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Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870–1920
Feminists, socialists, Afro-Puerto Rican activists, and elite politicians join laundresses, prostitutes, and dissatisfied wives in populating the pages of Imposing Decency. Through her analyses of Puerto Rican anti-prostitution campaigns, attempts at reforming marriage, and working-class ideas about free love, Eileen J. Suárez Findlay exposes the race-related double standards of sexual norms and practices in Puerto Rico between 1870 and 1920, the period that witnessed Puerto Rico’s shift from Spanish to U.S. colonialism.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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About the author
Eileen J. Suárez Findlay
2 books4 followersEileen J. Suárez Findlay is Associate Professor of Latin American and Caribbean History at American University. She is the author of We Are Left without a Father Here: Masculinity, Domesticity, and Migration in Postwar Puerto Rico and Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870–1920.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 16, 2013
This monograph by Eileen Findlay is a well-thought and analyzed work that challenges the reader in how to categorize and interpret questions about gender, class, race, sexuality, agency, and discourse. Set between Spanish and US colonialism, Findlay grapples to identify shifting discourses about honor and decency. She demonstrates that working-class women in Ponce articulated a sexual honor that allowed for heterosexual serial monogamy (only 16% of working-class women married). In contrast, middle-class and elite women demonstrated their honor by (even if not true) by claiming virginity until marriage. The middle-class and elite discourse was not based solely in contrast or in negotiation with middle-class and elite masculinity, but also in contrast to working-class women. What was the main signifier used? Race. Middle-class and elite women claimed honor through "whiteness." However, Findlay also notes and offers examples how race was not a fixed social category. Lower-middle class women and men claimed honor through a process of "whitening." The "white" sub-codes generally meant access to education (not vocational), pristine white dresses, marriage, avoidance of manual labor, and avoidance of African culture (bombas, etc). As some individuals moved up the social ladder, they also shifted their color scale by changing official documents and gaining acceptance in "honorable" circles. Findlay's research demonstrates that most men, across class lines, held an opinion about gender right and masculinity which meant sexual control over their partners (even though she does give a few exceptions articulated by anarchist men).
In a time when popular media, pop culture writers, and academics discuss gender and race as classless issues, Findlay asks us to think about how various and variant meanings of sexuality, gender, and morality are also questions within the spectrum of class.
As a last note, her discussion on the gendered discourses of different labor leader was interesting. Even though she presents Luisa Capetillo (an anarchist) as an example of challenging the moral norm, Findlay offers little differentiation between the anarchist, socialist, and Puerto Rican nationalist labor activists in their thoughts about family, gender norms, and sexual morality. I guess that is the next phase of labor historian research: how to use the study of hegemony to extract those intra-class identities, nuances--and where does it meet with an overarching class identity?
Other books to read:
Luisa Capetillo, Pioneer Puerto Rican Feminist
The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico
Contested Communities: Class, Gender, and Politics in Chile's El Teniente Copper Mine, 1904-1951
Partners in Conflict: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality, and Labor in the Chilean Agrarian Reform, 1950-1973
Labors Appropriate to Their Sex: Gender, Labor, and Politics in Urban Chile, 1900-1930
In a time when popular media, pop culture writers, and academics discuss gender and race as classless issues, Findlay asks us to think about how various and variant meanings of sexuality, gender, and morality are also questions within the spectrum of class.
As a last note, her discussion on the gendered discourses of different labor leader was interesting. Even though she presents Luisa Capetillo (an anarchist) as an example of challenging the moral norm, Findlay offers little differentiation between the anarchist, socialist, and Puerto Rican nationalist labor activists in their thoughts about family, gender norms, and sexual morality. I guess that is the next phase of labor historian research: how to use the study of hegemony to extract those intra-class identities, nuances--and where does it meet with an overarching class identity?
Other books to read:
Luisa Capetillo, Pioneer Puerto Rican Feminist
The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico
Contested Communities: Class, Gender, and Politics in Chile's El Teniente Copper Mine, 1904-1951
Partners in Conflict: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality, and Labor in the Chilean Agrarian Reform, 1950-1973
Labors Appropriate to Their Sex: Gender, Labor, and Politics in Urban Chile, 1900-1930
October 2, 2008
I enjoyed the discussion of the workers movement, particularly its anarchist wing, which has largely been ignored in English-language literature on Puerto Rican radicalism. I would have enjoyed more extensive commentary on the topic, but, nonetheless, I benefited from what she did write.
September 23, 2007
UGh. Had to read this for class. The author took what is inherently a dynamic topic, and killed it. Reading this was like watching a flat-lined heartbeat on a hospital monitor.
January 27, 2009
One of the best books I've read! It was assigned reading for a graduate History course. Thanks prof!
