Gender and Politics in Contemporary Haiti: The Duvalierist State, Transnationalism, and the Emergence of a New Feminism (1980-1990)

Author(s): Carolle Charles Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), pp. 135-164 Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3178323 Accessed: 12/05/2009 20:22
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GENDER AND POLITICS IN CONT'EMPORARYHAITI: THE DUVATTFRIST STATE, TRANSNATIONALISM, AND THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW FEMINISM (1980-1990)

CAROLLE CHARLES The September 1991 military coup in Haiti interrupted the process of democratizationbegun in the mid-1980s and culminating with the uprooting of the thirty-year dictatorship of the Duvalier family and the first democratic election in 1990 with the victory of Aristide. The military intervention resulted in state-inflicted and state-sanctioned human and civil rights abuses, including political assassination, detention, massacres, torture of prisoners, and disappearances. Both women and men suffered these abuses because of their actual and imputed political beliefs and actions. Yet women, as many human rights groups in Haiti reported, were also subject to other forms of political violence, in particular,rape. Uniformed military personnel and their civilian allies systematically attacked women's organizations and individuals, inflicting on them sexspecific abuses.1 The brutality of the repression against women was part of a strategy to intimidate, punish, and terrorize all women's organizations, groups, and individuals who fought against repression, defending women and other democratic rights. The terrifying assaults on women were part of a broad strategy to depoliticize society. However-as in other Latin American societies where the military exercises control through repression-the goal was also to destroy gender identity and to eliminate the women's movements that had emerged in the last two decades. In Haiti, that women's movement had played a crucial role in the 1990 election of the first democratic governFeminist Studies 21, no. 1 (spring 1995). ? 1995 by Feminist Studies Inc. 135

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ment in the country'shistory2 Indeed, during the 1980s, the political landscape in Haiti had undergone some fundamental changes, with the emergence of social movements comprising, among others, many women's organizations and feminist groups.3 Womenorganized food riots and school stoppages, mobilized in grassroots movements, and formedtheir own organizations.The period marked also the incorporation of women's demands into the political agenda, because the 1986 overthrowof the thirty-year dictatorship of the Duvalier regime opened a democratic space into which women could enter as a new collective subject. Women's increased mobilization even influenced a "feminism from female presiabove,"with the 1990 nomination of an "interim" dent and three female secretaries of state in 1991.4 The explosion of these new political forces, defined in the literature as "newsocial movements,"is not a specificallyHaitian phenomenon. Such social dynamics have been one of the most important features of new social processes in many Latin American and Caribbeancountries, remodelingtraditional politics or models of political mobilization.5Based on consensus rather than formal representation, these movements tend to bypass traditional/formalpolitical organizations and claim direct participationin the political process for groups traditionally excluded from sociopolitical life.6 Women's organizations have constituted one of the core components of these movements, bringing distinct and differing claims and perspectives to them.7 What is singular about the Haitian women's movement is the specific dynamics, during the last three decades, of gender relations both in the household and the society vis-a-vis the state. The particular relationship of gender to the authoritarian state under the dictatorial Duvalier regime has shaped the configuration of women's consciousness, demands and claims, and forms of organizing.8 This article argues that the emergence of a new Haitian women's movement in the last two decades-the target of the repressive policy of the military state-had its roots in two processes: the gendering of state violence under the Duvalier regime through the construct of women as "politicalsubjects" and the transnationalization of gender struggles with the mas-

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sive migration-from the mid-sixties on-of Haitian labor to North America. This article examines both the national context and the developmentof women's organizations and struggles in the diaspora over the last forty years. It looks at their interconnectedness and their relations to structures of power at the level of the state and civil society. Three main sources of data inform the argument: secondary ethnographicand sociohistorical analyses, participant observation in Haiti and in Haitian communities in North America, and informal group and individual interviews with various Haitian women. GENDER AND STATE UNDER r'HE DUVATTIER REGIME An important area of research among feminists in Latin America and the Caribbean concerns the relations of state and gender. Many writers have sought to understand the ways in which state institutions, policies, and ideologies are gendered. Moreover,feminist scholars have raised a number of questions about gender, political life, and the state. There has been a quest to understand how the state defines the parameters of politics; how it reinforces female subordination;how it may aggravate, elaborate, or displace forms of gender oppression. In their analyses, greater sensitivity is given to the particular context of states and their internal structures. Gender regimes in liberal states of advanced industrial societies tend to operate through a discourse marked by a "neutral" definition of citizenship and individual rights. However, such features tend to be absent under the regime of an authoritarian state. In societies like Haiti with weakly developed civil society, women are barely recognized as equal citizens and political actors but are legally defined as dependent wives and daughters. Thus, although women may gain the right to vote, there is no fundamental change in their legal and social position.9 From its inception, the Haitian state has operated through the discrimination and exclusion of women. Although the creation of the modern Haitian state was the result of the first victorious slave revolution in the world-in which women were active participants-the process was gendered. The central dimensions of the relationship between the state and the new citizenry also centered around the role of women.

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In fact, the gender dimension in state practices took shape in the southern region of the country even before independence. In the south, the transition from slavery to freedom went through a phase of semi-wage, semi-sharecroppingthat faced strong resistance, particularly from former women slaves. Women began to protest, demanding equal pay for equal work, for although they were subject to the same regulations as their male coworkers, they received only two-thirds the pay. Thus, the set of social and economicrelations existing under slavery were being altered, and new gendered relations were emerging. In order to silence women, representatives of the state began to appeal to the maleness of former slaves. This is revealed in a declaration of the French representative, Etienne Polverel, on February7, 1794.
It is not against the owner; it is against yourselves, against their men, that the women formulate these exaggerated pretensions. They do not want any consideration to be given to the inequality of strength that nature has placed between them and the men, to the habitual and periodic infirmities, to the intervals of rest which their pregnancies, their childbirth, their nursing, oblige them to take. These men, whose advantageous portion of the revenues they covet, work, save, and desire money only to be able to lavish it on their women. Africans, if you want to make your women listen to reason, listen to reason yourselves.10

The central role of gender in the formation of the state became crystallized in the many constitutions promulgated in Haiti between 1801 and 1950. A systematic politics of exclusion became the hallmark of the charters of Haitian society where, until 1979, married women were legally minors. Up to the U.S. occupation in 1915, all Haitian constitutions put conditions on the rights of citizenship and access to property for Haitian women married to foreigners.1' Feminists in Latin America and the Caribbean have analyzed the direct impact of militarization and authoritarian regimes on the life of women. In particular,many studies have focused on the ways in which the ideology of motherhoodmay foster or constrain women's participation in political life. Particular attention is given to gender identity that relies on motherhood as the basis for resistance and social change. The struggles of the Argentine "madres"and the development of women's organizations around the issues of human rights in Brazil and Chile promptednew analyses that assessed mother-

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hood as the subversion of ideology when women-as mothers, daughters, and wives-confronted the systematic repressive policies of an authoritarian regime. As Patricia M. Chuchryk emphasizes, the types of protests and the forms of women's political participation that emerged during the 1970s in Latin America represent a "redefinitionof both motherhoodand politics. It is a redrawing of the gendered lines of public space to include the claims of mothers against the state." On the other hand, authoritarian states may also use motherhood and the family to depoliticizewomen.12 Authoritarianregimes, economicdeprivation,poverty,disease, human rights violations, and corruption are not new to Haitian history. Yet, the Duvalierist state was a novelty because of the level of state corruptionand the degree to which state vioThe Duvalierist state also targetlence was institutionalized.13 women in a systematic way, redefining forms of gender oped pression. In contrast to other dictatorial regimes of Latin America that appeal to the image of the suffering, self-sacrificing, patriotic mother who has no place in the political arena, the Duvalierist state focused on a "patrioticwoman"whose allegiance was first to Duvalier's nation and state. Any woman or man who did not adhere to these policies became an enemy subject to political repression. Duvalier always proclaimed: "Myonly enemies are those of my country." Ironically,the gendered politics and ideology of the Duvalierist state created a paradox, the increased politicization and raised consciousness of women and their transformation into political agents of social change. Violence and force always constitute a central feature of any state, yet strong civil societies limit and codify its use. In societies like Haiti where authoritarian regimes have always been part of the sociopoliticallandscape, the limits to state violence In have tended to be defined by cultural codes.14 Haiti, women, and old people were defined as political innocents. children, Because women, in particular,were viewed by the state as beof ing dependents, they had the "privilege" not being subjected to state violence. Under the Duvalierist state, however,systematic repressive policies undermined the prevailing conception of women as passive political actors, devoted mothers, and political innocents.

