The Menstruating Body Politic: José Martí & Gender

• In Event: The Intersections Between Cuban Studies and Latina Feminisms

Abstract

Contemporary Latin American philosophy in the United States has notably given attention to the essays of José Martí. Specifically, the scholarly attention that Martí has received within the world of U.S. based Latin American philosophy identifies his work as providing a unique conceptualization of race as a social construction that interrupts problematic essentialized notions of race from a non-European perspective. Nevertheless, Martí’s philosophy has received scant philosophical attention with respect to his use of concepts of gender. In her work on Martí and Gabriela Mistral, Laura Lomas has argued that the masculinist discourse that surrounds Martí’s work merits further attention. Specifically, she makes use of Mistral’s work on Martí in order to illustrate the contestation of masculinist logics. She invites a reading of Martí through Mistral that undermines the masculinist character of Martí’s arguments by considering his use of poetic language as an intervention on the hegemonic masculinity that constructs nationhood. The presence of this poetic language places menstrual blood and pleasure at the centerfold of the body politic and allows readers to reimagine Martí’s works in a different light. In other words, the non-reproductive capacities of the female body, argues Lomas, cuts through Martí’s concept of the nation, which is dominantly interpreted as excluding women.
However, Lomas’ reading of Martí through Mistral, pushes readers to accept an understanding of menstruation as a non-reproductive process. Her position fails to appreciate the way in which menstruation, although a non-fetus producing process, still figures as part of a gendered reproductive capability. Thus, gender in Martí’s work continues to be encapsulated as a precarious category that exists only to the extent that it participates in a discourse of reproductive processes that if otherwise not present, would relegate gender to a location of total exclusion.

Author

• Stephanie Rivera Berruz, William Paterson University