“An exciting study that reveals the complexity of women's multiple political projects, as well as the importance of feminism—widely defined—as a powerful political force.”—Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney, author of The Politics of Motherhood: Maternity and Women's Rights in Twentieth-Century Chile
“An engaging overview of the role played by women in supporting and contesting authoritarian regimes in the twentieth-century Dominican Republic. Essential reading for all historians of gender in Latin America.”—Nicola Foote, coeditor of Immigration and National Identities in Latin America
“Tells the very important story of women's participation in Dominican politics from 1928 to 1978. It will quickly become a classic in the field of Latin American women's history.”—Victoria González-Rivera, author of Before the Revolution: Women's Rights and Right-Wing Politics in Nicaragua, 1821–1979
From the rise of dictator Rafael Trujillo in the early 1930s to the rule of his successor Joaquín Balaguer in the 1970s, women were frequently absent or erased from public political narratives in the Dominican Republic. Filling these silences, The Paradox of Paternalism shows that women were central to local, national, and international politics during this period. Women activists from across the political spectrum engaged with the state by working within both authoritarian regimes and inter-American networks, founding modern Dominican feminism and contributing to the rise of twentieth-century women's liberation in the Global South.
A volume in the series Latin American and Caribbean Arts and Culture, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