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For all political sectors, the coming to power of the Duvaliers marked the entry of ironfisted policies. All political and social organizations were outlawed. Opposition newspapers were shut down; unions were disbanded. More importantly,the Duvalierist state began to use gender as a central element in asserting power and domination.In a country where the ideology of women's weakness was strong, the regime's indiscriminate use of violence against women and children was also a negation of the previous paternalist discourse of the state and a violation of the cultural codes of Haitian patriarchy.Women began to be detained, tortured, exiled, raped, and executed. Ironically, state violence created, for the first time, gender equality.15 One of the first actions taken by the Duvalierist military force, the "TontonMacoutes" (at the time known as "cagoulards"),signaled this departurefrom past policies. In July 1958, the feminist editor and anti-Duvalierist activist Yvonne Hakime Rimpel was kidnapped, beaten, and raped. This event transgressing traditional patriarchal standards-sent a chill through both the political and the journalistic communities.16 Thereafter, the gender of those in the opposition did not prevent repression or torture. As many women refugees and political exiles testify, women were held accountable not only for their own actions but also for those of their relatives.17 The Duvalierist state would restructure and redefine gender roles and representation with two constructed categories of women: a reappropriatedhistorical gender symbol represented by a rebellious slave woman, Marie Jeanne, who as a new constructed category,was transformedinto "unefille de la revolution" (daughter of the revolution) and became an integral part of the state paramilitaryforces;and, parallel to the new "Marie Jeanne," another woman-the enemy of the state and the nation. Women who were not loyal to the Duvalierist cause were defined primarilyas subversive,unpatriotic,and "unnatural." the Paradoxically, creation of the categoryof "MarieJeannes" access to social mobility of a few women in the Black midgave dle class. Yet, this form of "state feminism"had a morbid side. For instance, Duvalier nominated a woman as commander-inchief of its notorious paramilitary forces, the TontonMacoutes. Abuse of women by women was the commonform of torture for suspected political opponents. It is reported that the comman-

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der-in-chiefused to burn the pubic hair of women arrested for opposition to the regime. All the Duvalierist congresswomen were prominent members of the Tonton Macoutes, giving them access to wealth and privileges. The Duvalierist state could manipulate gender categories and ideologies for its own political purpose. Silencing women as political citizens, it also appealed to their patriotism. The relationship of the Duvalierist state to gender relations shows how gender role and identity is not static in its social production and representation.'8 What is also important to note is how the state could use gender symbols and discourses as a central element in asserting power and domination. The level of repression during the dictatorship left no space for the development of an autonomous women's movement. Up to 1965, a few women belonging to leftist organizations continued to mobilize women's sections of these organizations;however, the majority of their activities focused on the national liberation struggle. Similarly, up to 1963, some women trade unionists were still active.'1Because of the systematic use of state violence by the Duvalierist regime, Haitian women became increasingly aware of their role and were able to situate themselves within the political framework of the struggle for democracy.Yet, this new self-definition and sense of having a role to play in the political life of the country could become possible only with the massive immigration of Haitians and creation of many Haitian diasporas in Europe and the Americas. It is mainly in the Haitian immigrant communities in North America that women were able to reorganize their movement and feminist struggles. In that new political space, Haitian female activists who participated in the struggles against the regime could claim that they too had paid their dues in the struggle against the dictatorship and should gain political recognition. This new consciousness was a form of empowerment that would favor the growth of feminist groups among Haitian women, in particular in the various communities of North America where the new Haitian women's movement often emerged against the resistance of male-controlled political organizations.

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IN WOMEN'S"PLACES" HAITIAN SOCIAL STRUCTURE The emergence and development of Haitian feminist consciousness and the development of various women's organizations can indeed be seen as a paradox. Gender roles, household relations, and conjugalmating patterns reinforceHaitian women's subordination. Women's "place"is still defined in relation to home and domesticity even in progressive circles. Even in households where women have a relatively independent economic role, authority resides largely with the senior male. In Haiti, the dominant sexual discourse classifies sexual and conjugal relations in polarized terms-with marriage at one extreme and prostitution and adultery at the other. The ideology of marriage is strong in spite of the fact that more than 40 percent of conjugal relations are not legally sanctioned.20Moreover, because of poverty and widespread corruptionamong the urban middle class, particularly during the Duvalier regime, men competed with each other to acquire the greater number of mistresses. As Mireille Neptune-Anglade argues, the gender division of labor in Haiti leaves to women the bulk of the responsibility for creating and reproducingwealth for men and Indeed, poor women and those of certain middle-class capital.21 segments are the most oppressed and exploited groups in Haitian society. It is in this context of deprivation that Myrtho Celestin-Sorel-one of the female ministers of the Aristide government-stated in 1986: "What is being a woman in Haiti? We have to be women in a society of deprivation and poverty, of survival and misery, of repression and corruption."22 The shaping of Haitian women's demands and forms of organizations are intertwined in this dynamic. From that specific context would emerge struggles for a more meaningful and complete recognition of women as historical subjects and social agents. Among Latin American and Caribbean states, Haiti is distinctive in many ways. As the former St. Domingue-France's richest colony during the eighteenth century-its wealth derived from sugar, coffee, and cotton produced by slave labor. Yet 200 years after the most successful slave revolution in human history, the first Black republic and the second indepenHaiti is dent state in the Western hemisphere is in shambles.23 now the poorest countryin the region. With an estimated popu-

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lation of around six million, the average annual per capita income was around $270 in the 1980s. More than 80 percent of the population had an average income of less than $100 per A year.24 counterpart to that extreme poverty is the extraordinary concentration of wealth and privilege. In Haiti, less than 10 percent of the population received more than 46 percent of the national income. Wealth and power have been concentrated in the hands of a small economic elite of Creole whites, mulattoes, and Blacks supported by a violent military institution. These groups rule through an alliance with a small urban middle class residing mostly in the capital. The result is a centralized structure of decision making in all spheres of life. To that extreme class and power inequality are added cleavages of color, language, religion, and culture, separating the rural, poor, illiterate mass of peasants from the urban, educated, and affluent elites. The majority of women in this elite hold their positions through marriage. More than 60 percent of the total Haitian populationlives off agriculture,yet the rural population is rigidly stratified. There are three important social groups and all tend to be of African descent. The first two comprise no more than 10 percent of the rural population out of which a small segment (about 2 percent) is an integral part of the Haitian oligarchy.They are large landowners, using wage labor and sharecroppers,and various middlemen who buy from the peasants and sell to the export houses. This group also contains some local merchants and politicians who are able to exercise extra market mechanisms of control over their peasant clientele.25A small minority of women belong to this affluent rural elite, and some have held state positions. Indeed, since the 1940s, about 40 percent of the personnel in the upper administration of the state, in particular under Duvalier, came from that social group.26 This extreme on the state has been the basis of power and of acdependence cumulation of wealth for the Black middle class.27 In the urban areas, particularly in Port-au-Princeand CapHaitien, the industrial and commercial sector of the oligarchy dominates. Made up primarily of Creole whites and mulattoes, this sector represents the most powerful segment of the dominant ruling group and has been the primary financier of the military coup. As a group, these people, many of whom are pro-

