Ladies' Day

On a steaming August day in 1946, thin, dark deputy Castel Demesmin rose in Port-au-Prince's Doric-columned, blue-and-gold-trimmed Chambre des Deputes, drew a deep breath and let fly with a hot blast of pure male chauvinism. The topic under discussion was a modest petition to let Haitian women vote and hold office. "All the miseries of this country," roared Demesmin, "come from the women. They have corrupted the public officers, the Deputies, the Senators. The Haitian woman has brought this country to ruin . . . the women who want the right to vote are so much manure!"

Watchful Waiting. Under such bitter onslaughts (presumably approved by President Dumarsais Estime) the petition was beaten. For the next three years, members of the Ligue Feminine d'Action Sociale, which had gotten up the petition, quietly watched for another opening. Early this month they saw their chance and struck. Port-au-Prince was crowded with foreign visitors, including representatives of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. Under the guise of organizing a Women's Congress at Haiti's International Exposition, the Ligue Feminine launched an aggressive full-scale feminist crusade.

Campaign headquarters for the fight was the tapestried salon of Madeleine Sylvain Bouchereau, Ph.D. (Sociology, Bryn Mawr), onetime UNRRA welfare officer in Germany and president of the Ligue. Sitting erect on a brocaded chair, Madame Alice Garoute, 75, widow of a Supreme Court justice, sounded the battle cry: "We must make parades, demonstrations! They can shoot down eight of us--but they can't shoot down 800!" She confided later: "I don't care a bit if they shoot me, but I really wouldn't like to go to prison--I detest sleeping in little rooms."

Graceful Yielding. The ladies went out in the streets and circulated defiant petitions; they held meeting after meeting. In their spare time, Ligue members went around ringing doorbells to press their drive. Last fortnight, powerful support came from Lake Success, New York: in an ornately worded note to the Haitian government, the United Nations inquired, in effect, when the Haitians were going to get around to letting their women vote as full citizens.

A man who knows when to yield gracefully, President Estime told a reporter for the Ligue's hard-hitting newspaper, La Voix des Femmes: "It's all right with me --I am for women's voting." He added significantly (under Haiti's present state of siege Estime holds almost dictatorial powers): "I am perfectly sure that when it comes up before the legislature again, you will win your right to vote."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.