April 29, 2022
Eileen Suarez Findlay looks at the discourses of race and gender in forming Puerto Rican national identity. By using the city of Ponce as a case study, Findlay provides a window into the larger national discourses of race, gender and class within Puerto Rican society that was occurring during the 1870s to 1920s. By joining social history with discourse analysis, Findlay attempts to look at what was said in Puerto Rico and what was done in Puerto Rico during the period stated.
The social discourse of respectability shaped sexual practices, racial meetings, and sexual regulatory strategies. By paying particular attention to the popular elite intellectuals who helped create the racially and sexually saturated political discourse, readers can see how these norms and practices were vital to ordering Puerto Rican society. Through the focus on race, class, sex, and region, readers can see internal and local forms of identity formation during the end of Spanish colonial rule and the first two decades of US sovereignty in Puerto Rico.
Much of the research Findlay did for the study was done in the city of Ponce. There are limitations to the sources. In chapter six Findlay can only guess at the relationships prominent activists Herminia Tormes and Olivia Paoli were trying to create with incarcerated women. She states, “without the discovery of more detailed sources, though, we cannot ascertain whether this potential is ever reached.” However, with the sources available to her, Findlay can show that the political struggles and discourses cannot be understood without each other.
The case of Teresa Astacio in chapter one is a source that shows the multi-layered issues of race and gender in Puerto Rican society. White girls marrying or being associated sexually with men of colour shows that the idea of honour in society would be, as Findlay puts it, contradictory. Teresa being linked to a Black man would destabilize the concepts of race and class, yet honour demanded that she be married to the man who tarnished her sexually. The obsession with chastity among the elite class is not seen in the proletarian class in Ponce. Within the case, readers can see the divergent social expectations of women across Ponce’s class and race spectrum produced very different experiences of womanhood.
Honour in Puerto Rican society was a set of concrete practices everywhere in people’s lives. In chapter one, the honour codes Findlay considers are not transhistorical but consolidated in Puerto Rico during the sugar boom of 1800 to 1845. This brings up the issue of the lack of primary sources. Findlay says she uses honour codes produced after the plantation regime and its cultures were consolidated. Honour was a gendered concept in Puerto Rico. Women’s honour came from their sexual reputation, while men’s honour depended on several factors, the most important one being a provision of income.
The idea of honour and society comes into play with the repression of prostitution seen throughout the text. Women being a center and the family foundation meant that wayward women were seen as morally disintegrating society. During the era of World War I, colonial officials would use language when referring to prostitutes like “extermination,” “plague,” “cleanse” and that prostitutes were “the rotting part of the social organism.” The war on prostitution was also one of the state repression. Women as a whole were sexually repressed. However, there were many activists who actively spoke out against the campaign on prostitution and the larger issues of women’s labour that surround it. While there were those that spoke out against the oppression when the earthquake and influenza epidemic of 1918 occurred the state stop their campaign. This led to protests about state repression disappearing.
Middle-class feminists during this era of state repression of prostitutes chose not to openly denounce the state’s crackdown on working women. They also did not critique the sexual double standard during that campaign. This stands in contrast to the U.S. middle-class feminist activists who used critiques of prostitution to protest their suffering from male infidelity and sexual predation. This lack of critique also stands in contrast to the earlier writings of Puerto Rican feminists. It seems the feminist activists compromised their beliefs to appeal to the mainstream to the determent of their fellow persecuted women.
The social discourse of respectability shaped sexual practices, racial meetings, and sexual regulatory strategies. By paying particular attention to the popular elite intellectuals who helped create the racially and sexually saturated political discourse, readers can see how these norms and practices were vital to ordering Puerto Rican society. Through the focus on race, class, sex, and region, readers can see internal and local forms of identity formation during the end of Spanish colonial rule and the first two decades of US sovereignty in Puerto Rico.
Much of the research Findlay did for the study was done in the city of Ponce. There are limitations to the sources. In chapter six Findlay can only guess at the relationships prominent activists Herminia Tormes and Olivia Paoli were trying to create with incarcerated women. She states, “without the discovery of more detailed sources, though, we cannot ascertain whether this potential is ever reached.” However, with the sources available to her, Findlay can show that the political struggles and discourses cannot be understood without each other.
The case of Teresa Astacio in chapter one is a source that shows the multi-layered issues of race and gender in Puerto Rican society. White girls marrying or being associated sexually with men of colour shows that the idea of honour in society would be, as Findlay puts it, contradictory. Teresa being linked to a Black man would destabilize the concepts of race and class, yet honour demanded that she be married to the man who tarnished her sexually. The obsession with chastity among the elite class is not seen in the proletarian class in Ponce. Within the case, readers can see the divergent social expectations of women across Ponce’s class and race spectrum produced very different experiences of womanhood.
