Sangre sin Revolución
Chapter 6 addresses the ways in which many Dominican activists interrogated the role of Balaguer’s government in the regulation of individual’s women’s lives and families and challenged many of its violent, dictatorial tendencies. Refuting the regime’s argument for a “revolution without blood,” many women described the government’s agenda to national and inter-American audiences as “blood without revolution” and continued to mobilize within the opposition through the discourse of motherhood and family. However, the chapter also looks at the many cracks developing in the discourse of maternalism that, coupled with an ever-deepening awareness of the tools and tactics of international second-wave feminism, pushed many women to challenge a model of political participation that constructed their roles in the political arena merely as nurturers and caretakers.