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fessionals, own 40 percent of the country'swealth and are disaggregated into an import/export and an industrial sector. Haitian families of European descent controlthe import-substitution sector.They have invested in finance, and some are also In large landowners.28 contrast, commerce and off-shore production activities are controlledby Haitian mulattoes or those of Arab descent. Members of this segment of the Haitian oligarchy are interrelated by kinship and friendship ties. The role of gender in reproducingracial and ethnic stratification and inequalities is crucial. Most of the women in that group owe their position to marital and familial networks, and a high value is placed on mulatto women as objectsin marital exchanges.29 At the bottom of the Haitian class system are the majority of Haitian working women and men. In this mix of poor peasants, workers, and some segments of the middle class, women's participation is significant. Womenmake up 48 percent of the work force both in the urban and rural areas. Large numbers of women workers are found in the ranks of the Haitian peasantry composed of landless wage earners and independent small landholders (with an average land tenure of three acres). Many independent peasants also farm land through a This indethe system of "metayage," form of sharecropping.30 uses mainly family labor, and there is a pendent peasantry strict gender division of labor in household productive activities. In addition to household chores, women are responsible for selling all food crops for the internal market; they are also the link between the small rural gardens and the urban consumers. Men, in contrast, are the main commercial agents of export crops.31 In the urban area, women's participation in the paid labor force has increased with the emergence in the 1970s of new industries that import its raw materials, manufacture goods in Haiti, and export finished products to the United States. In Haiti, as in many zones of off-shore production,young women The constitute an important pool of cheap labor.32 rate of partifor Haitian women in the manufacturing sector varies cipation from 40 to 70 percent; most workers are young females beThis systematic gendertween the ages of fifteen and thirty.33 of the work force has a striking effect on the patterns of ing In rural-to-urbanmigration.34 poor and some middle-class ur-

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ban households, women are responsible for most household chores.35Nearly one-half of urban households are femaleheaded. The configuration of a system of hierarchy, inequality, and domination that has characterized Haitian social life is reinforced by a political structure which since the period of independence has generated authoritarian regimes. Moreover,the U.S. military occupation of Haiti, that lasted from 1915 until 1934 and crystallized in the emergence of the United States as the dominant power in the Caribbean, entailed centralization and of all activities in Port-au-Prince36 also aimed at pacifying the countryside. With the increased resistance to the occupation that came mostly from the peasantry, policies were implemented to massively displace the population and use dispossessed peasants as a labor pool for the U.S.-controlledsugar industry in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Thus, the conditions to convert Haiti into a main exporter of labor through miThe occupation also forced many midgration were created.37 dle-class Blacks to migrate to the capital, where access to state power was the only avenue for social mobility and source of income. From their ranks rose political figures such as Duvalier and many of the military officers who took control after the fall of the dictatorshipin 1986. During the occupation, and after, U.S. representatives also played on racial conflicts inherited from the colonial period, favoring mulatto regimes up to 1957 and thus reinforcing the It hegemony of the mulatto fraction of the oligarchy.38 was also during this period that the Haitian army was created.39 As a result, during the 1940s a movement led by middleclass Blacks emerged. Differentiating itself from the traditional ruling groups, using color politics and a populist ideology, this new class movement seized power and was able to secure and maintain its hegemony over the state. The Duvalierist reThe gime was the offspring of this movement.40 most important hallmark of its regime would be greed, corruption,and repression. Systematic efforts to extort the population were implemented; a state of terror ensued. Thus, the victory of Aristide in 1990 challenged not only the status quo but also the position of this intermediate class from which most of the military officers emerged. Ironically, the 1991 military coup forced this

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class to realign itself with the traditional oligarchy in an attempt to prevent the entry in the political arena of the new "subaltern" classes and social groups.41 FEMINIST STRUGGLES IN HAITI Until the political upheavals of the 1980s, the majority of Haitian women did not participate in formal politics. Despite the fact that Haitian women were the backbone of all the political struggles in the country's history, they gained suffrage only in 1950. Suzy Castor, in the opening of a seminar on Haitian women organized in Haiti in 1986, remarked: "During the long political life of Haiti as a nation, the contributions of women to the struggles against the oligarchy and for democracy were significant. Yet, their political roles have not been recognized. Like all the other "subalterns"their history has been obscured.... There is an historical erasure of [woman's] condition."42 Indeed, the historical accounts ignore the important participation of Haitian women in the antislavery and anticolonial war of independence during the early nineteenth century. References to the political role of women tended to focus on the benevolent actions of the wives of leaders. Yet resistance took many forms, including suicide, poisoning, participation in "marronage"and rebellions. Black slave women killed their children and performedabortions as a way to set the terms for controlof their sexuality and reproduction.43 It was during the last years of the U.S. occupation of Haiti that Haitian women began to formulate their specific demands in an organized way. In 1934, a group of female intellectuals, professionals, and community leaders from privileged backgrounds created an association for the political and social enfranchisement of women. In a week's time, their members grew to about a hundred, including many teachers and social workers. Many of the leaders had participated in the national resistance movement against the occupation.44The original claims of the association focused on the relations to the state and were timid in regard to household relations, yet it also suffered from its narrow class perspectives and from conflicting interests within the organization.45 Nonetheless, the scope of

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the association's demands provoked strong societal opposition and it dissolved three months later. A few of the association's former members, however, reorganized into a new association, the Ligue Feminine d'ActionSociale, that same year. With a modest program, the Ligue became a legal organization. Most of the group's struggles would focus on legal rights such as access to higher education, suffrage, and modificationof the codes pertaining to the legal status of married women. Although the Ligue was successful in obtaining women's right to vote in 1950 and eventually women's entry to the university, by the late 1950s its activities had been reduced to philanthropy. The development of the Ligue, between 1934 and 1957, was closely linked to the political crisis resulting from the U.S. occupation and the emergence of the nationalist movement. Thus, the struggles for gender issues were closely intertwined with the general course of national and class struggles. Indeed, the Ligue, which represented the interests of middle-class women, was unable to reconcile and to include in its agenda the concerns of the majority of Haitian working women. For the Ligue, female suffrage was important because it also opened the doorto public office for women, facilitating social mobility for a privileged minority.46 Interestingly, the Ligue brought many women primarily defined as wives and mothers into the political arena. But, more importantly,the Ligue, in mobilizing for female suffrage,forced the newly elected Duvalierist regime to redefine the meanings and role of gender relationships vis-a-vis the state. In Haiti, in a bitter twist of fate, gaining access to the vote entailed the elimination of "protective"paternalist state policies that defined women as dependent persons. The brutally repressive regime of the Duvaliers' dictatorshipwas to turn Haitian women into full political subjects.47 THE TRANSNATIONALTZATION OF HAITIAN WOMEN'S STRUGGLES Two important elements have shaped the development of gender struggle within the North American Haitian communities, particularly in the United States: the organized opposition to

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the thirty-year Duvalier dictatorship and opposition to the negative portrayals and racist policies of the Canadian and U.S. governments. In addition, exposure of many Haitian women to the ideas and discourses of North American feminist movements have added a new element to that struggle. The first exodus of Haitians in the 1960s included many of Duvalier's political opponents and an important nucleus of bourgeois mulatto families. This was followed in the late 1970s and early 1980s by large components of middle-class and working-class Haitians. In 1961, there were around 7,000 Haitians in New York,but by 1967, that number had increased to more than 40,000 Haitians, many of them undocumented. By the mid-1980s, there were approximately500,000 Haitians living in the United States and Canada, out of which more than 300,000 lived in the New YorkCity area.4 In the New York area, although there was no exclusive geographical concentrationof Haitians, there was a clear collective consciousnessof being Haitian, reinforcedby language, a strong nationalism, and a distinct identification of Blackness. This uniqueness found expression in numerous Haitian clubs, student organizations, churches, political groups, community organizations, and private businesses. At an earlier phase, these organizationshad tended to be differentiatedby class, color,and regional place of origin. Since the 1980s, many other voluntary associations have emerged to reinforceHaitian ethnic identity. Some were oriented toward maintaining cultural and social links with Haiti, others were economic and political organizations; some strove to meet the spiritual and religious needs of their members, and others were geared toward an integration into U.S. society,one that did not imply completeassimilation. The first Haitian immigrants in New York City found jobs Over time, with more knowledge of Engmostly in factories.49 lish and more experience in the labor market, some began to move into white-collarjobs, starting at the lowest positions in, for example, financial and service institutions on Wall Street. Others went into business on their own, opening gas stations or working as electricians, cleaning contractors, or grocers. With the massive arrival of more immigrants, the bulk of Haitian workers became concentrated in manufacturing and services as semiskilled and unskilled labor.