Honour in Puerto Rican society was a set of concrete practices everywhere in people’s lives. In chapter one, the honour codes Findlay considers are not transhistorical but consolidated in Puerto Rico during the sugar boom of 1800 to 1845. This brings up the issue of the lack of primary sources. Findlay says she uses honour codes produced after the plantation regime and its cultures were consolidated. Honour was a gendered concept in Puerto Rico. Women’s honour came from their sexual reputation, while men’s honour depended on several factors, the most important one being a provision of income.
The idea of honour and society comes into play with the repression of prostitution seen throughout the text. Women being a center and the family foundation meant that wayward women were seen as morally disintegrating society. During the era of World War I, colonial officials would use language when referring to prostitutes like “extermination,” “plague,” “cleanse” and that prostitutes were “the rotting part of the social organism.” The war on prostitution was also one of the state repression. Women as a whole were sexually repressed. However, there were many activists who actively spoke out against the campaign on prostitution and the larger issues of women’s labour that surround it. While there were those that spoke out against the oppression when the earthquake and influenza epidemic of 1918 occurred the state stop their campaign. This led to protests about state repression disappearing.
Middle-class feminists during this era of state repression of prostitutes chose not to openly denounce the state’s crackdown on working women. They also did not critique the sexual double standard during that campaign. This stands in contrast to the U.S. middle-class feminist activists who used critiques of prostitution to protest their suffering from male infidelity and sexual predation. This lack of critique also stands in contrast to the earlier writings of Puerto Rican feminists. It seems the feminist activists compromised their beliefs to appeal to the mainstream to the determent of their fellow persecuted women.
July 3, 2024
I loved this book and think it’s a really well done academic inquiry into the role of sexuality in post colonial studies. In her examination of late 19th and 20th-century Puerto Rico, Professor Eileen J. Suárez Findlay delves into the intricate interplay of self-formation, class dynamics, and colonial governance. In "Imposing Decency," Findlay intertwines the private and public spheres, examining marriage, sexual conventions, familial tensions, and notions of morality, respectability, and honor. Through this exploration of Ponce as an extension of the island, a narrative of colonialism and societal norms emerges to center the perspectives, concerns, and challenges of working people. In PR, Feminist demands, which centered on gender equality within their respective political contexts, remained largely unchanged despite the shift in sovereignty from Spanish to American rule. Class solidarity in Puerto Rican feminist movements however did experience fluctuations over time, influenced by deeply embedded social divides exacerbated by American capitalism and the wealthy social leaders birthed from agricultural competition. Findlay's analysis underscores this fact by highlighting the importance of understanding the intersections of gender, class, and colonialism in shaping emancipatory agendas and struggles for autonomy and freedom from exploitation.
April 25, 2024
A book that delves into the politically charged nature of sexuality and its racial context from the end of the 19th century under Spanish colonial rule through the start of the 20th century and American imperial rule in Puerto Rico. It exposes the patriarchal systems that were consistent in both empires and the methods of control that were used to stifle the sexual freedoms and promiscuity among the population.
January 28, 2022
Fantastic analysis of gender relations in Puerto Rico 100 years ago. Well-written and interesting, there was not a dull moment in this book.
December 14, 2020
I used this book as evidence in my history thesis about the intersection of racism and sexism in a patriarchal society. It provided me with really great examples and was an excellent source. Some other documents that support this reading you may what to check out are luisa Capetillo's "How
Poor Women Prostitute Themselves" and "A Nation of Marriage" The first of which depicts society's views of prostitutes and using prostitution as a means to survive and the latter reflects the hypocrisy of Marriages and honor codes in Ponce. Where men are expected and encouraged to have women on the side, Capetillo questions, can happiness even exist in a marriage where women are not treated as equals? Her beliefs mirror Findlay's regarding men's hypocrisy in their infidelity while expecting their women to remain chaste. Capetillo argues women are slaves to their marriage which Findaly illustrated in the book beautifully. Where women are solely dependent on their men's income and support to survive women in 19th Century Pone were frequently at each other's throats to ensure their men were not spending money the wives needed to survive on another family.
Poor Women Prostitute Themselves" and "A Nation of Marriage" The first of which depicts society's views of prostitutes and using prostitution as a means to survive and the latter reflects the hypocrisy of Marriages and honor codes in Ponce. Where men are expected and encouraged to have women on the side, Capetillo questions, can happiness even exist in a marriage where women are not treated as equals? Her beliefs mirror Findlay's regarding men's hypocrisy in their infidelity while expecting their women to remain chaste. Capetillo argues women are slaves to their marriage which Findaly illustrated in the book beautifully. Where women are solely dependent on their men's income and support to survive women in 19th Century Pone were frequently at each other's throats to ensure their men were not spending money the wives needed to survive on another family.
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February 28, 2018Invaluable resource, with detailed notes and bibliography for those wishing to pursue more information on the topic.
For anyone reading the audiobook, the actual text of the book ends at around 65%.
For anyone reading the audiobook, the actual text of the book ends at around 65%.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews