Family Matters: Puerto Rican Women Authors on the Island and the Mainland

Epilogue

Epilogue In 1957 DIVEDCO issued the booklet La mujer y sus derechos (Women and their rights), written and edited by René Marqu és. Published immediately after Los derechos del hombre (The rights of man), La mujer sought to trace how far the struggle for women’s rights had advanced and how much Puerto Rican women had gained in the process. The emphasis on women’s role in society, including their rights and obligations as citizens, reflected the democratic ideals associated with el muñocismo. From early in his campaigns, Muñoz Marín had stressed the need for women to be “active” participants in the ELA’s construction. However, the push toward the inclusion of women in civic and political processes posed a challenge to the patriarchal power structure on which his government had been built—namely, the myth of la gran familia—and also to the traditional values his government tried so hard to promote. In other words, women’s participation was needed, but they were to remain subordinate to men’s authority and fulfill the “natural ” responsibilities conferred to them as women. The condescending tone and content that characterize La mujer y sus derechos illustrates how el muñocismo achieved that precarious balance between women’s rights and patriarchal values. In the booklet’s introduction, the narrator (Marqués) states, “The woman, already triumphant in the struggle, has wisely learnt to benefit from legal rights. But, even more wisely, she has not allowed the enjoyment of the right to equality in front of the law to deprive her of the two primordial missions for which God put her on earth: love and maternity.”1 It is clear that the text overplays the more advantageous position of Puerto Rican women at that historical juncture, but this type of comment, which abounds throughout the narrative, amounts to no more than empty talk. Its duplicity lies in the fact that the text recycles traditional discourses 170 Epilogue regarding women’s “natural” and “God-given” character and disposition toward motherhood. This idea is reiterated in the chapter “La mujer en el Puerto Rico de hoy” (The woman in today’s Puerto Rico), where the narrator states, “It is amazing how woman in today’s Puerto Rico, without neglecting her sacred duties as wife and mother, has been able to become so useful and active in her duties as a citizen.”2 Women are not exactly commended for being agents of progress but rather for “successfully ” juggling wifehood, motherhood, and their responsibilities as citizens without compromising the first two. The booklet, disguised as a sort of apology to women, in reality serves to perpetuate the notion that women’s first and foremost responsibilities are to her family. Ten years later, in 1967, the booklet La familia would restate the same sexist principles that were patently manifested in La mujer y sus derechos. For instance, the chapter titled “El matrimonio” (Matrimony) clearly advocates the gendered division of labor. For example: “In order for the mother to devote herself to the noble task of motherhood, the man assumes the responsibility of relieving her of the economic burden. That is to say, within marriage it is the man’s responsibility to support the family. He provides economic comfort to the woman.”3 Never mind that women are expected to limit their aspirations to being homemakers, they still should be grateful that they are no longer “un cero a la izquierda ” (less than nothing). According to the narrator, “The woman is a human being with a right to vote in political elections, communal decisions , and the handling of household problems, and marriage relations.”4 While these rights and privileges have certainly been crucial to women’s empowerment, the basic patriarchal structure of the home and the family would continue to be promoted as the basis of Puerto Rican society. In 2006 the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña published the booklet Las mujeres en Puerto Rico, written by Norma Valle Ferrer, in its Cuadernos de Cultura series, which sought to “promote, circulate, and salvage the cultural manifestations of Puerto Rico.”5 The publication of Las mujeres is more significant than it may appear at first sight, as it constitutes “an update of the Libro del Pueblo about women’s rights.”6 Almost half a century later, the ICP had allowed a woman to write and update this essay on the history of Puerto Rican women from an openly feminist perspective that would call into question the patriarchal values...