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At the beginning, the migration process was transnational. Relationships and links between the society of origin and that The creation of diaspora communiof destination developed.50 to Haiti played an important role in ties with intensive ties the shaping of a Haitian women's movement in the 1970s. Women account for 55 percent of the total of the immigrants. At first, many women worked as maids; some worked in hospitals and nursing homes as nurse's aides and, increasingly, as registered nurses. Others were employed as secretaries in private firms and a few in African missions to the United Nations. In the 1980s, a majority of women worked in hotels, restaurants, and hospitals. The 1990 census indicated that about 35 percent of Haitian workers held white-collar positions and that many Haitian women now occupy positions as physicians, nurses, accountants, teachers, or laboratorytechnicians.51 For many Haitian women, migration has been a mixed experience. On the one hand, it brought conflict over ascribed soOn cial and sexual roles and identities.52 the other hand, it empowered women, particularly if they were married and middle class. For many poor, working-class women, migration may have increased burdens and responsibilities with the loss of the extended family setting. Nonetheless, the experience of migration generally entailed a change in women's control over resources in the household.53 It is the area of political life, an area where Haitian women had usually been excluded, that the greatest changes occurred. Haitian women were able to bring their agenda to the political arena by creating new women's organizations, some with the support of and at times within male-centered political groups with the goal of mobilizing against the Duvalierist regime. Others emerged from conflicts around issues of gender and were clear expressions of a need for political autonomy. Two periods are visible in the development of the women's organizations. The first is associated with the formation in 1970 of the "PatrioticMovement,"a broad coalition of leftistoriented and nationalist groups opposed to the Duvalier regime. The second began in the early 1980s with the increased influx of Haitian refugees and organizing to celebrate the United Nations Decade for Women. During the first period, two important women's groups

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emerged in Montreal and New York.In Montreal RAFA(Rally of Haitian Women) was created in 1973 and transformed in 1979 into Neges Vanyan (Valiant Women) and in New York UFAP (Union of Patriotic Haitian Women).Both organizations saw their formation within the broad framework of a socialist and anti-imperialist struggle. RAFAwas initiated by many women from progressive circles in Haiti. They belonged to UFH (Union des Femmes Haitiennes), a coalition of many women's sections of clandestine leftist parties, particularlythe Haitian Communist party.Many of these women were political exiles and had extensive links with the international socialist movement, particularlywith various communist parties in the West and Latin America. In Montreal, in addition to their activities in opposition to the dictatorship, many leftist organizations were highly active in community work. Because the majority of their clients were female Haitian immigrants, those women saw the need to organize a women's group.As a member of RAFA/NegesVanyan stated in 1984: "Manyof us worked together in various community programs at the Maison d'Haiti. We knew about collective work. Moreover,we were attentive to many women's issues because many of our clients were women. Ourselves, we had experienced difficulties because of our status as single women, as mothers, and as Black. We were thus very conscious of Haitian women's problems.54 For RAFA/NegesVanyan, gender subordination was part of the many problems faced by Haitian immigrants. Thus, the creation of a women's organization responded to a need to further organize the community.The organization set three main goals: commitment to their community work; solidarity with and support of militants in Haiti, including women, who were fighting for the liberation of the people and their democratic rights; and networking and solidarity with the international women's movement. Regardingthe latter, RAFA/NegesVanyan was very active in international activities. In 1972, they participated in the first congress of Black women in Canada;in 1975, in collaborationwith other women, RAFA published the first document on the political situation of women living in Haiti, focusing on the conditions of women political prisoners. Members of RAFA/Neges Vanyan went to women's conferences in

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East Berlin in 1975, Panama in 1977, Moscow in 1978 and 1979, and Cuba in 1978. At all these meetings, delegates, most of whom were former political prisoners of the Duvalierist testified on torture and repression of women in Haiti. regime,55 With the uprooting of the Duvalier regime in 1986, many of the women of RAFA/Neges Vanyan returned to Haiti. Many were at the forefront in creating new feminist organizations such as Femmes d'Haiti. In New York, the trajectory of UFAP was similar.56 Indeed, the political leftist organization from which UFAP emerged was organized by dissident members of the Haitian Communist party. The main aim of UFAP was to mobilize Haitian women for antidictatorial and anti-imperialist struggle. From the outset, UFAP claimed that its political and ideological oriforms of feminism which were, it entation rejected all "liberal" based on a denial of class exploitation. For UFAP,only claimed, revolution would end women's oppression. Therefore, a women's movement had to work first for the liberation of Haiti as a basis for women's liberation. UFAP had a short political life, disappearingfrom the scene by the mid-1970s. In contrast to UFAP and RAFA/NegesVanyan, the Canadian Point de Ralliement (Rallying Force)emerged by separating itself from the male-centered patriotic and anti-Duvalierist movement. As the women in Point de Ralliement stated:
We felt a "malaise"in the community. Women were criticized and blamed for all the problems. We were accused of lacking certain attributes when compared with Canadian, in particular, Quebec women. It seemed that Haitian men did not face any difficulty in their integration into Canadian society. Parallel to that situation, we were also in a process of critical reflection of the host society and of ourselves. Because of that self-searching and because of discussions with our Canadian female co-workers,we began to understand that despite the differences we shared the same problems; only the effects and manifestations of women's conditions separated us.57

For the women in Point de Ralliement consciousness of their subordination developed out of a situation of conflict with the male leadership of the mixed organizations. By challenging male dominance and through their discussion with Canadian women, they decided to mobilize Haitian women in order to advance gender issues. They acknowledgedthat, in spite of racial and cultural differences, Haitian immigrant women were subject, like the women in Quebec, to the same sexist oppres-

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sion. Although Point de Ralliement wanted to integrate women of all class backgrounds, its membership consisted of middleclass women. Most of the group's activities centered around consciousness raising. The organization continued to maintain its socialist and anti-imperialist position, yet its primary objective was to maintain its autonomy vis-a-vis the Left. As one member commented:"Wewere socialist but we wanted to keep our autonomy vis-a-vis all international ideological trends and/ or models which do not fit our reality. We do not want to be part of any rigid party structure. This does not prevent our solidarity with the international feminist movement."58 Followingthe creation of UFAP and Point de Ralliement and the 1975 United Nations Resolution on Women, many other Haitian women's groups were formed in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The most prominent in Montreal were Fanm and the Association of Haitian Nurses, and in New York the Haitian Women'sAd Hoc Committee for the Decade, which participated in the United Nations Decade for WomenNairobi conference in 1985. In the community at large, the struggles for the national liberation of Haiti from the Duvalier regime were the priority.However,eventually, most of these groups began to focus specifically on women's issues, especially the problems encounteredby women when working within the national political organizations, within their households, and in the societies to which they immigrated and settled. WOMEN IN THE MAKING OF A NEW CIVIL SOCIETY By the early 1980s, an incipient democratic movement had surfaced in Haiti itself. Many women who had lived in the diaspora and had participated in some form of opposition work had returned. By 1986, the growth of the democratic movement led to the overthrowof the Duvalier regime. In this political climate came the possibility for the return of diaspora women, who then actively participated in a "new"Haitian women's movement. The presence and rate of participation of diaspora women in most of the new Haiti-based groups was striking. At least 60 percent of the members in groups such as Fanm D'Ayiti (Women of Haiti), Comite Feminin (Feminist Committee), SOFA (Worker Solidarity with Haitian Women),

