decided that women should do, assigning tasks of little importance “that little contributed to broaden knowledge, awareness and political development” (Hernández 1986, p. 147).
The participation of women in political movements contributed to developing a critical awareness of their role as a political entity and of the levels of marginalization to which they were subjected. This led to the creation of La Federación de Mujeres
Dominicanas (FMD, the Federation of Dominican Women) in 1962. Although the
19 El ajusticiamiento (execution) of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo was the crowning of a conspiracy plotted by several of the most influential Dominican families, fed up with the excesses of the tyrant's regime.
20 The 14th of June Movement, abbreviated 14J (and 1J4), was a leftist guerrilla movement of the Dominican Republic that fought against the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo and was led by the lawyer Manolo Tavárez Justo and the activist Minerva Mirabal.
21A patriotic organization created immediately after the execution of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, his main objective was to fight for the exit of the national territory from the remnants of the dictatorial regime.
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59 resistance of the Dominican woman to the dictatorship occurred individually or within the political movements created for that purpose, the FMD was the first independent, pluralistic and markedly democratic women’s organization in the country. This federation played an important role in the mobilization of women in relevant political junctures.
59 resistance of the Dominican woman to the dictatorship occurred individually or within the political movements created for that purpose, the FMD was the first independent, pluralistic and markedly democratic women’s organization in the country. This federation played an important role in the mobilization of women in relevant political junctures.