Of Celestinas and Saints, or Deconstructing the Myths of Dominican Womanhood

In the historiography of gender in the Dominican Republic, the stories of female martyrs loom large, substituting maternalist sacrifice for a more substantial treatment of women in the national narrative. This is particularly true for the twentieth century, in which the female collaborators with the authoritarian regimes of Rafael Trujillo (1930–61) and Joaquín Balaguer (1966–78) act as villainous foils for their saintly counterparts. This latent historiographical violence against women—in addition to the actual physical violence inflicted by the regimes—has created historical silences that work against reconciling with this difficult period in the Dominican past. This essay deconstructs the mythification of female actors in the historiography and argues that the dominant narratives of “evil” and “saintly” women stilt understandings of the past, perpetuate a paternalist model of governance, and frame women’s political participation around rigid expectations of maternal behavior and sexual propriety.