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or Kay Fanm (Women's House) resided at one time outside Haiti. Although the real impact of their experiences in the diaspora still needs to be assessed, it is clear that most of the new forms of women's organizations as well as other types of popular movements have been influenced by these returning immigrants. Although the structural roots of the Duvalier regime's weakness lay in the global socioeconomiccrisis of the early 1980s, it was working women and men whose organizing and mobilizing culminated in the overthrow of the dictatorship.Haitian women were at the forefront of this movement. In the beginning, their participation in these events was not organized around issues related to gender; they were part of a general insurgency that demanded work, full political rights, and other changes. But, on April 3, 1986, more than 30,000 women took to the streets of Port-au-Prince,reiterating their demands for jobs, full political rights, and the elimination of all forms of prostitution and gender discrimination. At least fifteen women's groups and organizations,representing quite different perspectives, social backgrounds,and world outlooks, participated in the demonstration.59 The April 3 demonstration was a surprising event, reflecting Haitian women's growing consciousness and self-identification as a new collective subject for social change.60Yet women's awareness of their own political role was already revealed in their participation and organizing of the food riots of 1984 and in their protests against high prices for fuel and gasoline a year later. Political history often ignores women's political roles and activities which often take place outside the "formal" arena of politics.61The participation of Haitian women in the abovementioned protests are cases in point. In both events, women were the main organizers of the protests. At a societal level, the riots constituted a struggle by working people for control of resources, but food and fuel shortages were also a gender issue. Through their massive participation, along with children, in these riots, Haitian women demonstrated as female members of households, whose expected roles were severely compromised by the cost and scarcity of two staple commodities.Thus, a seemingly economic struggle was transformed into a gendered political struggle.

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By 1986, women, particularly in the rural areas, had integrated religious, community-based,cultural, and peasant organizations. The leadership of two peasant movements, Tet Kole (Put Our Heads to Work) and Tet Ansanm (Let's Unite Our Heads) has included many women. These peasant social movements demanded land reform and worked to bring basic services to their communities.62 Similarly, women of the Papaye Peasant Movementwere the first to march demanding not only equality of civil and political rights, but also demanding rights to work, to leisure time, and to education.63 The history of women's organizing in Papaye is worth noting. In 1972, the Catholic Church founded a training center at Papaye for catechism and agriculture. Soon, it became clear that the problems of the peasants were not simply technical but, rather, rooted in injustice and exploitation. This led to the creation of MPP (Papaye Peasant Movement),with twenty peasants. By the end of 1973 there were two groups of twenty members each. In 1976, the movement increased to thirty-nine groups. Each group had one woman member whose main tasks were to cook and attend to the needs of male members. In 1978, MPP began a project of education on storage and retail trade of agricultural goods. Because women constituted the main traders of agricultural products, it became important to integrate them into the project. In spite of the resistance of many male members, this marked the beginning of the formation of a women's movement. At the beginning women were part of the already formed peasant groups,but by 1980 autonomous women's groups had developed. In 1980, one women's group existed; by 1983 the number had increased to six. In 1991 before the military coup, there were 400 women's groups with 4,500 members.At that time, women's groups represented one-fifthof MPP membership.6 In 1988, MPP women organizedtheir first women's congress. They participated in all programs organized by MPP. The group's goal has been to establish a society where all people can have a decent life. The MPP women also organized specific activities such as family planning, sex education, homemaking, marketing, and storage. They also have had an independent national assembly. The novelty of this new movement rests in its multidimensional nature and in its dynamics. The struggle has been to or-

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ganize poor peasants and to secure a more equitable distribution of economicresources and of political power for both women and men. But, the objective is also equality of rights and full citizenship for women. At the same time, the movement stands for the rights of women to assert their differenceby creating their own organizations. By 1990, there had been a proliferation of women's groups and feminist organizations in Haiti, differingin social composition, goals, and objectives.Traditional women's clubs and philanthropic groups such as the Ligue, the Club des Femmes de Carriere(Club of Professional Women),the Association des Anciennes de Ste Rose de Lima (Female Alumnae of St. Rose), under the leadership of middle-class women, have tended to center their efforts on basic services like healthcare, or lowering infant mortality, or providing education for the poor. Others, like Fanm d'Ayiti, Kay Fanm, or Ligue des Femmes Rurales (League of Rural Women), have focused on survival issues, work for social and economic change, and, no less important, for the political recognition that women are not second-class citizens. The trend has spread throughout the country. In Haiti's north-west area, for example, more than forty women's groups have worked with the church, establishing identity through consciousness raising and making demands for economic and social equality. Although in urban areas it has been more difficult to organize women, one can observe a similar dynamic. and "informal" sectors Among working women of the "formal" of the economy,women have focused on basic needs and economic equality and citizenship rights and identity. Two urban organizations, Kay Fanm which works with domestic workers, and CPFO (Center for Promotion of Working Women), which works with women employed in the export processing industries, share this focus. Many women also have been participating in cultural groups opposing the Western-orienteddominant cultural ideology. These groups are part of the social movements attempting to reclaim the more African-orientedcultural practices and identities of the majority of the Haitian population. At the same time, issues of gender and class inequality have been part of their agenda. For example, the organization Zantray (Roots), which promotes popular culture, has been

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mainly led by women and has been sensitive to women's specific demands for childcare, literacy, and access to credit and land.65 During the elections of 1990, the majority of these women's organizations united in the Lavalas Movement, an umbrella social movement representing various progressive social groups and mobilizing around a wide range of issues from daily survival to human and civil rights, from political representation to gender issues. This movement supported Haiti's first democratically elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide. In September 1991, a civilian-military coup toppled the newly elected Aristide government within months, temporarily closing the democraticspace. From the first days of the coup a systematic strategy to destroy all organizational activities was implemented. For example, MPP's offices were attacked and looted. More than 3,000 members went into hiding. Women's rights activists reported specific incidences in which their members or organizations were attacked. Their houses were ransacked, and they were continuously threatened with rape if they continued their work on behalf of women. The office of Kay Fanm was completely destroyed by fire. The assault on women was even more evident in the countryside where activists were more easily identified. As one member of a woman's organizationstated: "Thisrepression is especially directed at women because in this society women have no right to organize."66 Surprisingly, in March women's organizations were able to organize the 1993, many first conferenceon Violence against Gender,in spite of the state of siege imposed by the repressive military regime.67 CONCLUSION This article attempts to analyze the roots of a new Haitian women's feminist movement which emerged with the overthrow of the Duvalier regime in 1986 and played a crucial role in the establishment of the first democraticallyelected government of Aristide. As I have argued, the women's movement was rooted in two important processes: the gendering of state violence under the Duvalierist regime that led to change in state gender policies redefining women as political subjects

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and the transnationalization of Haitian women's struggles with the massive movement of international migration. Both processes crystallized the relationship of gender to power at the level of the state, civil society, and within the household. The unfolding story of the creation of Haitian women's organizations reflects the concerns of many Latin American and Caribbean scholars to analyze the relationship and dynamics of gender, political life, and the state and to understand how the state defines the parameters of politics. How does the state reinforce female subordination;how may it aggravate, elaboThe analysis rate, or displace forms of gender oppression?68 pinpoints the particular context of states, their internal structures and their gender politics. Whereas the gender regime in liberal states of advanced industrial societies tends to operate definition of citizenthrough a discourse marked by a "neutral" ship and individual rights, such a feature tends to be absent under the regime of an authoritarian state. In societies like Haiti with a weakly developed civil society, women are barely recognized as equal citizens and political actors but are legally defined instead as dependent wives and daughters. But many Latin American and Caribbeanfeminists have argued that the ideology of motherhood may foster as well as constrain women's participation in political life. The struggles of the Argentinean "madres,"the development of women's organizations around the issues of human rights in Brazil and Chile, and even the participation and support of certain groups of women in the repressive policies of authoritarian states (such as Chile) are cases in point. Yet, in contrast to other Latin American dictatorial regimes that appealed to the image of the suffering, self-sacrificing,patriotic mother, the Duvalierist state focused on a "patriotic woman" whose allegiance was first to "his nation and his state." In doing so, the state redefined the political role of women. Repressive state policies that aimed to depoliticize society and destroy gender identity and mobilization in fact created a paradox: the increased politicization of women. As conditions emerged within the context of political struggles in the diaspora communities in North America, Haitian women voiced their claims and began to participate in transnational struggles for full citizenship, democracy,justice, and equality. At the same

