Intimate Violations
Chapter 3 looks at women’s resistance activities on the island and in exile during the Trujillato, as well as the rhetoric that surrounded mothers and wives within the movement and argues that it was precisely the increasingly intimate violations of women and traditional gender roles that ultimately doomed the regime. The chapter advocates for not only a physical inclusion of women in the narrative of anti-dictatorial politics, but also a consideration of the role of traditional familial and feminine “protections” in the upending of a thirty-year regime. Women pointed out—to both domestic and international audiences—the failure of the regime to protect femininity and national morality and, as a result, led the way to the regime’s demise.