Popular Resistance to Machismo in the Dominican Republic: Alternative Approaches to Women's Empowerment

This thesis explores the still deeply-rooted machismo in Latin societies with a focus on the case of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican legal framework, which provides for equality between all peoples regardless of their sex, race, economic background and religious or political beliefs, seems not to be sufficient to eradicate the flagrant discrimination against women and girls in this Caribbean country. This work intends to answer the following central question: what is behind this gap between theory and practice? Field research focused on the efforts implemented by local gender equality advocates and analysed the strategies that they put in place to tackle persistent discriminatory practices. Besides NGO staff, the interview sample includes general public and program beneficiaries that added up to the total of 72 informants to this thesis. The findings confirmed the hypothesized importance of approaching and addressing social norms as the underlying cause of gender inequalities in the country, and allowed for putting together a list of good practices or recommended entry points to further include them at the heart of programming. Additionally, this work found that the country is witnessing the emergence of alternative forms of empowerment among women that are understood as ways of resistance to the continuous violation of their right to equal opportunities amid a pessimistic context: younger generations seem to continue abiding by the norms that engender and reproduce inequalities between women and men and substantial progress is not predicted to arrive anytime soon. These alternative roads towards survival and empowerment include "chapear". This Spanish term is used to refer to a woman’s action of openly targeting men with resources as the means to accessing dignified living standards which, in some exceptions, can become ostentatious, depending on the targeted male’s wealth and social status