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time, these struggles also expressed a collective search for identity, for a right to be different. Resistance and opposition to gender inequalities and gender hierarchies, particularly in the peripheral areas of the world economy, imprint women's struggles with a double character. On the one hand, a struggle is waged at the level of representation and discourse on issues of gender roles, and of ideologies of womanhood.On the other hand, it is a struggle that focuses on issues more closely related to daily survival, citizenship, and economic and political inequality. Moreover,resistance to gender oppression is not necessarily the result of formal or collective organizing. At times these struggles are part of a daily defiance to an oppressive system, struggles that do not necessarily pose a direct threat to state power bur rather are, as James Scott points out, the "ordinaryweapon" of a relatively This specificity powerless group in their search for survival.69 in the forms of expression of gender consciousness and thus of feminist ideas reflects the complexity of gender relations in Third Worldsocieties, including Haiti. Our categories of gender domination and hierarchy are not fixed but socially constructed, thus subject to change. They are also closely related to the dynamic of class, race/color,and national social relations and processes. More importantly,this article pinpoints the relationship of the state, particularly the authoritarian state, to gender. In Haiti, as in many other Latin American and Caribbean societies, the state can manipulate gender categories and ideologies for its own political purpose; the repressive state can use gender symbols and discourses as a central element in asserting power and domination. The new Haitian women's movement which emerged in the 1980s is part of a struggle to redefine civil society and a more egalitarian and democratic society in a country characterized by exclusion, poverty, and extreme repression of the majority of its population. The women's struggles are part of what has made Haitian women into a new collective subject of social change. It is a politics of empowerment that connotes a spectrum of individual and collective acts of resistance and political mobilization that challenge power relations.

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NOTES
While I was finishing the final version of this paper, the situation in Haiti changed due to the return of Jean Bertrand Aristide via U.S. military occupation.Although it is too soon to predict any final outcome, it is hoped that even within the constraints of this new context, women can regain some of the advances lost. I am grateful to Ariel Salzmann, Johanna Lessinger, and Barbara Katz-Rothman for their thoughtful and incisive comments. I gratefully appreciated their editorial help. I thank the many women of Haiti, in particular my deceased mother, and those Haitian feminist "tokay," whose discussions on these issues helped make this paper possible. 1. The National Coalition for Haitian Refugees and Human Rights Watch released in July 1994 the first report on rape in Haiti. See Rape in Haiti: A Weaponof Terror (New York, July 1994). 2. See the analysis of Bourque and Chuchryk in Women, the State, and Development, ed. Sue Ellen Charlton, Jana Everett, and Kathleen Staudt (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989): Susan C. Bourque, "Genderand the State: Perspectives from Latin America"(114-29); and Patricia M. Chuchryk, "Subversive Mothers:The Women's Opposition to the Military Regime in Chile" (130-51). See also Patricia M. Chuchryk,"FeministAnti-AuthoritarianPolitics: The Role of Womin en's Organizations in the Chilean Transition to Democracy," The Women'sMovement in Latin America: Feminism and the Transition to Democracy, ed. Jane S. Ja-

quette (London:Unwin Hyman, 1989), 149-84. 3. In the debate about the distinction between "feminist"and "women's" organizations, see Maxine Molyneux, "Mobilizationwithout Emancipation?Women's Interests, the State, and Revolution in Nicaragua,"Feminist Studies 11 (summer 1985): 227-54. Molyneux argues that, depending on the nature of the demands and claims, one can distinguish between organizations that aim to abolish women's subordination, attain political equality, and alleviate the burden of domestic labor and childcare and those whose demands arise from the concrete conditions of women's location within the gender division of labor and are a response to perceived needs. It is clear, however, that such distinctions blur in situations where women are struggling for recognition of their rights both within male-controlledmixed-sex political organizations and vis-a-vis a repressive state. 4. The concept of "feminismfrom above"is used to indicate the symbolic nomination of women in the government and does not refer to state-introducedreforms favorable to women. For a more detailed analysis, see Mervat F. Hatem, "Economic and Political Liberation in Egypt and the Demise of State Feminism,"International
Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (May 1992): 231-51. 5. Arturo Escobar, and Sonia Alvarez, eds. The Making of Social Movements in

Latin America (Boulder: Westview, 1992); Elizabeth Jelin, ed., Womenand Social Change in Latin America, trans. J. Ann Zammit and Marilyn Thomson (Atlantic Highlands, N.J. and London:Zed Books, 1990). 6. Ibid. See also Carlo S. Castaneda, "LaDemocraciaen Guatemala:Sus Contradicciones, limites y perspectivas," in Latinoamerica: Lo Politico y Lo Social en la Crisis

(Buenos Aires: FLACSO,1987); and Norma S. Chinchilla, "Marxism,Feminism, and the Struggle for Democracy in Latin America," Gender and Society 5 (September 1991): 291-311. 7. Many scholars approachthese movements as the product of the "erosionof modernity" or the "crisis of development."They argue that deepening of capitalist relations produced extreme degrees of social polarization, heterogeneity, and exclusion

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of important segments of these societies. See, in particular, Escobar and Alvarez; Samir Amin, Maldevelopment(London:Zed Books, 1990); and Jelin. 8. For an analysis of the intersection of race, gender, class, and religion on feminist consciousness and organizing in specific historical contexts, see Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, eds., Third World Womenand the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1991); Leith Mullins, "Uneven Development:Class, Race, and Gender in the United States before 1900," in Women'sWork:Developmentand the Division of Labor by Gender, ed. Eleanor Leacock and Helen Safa (Boston: Bergin & Garvey, 1985); Lisa Albretch and Rose Brewer, eds., Bridges of Power:Women'sMulticulturalAlliances (Philadelphia:New Society Publishers, 1992); Amy Bookman and Sandra Morgen, eds., Womenand the Politics of Empowerment(Philadelphia:Temple University Press, 1988); and Susan Staff, "Dimensionof Women'sPower in Historic Cairo,"in Islamic and Middle Eastern Societies, ed. Robert Olsen and Salman Al-An (Brattleboro,Vt.: Amana Books, 1987), 62-97. An epistemological argument related to the issues of differences is found in Elizabeth Spelman's critique of the "essential woman."See her Inessential Woman:Problemsof Exclusion in Feminist Thought (Boston:Beacon Press, 1988). 9. See Ann Pescatello, ed., Female and Male in Latin America (Pittsburgh:University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973); see, particularly, Elsa Chaney's "Womenin Latin American Politics,"103-40. 10. See Carolyn E. Fick, The Making of Haiti (Knoxville:University of Tennessee Press, 1990), 170. 11. Behind these codifications, a double struggle was at stake. The mid-nineteenth century saw the arrival of many foreign firms from Europe-the German and French merchant houses-which controlled the export of coffee. Because the Haitian ruling class could not compete with foreign capital, it had to create mechanisms to prevent or restrict the foreign firms. Yet, at the same time many of these foreign agents were co-opting a segment of the ruling class, the mulatto group, using marital strategies of alliance. Gender was thus a central component of these struggles and social processes. See also Claude Moise, Constitutions et luttes de pouvoir en Haiti (Montreal:CIDHICA,1988). 12. See Chuchryk,"SubversiveMothers,"139. 13. Bernard Diederich and A. Burt, Papa Doc: The Truth about Haiti (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969); Robert Heinl and Nana Heinl, Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People, 1492-1971 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978); Laenec Hurbon, Culture et dictature en Haiti (Paris: Editions l'Harmattan, 1979); Gerard PierreCharles, Radiographie d'une dictature (Montreal:Nouvelles Optiques, 1973); M.R. Trouillot, State against the Nation (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990); Michael Hooper, "ThePoliticization of Human Rights,"in Haiti-Today and Tomorrow, ed. Charles R. Foster and Albert Valdman (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984); Americas Watch and National Coalition of Haitian Refugees, Haiti: Duvalierism since Duvalier, Oct. 1986, Reverting to Despotism:Human Rights in Haiti, Mar. 1990. 14. Trouillot. 15. See testimonies of women exiles in "Femmes Haitiennes" (Montreal:RAFA, 1980). See also Trouillot. 16. See Heinl and Heinl; Trouillot;"FemmesHaitiennes";and Adrian DeWind and David Kinley, Aiding Migration: The Impact of International DevelopmentAssistance on Haiti (Boulder:Westview, 1988). 17. There is an exhaustive list published by RAFA(see notes 15, 16) of women who have been either tortured, raped, jailed, or murdered by the Duvalier regime. See "FemmesHaitiennes." 18. Amy C. Lind, "Power,Gender, and Development: Popular Women's Organiza-

