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Bachata is a popular Dominican musical genre that emerged as an international phenomenon during the early 1990s. In the preceding decades as far back as the ’60s, bachata grew out of the margins of Dominican society where it could express the social means of the low-class inhabitants of impoverished urban neighborhoods and communities. With only a few exceptions in the early decades, bachata was performed and written by men. One such exception was Mélida Rodríguez, whose brief career posed challenges to the patriarchal norms of Dominican society writ large and the dominance of men within the genre. This thesis explores the different ways that Rodríguez subverted gender norms through bachata and its unique position as a music in flux at the border of tradition and modernity. I argue that Rodríguez’s voice as a composer and singer was a nimble vehicle to oppose machismo. Markers of her singing style, such as her ability to shift rapidly between delivery methods, are also expressive and meaningful within her cultural context. Through analysis of Rodríguez’s treatment of narrative and performance persona, I point to a clearer understanding of bachata’s expression of immediate social needs of the time.