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Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 22.2 (2001) 118-130



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The Madonna Experience
A U.S. Icon Awakens a Puerto Rican Adolescent's Feminist Consciousness

Carmen R. Lugo-lugo


I'm often accused of "going too far," but I recognize that behind my desire to shock is an even stronger desire to evade the "feminine" stereotype: "You say women are afraid of mice? I'll show you! I'll eat the mouse!"

Anne Beatts

"I wanna conquer the world," stated Madonna Louise Veronica Cicconne in a Behind the Music performance. "See, I get what I want. . . . I do what I want with my life. . . . Absolutely no regrets. . . . I'm really good at provoking. . . . I'm really good at getting people's attention." When I was growing up in Puerto Rico, where the word "feminism" had to struggle for a place in the national lexicon, Madonna was an icon of teenage female rebellion, providing alternatives to the traditional, established definitions of womanhood and femininity. Through this subversion of cultural norms Madonna gave my generation a slap in the face and made most of us stop and rethink the traditional roles we were expected to perform in society, pushing us beyond the conventional rebellion that many teenage girls go through. This Madonna-inspired rebellion meant much more than merely challenging adults and other authority figures. This rebellion was about questioning traditional roles and beliefs in a society where traditional roles and beliefs were set in stone. This article explores a political aspect of the Madonna phenomenon in Puerto Rico by looking at her and her status as a public figure, and by looking at how such status wielded some influence over a group of teenage girls in Puerto Rico. I also explore the possibility of looking at Madonna as a liberating icon and as a symbol for Puerto Rican young women's empowerment during the 1980s. [End Page 118]

"La Isla Bonita":
Puerto Rico, Economic Context, And Gender Relations

Madonna's music reached Puerto Rico in the 1980s, a time when women were struggling for a place in that society's public sphere. At the same time, Puerto Rico was emerging slowly but definitely from being the industrial society it had become between 1940 to 1970 to become a service economy in a postindustrial society. The changes in the economic base were producing changes in other dimensions of the social structure as well. For instance, in the domestic unit, a service economy meant that women had to be educated in order to work outside the home and help their families subsist in the new economic order. Before, from the 1940s to the 1970s, women had worked mostly in textile factories and related industries, which required little, if any, education or training at all. The need for skilled and educated workers in the new service economy gave women incentive to pursue higher education. As a result, more women began a college education in the 1980s than ever before, and by the last decade more than 50 percent of the college population was comprised of women, although most educated women were funneled into specific careers such as nursing, teaching, and secretarial work. 1 More women in general were entering the workforce than ever before. In addition, more women were running for electioned office (though they were still a small minority) and were otherwise more politically active. Because women were stepping into the public sphere, the "double shift" became a much more common experience in women's lives. Women worked a double shift when they became a more visible part of the public sphere but continued to be responsible for fulfilling traditional roles. In essence, they were still responsible not only for the traditional household chores, and for the safety and nurturing of the family members, but also for nurturing members of the extended family such as parents, grandparents, and siblings. As Edna Acosta-Belén pointed out in 1986, "The Puerto Rican woman still continues to be the center of the home...

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