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tions and the Politics of Needs in Ecuador,"in Making of Social Movementsin Latin America, 170. 19. RAFA(1980). 20. I. Lowenthal, "Labor,Sexuality, and the Conjugal Contract in Rural Haiti," in Haiti-Today and Tomorrow. 21. See Mireille Neptune-Anglade, L'Autre Moitie du developpement (Port-auPrince and Montreal:Eds. des Alizes & ERCE, 1986). 22. Mythro Celestin-Sorel, "Etre Femme dans la Societe Haitian," in Theories et pratiques de la lutte des femmes (Port-au-Prince:CRESFED, 1988), 21-24 (my translation). 23. C.L.R.James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint Louvertureand the San Domingo Revolution (1936; reprint, New York:Vintage Books, 1963). 24. Alex Dupuy, Haiti in the World Economy (Boulder:Westview, 1989); see also Foster and Valdman. 25. Christian Girault, "Commercein the Haitian Economy,"in Haiti-Today and also his Le Commercedu cafe en Haiti (Paris: CNRS, 1981). Tomorrow; in 26. Girault, "Commerce the Haitian Economy"; Labelle, Ideologies de couleur M. et classes sociales en Haiti (Montreal:Presses Universitaires de Montr6al,1976). 27. Carolle Charles, "DifferentMeanings of Blackness: Patterns of Identity among Haitian Migrants in New York City," Cimarron 3 (winter 1990): 129-39. See also Dupuy; Foster and Valdman; and in particular, Labelle; and David Nicholls, From Dessalines to Duvalier (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1979). 28. Dupuy; Foster and Valdman;and Girault, Le Commercedu cafe en Haiti. 29. Carolle Charles, "SexualPolitics and the Mediation of Class, Gender, and Race in Former Slave Plantation Societies: The Case of Haiti,"in Social Reconstructionof the Past, ed. George Bond and Angela Gilliam (London:Routledge, 1994), 44-56. See also GwendolynHall, "St. Dominique,"in Neither Slave nor Free, ed. Daniel Cohen and Jack Greene (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972). 30. The system of "metayage"is a form of economic arrangement, similar to the sharecropping system, in which a peasant works on a piece of land that she or he does not own. The rent takes the form of cash and/or product, and there is a contract between the owner of the land and the direct producer.The terms of the contract as well as the nature and proportionof the rent vary. 31. Girault, Le Commercedu cafe en Haiti, and "Commerce the Haitian Econoin my";Matts Lundahl, The Haitian Economy (New York:St. Martin's Press, 1983); Matts Lundahl, Peasants and Poverty:A Study of Haiti (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979); Sidney Mintz, "LesRoles economiqueset les traditions culturelles,"in La femme de couleur en Amerique Latine, ed. Roger Bastide and Sidney Mintz (Paris: Anthropos, 1974). 32. Monique Garrity, "TheAssembly Industries in Haiti: Causes and Effects,"Journal of Caribbean Studies 2 (spring 1981): 25-37; Faith Lewis and Allen Lebel, Source Report on Haitian Factory Women (Port-au-Prince: USAID, 1983); June Nash, "The Impact of the Changing International Division of Labor on Different Sectors of the Labor Force,"in Women,Men, and the International Division of Labor, ed. June Nash, Patricia and Mario Fernandez-Kelly (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983); Neptune-Anglade;Annette Fuentes and Barbara Ehrenreich, Women in the Global Factory (Boston: South End Press, 1983); and Joseph Grunwald, Leslie Delatour, and Karl Voltaire, "OffshoreAssembly in Haiti," in Haiti-Today and Tomorrow. 33. For a description of conditions of work in the assembly-line industries see Bob Herbert, "TheyAren't Playing the Game of Chicken,"New YorkDaily News, 28 Feb. 1986. 34. Uly Locher analyzed the pattern that predominantly select women. This pat-

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tern displays a sex ratio of only 49.1 men for 100 women. The rural exodus is primarily toward the capital, where most of the factories, which tend to offer employment more often to women than men, are located. During the last decade a considerable number of women have entered the wage labor market, yet less than 25 percent did not use a paternalistic/patriarchalnetwork to gain employment. See Uly in Locher,"Migration Haiti,"in Haiti-Today and Tomorrow,325-37. 35. The vast supply of domestic workers in Haiti would be a fruitful topic to research, for it invokes the relationship of exploitation and oppressionwithin gender. 36. Neptune-Angladecharacterizes such processes as the creation of the Republicof Port-au-Princeto the detriment of the previous Federation of the Provinces. Before 1915 the relative autonomy of the provinces was visible in their economic role. In 1890-91, the provinces contributed70 percent of customs revenues, the most important source of the state budget. By the end of the U.S. occupation,the provinces had been displaced by Port-au-Prince,which in 1923-33 generated about 47 percent of these revenues. See Trouillot, 117. 37. Charles, "DifferentMeanings of Blackness." 38. Cary Hector, Claude Moise, and Emile Ollivier, eds., TrenteAns de pouvoir noir (Montreal: Collectif Paroles, 1976); Roger Dorsinville, "1946 ou le d6lire opportuniste," Trente Ans de pouvoir noir, 35-57. See Lionel Paquin, The Haitians (New York: Multi-type, 1983); Brenda Plummer, Haiti and the Great Powers, 1902-1915 States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University

(Baton Rouge:Louisiana State University Press, 1988); Hans Schmidt, The United

Press, 1971). 39. On racial and class practices of these regimes, see Ren6 D6pestre, "Les Metamorphoses de la n6gritude en Amerique,"PresenceAfricaine 75, no. 3 (1970): 19-33; Ren6 D6pestre, "LaR6volution de 1946 est pour demain,"in TrenteAns de pouvoir noir, 57-95; Roger Dorsinville, Marche arriere (Montreal: Collectif Paroles, 1986); Dorsinville, "1946ou le delire opportuniste,"35-57. Carolle Charles, "Transnationalism in the Construct of Haitian Migrants' Racial Category of Identity in New York and C. Blanc-Szanton(New York:Annals of the Academy of Science, 1992), 101-24. 40. Depestre, "LesMetamorphosesde la negritude en Amerique,"and "LaRevolution de 1946 est pour demain." 41. DeWind and Kinley (pp. 18-19);and Lundahl (pp. 393-94) observe that the Duvalier regime, like all previous regimes, has never depended on taxing its wealthiest citizens for revenues. During 1970-71, for example, only 1,100 people with high incomes actually paid taxes. The major sources of government revenues were duties on foreign trade and excise taxes on consumption,both of which were primarily designed to be paid by peasants. From 1959 to 1971, 57 percent of the government's tax revenues were derived from import and export duties. Constituting the vast majority of Haiti's consumers, peasants were hit especially hard by these duties, which were applied disproportionatelyto imported basic necessities such as kerosene, cotton textiles, soap, flour, fish, and rice. The most important export tax was on coffee. In contrast, imported luxuries, such as liquor, were allowed in with almost no duty, and excise taxes on luxury foods yielded only one-fifteenththat of basic foods. 42. Suzy Castor, "Femmeet Participation Sociale,"in Theories et pratiques (Portau-Prince:CRESFED, 1988), 10-16 (my translation). 43. See, particularly, Angela Davis, Women,Race, and Class (New York:Vintage Books, 1981), her "Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves," Black Scholar (December 1971): 3-15; Marietta Morissey, Slave Womenin the New World (Boulder: Westview, 1989); Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist win Hyman, 1990); Bastide and Mintz; Jean Fouchard, Les Marrons de la liberte
Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (Boston: UnCity," in Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration, ed. N. Glick, I. Basch,

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(Paris: Editions de L'Ecole, 1972); Richard Price ed., MarroonSocieties, 2d ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979); and Rhoda Reddock, "Womenand Slavery in the Caribbean,"Latin American Perspectives 12 (winter 1985): 63-80.
Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1839 (Bloomington: Indi-

ana University Press, 1990). Regarding Haiti, in 1757, for example, among those arrested for poisoning was Assam, a young slave woman. At her trial, Assam consistently denied any participation in poisoning of white masters and sick slaves. Yet, during her trial it was evident that Assam knew about the procedures and even acknowledgedthat she had met several other women slaves who did administer poison (Fick, p. 64). Moreover, most French official documents reporting slaves who escaped the plantations showed equal numbers of slave women and men who deserted the plantations. One of the most important participants in the religious gathering, held a week before the massive slave insurrection of August 1791, was Cecile Fatima, a mulatto voodoo priestess. Religion and folk medicine seemed to have been an area of expertise of women both in Africa and in colonial St. Domingue in the struggles against slavery (Fick, pp. 251-59). 44. M. Sylvain-Bouchereau,Haiti et ses femmes (Haiti: Editions Les Presses Libres, 1957). 45. Ibid.; Neptune-Anglade. 46. Elsa Chaney, in her extensive analysis on the nature of women's political participation in Latin America, defined the woman in the early feminist movements as She "Supermadre." also discussed the limits of these early feminist demands. 47. Castaneda (p. 443) points out that the exclusion of the majority of the people from politics, particularly under a dictatorial regime, creates the conditions for the appropriationof the issue of democracyby these new social actors. As he states, the issues of democracy"pasaa ser la principal bandera de lucha . . . pero ya no como la restitucion de la democracia representative, sino como condicion de la democracia social y economica." 48. DeWind and Kinley; Carolle Charles et al., "Allin the Same Boat,"in Caribbean Immigrants in New York City, ed. Constance Sutton and Elsa Chaney (Staten Island, N.Y.: Center for Migration Studies, 1987). Prior to the movement of the 1960s, some Haitian migrants had moved to the United States during the 1940s. For a
more detailed account, see Ira Reid, The Negro Immigrant: His Background, Characteristics, and Social Adjustment, 1899-1937 (New York: Columbia University

Press, 1939).
49. Michel S. Laguerre, American Odyssey: Haitians in New York City (New York:

Cornell University Press, 1984); and Paquin. 50. "Transnational" implies that this is a process in which social context is being constantly redefined and in which immigrant workers are embedded and inscribed
in two social formations. See Serge Larose, Transnationalites et reseaux d'immigra-

tion (Montreal, 1984); Charles, "Transnationalismin the Construct of Haitian Migrants' Racial Categoryof Identity in New York City." 51. Laguerre. See also M. Labelle, Histoires d'immigrees(Montreal:Les Presses Boreal, 1987); Serge Larose; and S. Buchanan, "HaitianWomen in New York City,"in Migration Today, (September 1979); Locher, "Migrationin Haiti," in Haiti-Today
and Tomorrow.

52. Maria Laurino, "IAm Nobody'sGirl,"in Village Voice21 (December 1984). 53. See my work: "L'exploitation est-elle la meme pour toute femme Haitienne," in
Haiti: 1986-88, Continuites

Prince: Editions Henry Deschamp, 1991), 490-95; M. Neptune-Anglade, "AreAll Haitian Women Equally Exploited? A Review Essay on L'AutreMoitie du developpement," in Journal of Caribbean Studies 7 (1990); "In Haiti," New Directions for

et ruptures, ed. C. Hector and H. Jadotte (Port-au-

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Carolle Charles

Women15 no. 5 (1986): 3-5; and (with a collective) Haitian Womenin the Diaspora (Montreal:CIDHICA,1986). 54. Interview, Neges Vanyan, in Collectif Paroles, Special Issue on Femmes Haitiennes, no. 28 (Montreal:March/April1984), 10 (my translation). 55. For a more detailed account, see testimonies in RAFA (1980) and interview, Neges Vanyan. 56. UFAP, "FemmesHaitiennes: Une voie nouvelle,"(New York, 1972); "Nan Peyi Vanyan Fanm Pa Esklav Fanm se Patriot"(New York,n.d.) (my translation). 57. Interview, Point de Ralliement, in Collectif Paroles, Special Issue, no. 28 (March-April1984): 6-10 (my translation). 58. Ibid., 7 (my translation). 59. Association des Femmes Haitiennes, "Les femmes sont-elles tenues a l1'cart?" in Le Matin (Port-au-Prince),9 Apr. 1986; P. Cesaire, "Les Femmes reclament 1'6galit6 en 1986 pourquoi pas?"in Haiti Liberee (Port-au-Prince),9 Apr. 1986; Club des Femmes de Carriere, "LettreOuverte,"Haiti Liberee, 9 Apr. 1986; Doc Essert, "KiFanm?"Haiti Liberee, 9 Apr. 1986; Jean, "Plus de 30,000 femmes hier dans les rues de Port-au-Prince" Haiti Liberee, 4 Apr. 1986; A.L. Jolynce, "Marche des du femmes,"Haiti Liberee,3 Apr. 1986; "L'Absence p6re dans la Societ6 Antillaise," Haiti Liberee, 9 Apr. 1986; G.K. Pierre, "Lib6rationde la femme Haitienne: Un Mythe a demistifier,"Haiti Liberee,9 Apr. 1986; N. Ricot, "UneMarche des femmes sans precedent," Matin, 5-7 Apr. 1986. Le 60. See Cesaire; Pierre; Ricot;and Jolynce. 61. See Mohanty, Russo, and Torres;and Bookmanand Morgen. 62. Americas Watch and National Coalition of Haitian Refugees, Reverting to Despotism: Human Rights in Haiti. 63. Theories et pratiques. 64. See MPP Bulletin, Deye Mon 1 (May 1993). 65. See Theories et pratiques. 66. Interview of a member of Kay Fanm, Americas Watch, 16 Feb. 1994. 67. The conference, "Non a la violence contre les femmes," held 14 Mar. 1993 in Port-au-Prince,was organized by the Ad Hoc Committee against Violence on Women; it was composed originally of three women's organizations, ENFOMANM,Kay Fanm, SOFA, and some independent feminists, among them, Rosy Auguste, Francoise Boucard,Martine Fourcand,Maryse Jean-Jacques, Dani6le Magloire, Myriam Merlet, Maryse Prudent, and Maguy Thelusmond. 68. See the works previously cited of Bourque and Chuchryk, "Feminist Anti-Authoritarian Politics." 69. James Scott, Weaponsof the Weak:Everyday Forms of Peasant Struggle (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).