The small island nation of Cuba has been the site of socialist revolution for the second half of the 20th century. The revolution aimed at granting equal access to nation’s resources to all its people and ambitiously marched to produce a just society free from class, race and gender differences. Its alliance with the communist super power of Soviet Union was not appreciated by its immediate neighbor and Soviet’s rival, the capitalist super power of United States. US reacted by placing a trade embargo on Cuba, a policy which severely affected its market prospects. As a result of US hostility and Soviet’s decline, Cuban society has stuck in the relics of its own past, becoming only a life sized museum for old buildings and vintage cars. During the three different stages of its recent history, Cuba has witnessed changes in many avenues of its society, with the widely discussed aspect being the race and gender equality and the role of the women in general.
Women in Post-Revolution Cuba
Today, the women in Cuba do have the opportunity to represent the economy, but all their time is consumed by domestic responsibilities. Most of them are tiresomely taking part in domestic and child-care activities, and leaving out ample chance for any professional endeavor. A small portion of women have found work in the traditionally female-centric factory jobs such as cigar making, textiles and handicrafts. The self-employment trend after a remarkable policy change by newly elected leader Raul Castro has influenced some women to take to street as small-scale vendors. Even fewer women work in state sponsored jobs such as social care, nursing and official positions. In politics, woman still remain largely underrepresented owing to their largely passive attitude to politics or owing to the routine chore of domestic and social management.
Rosendahl states that although some women take their chance to venture even into military activities, majority of them opt to follow up with the societal norm of fulfilling domestic roles. Men are expected to take up hard-working jobs in fields such as construction and farming, they strictly adhere to the norms of machismo where a man must retain his strength and pride by protecting and taking care of his family. Women are expected to preserve their honor and take a natural pride in motherhood. Many women consider motherhood to be sacred and love their child dearly. Women are also expected to fulfill the needs of an extended family particularly in taking care of an elder member with poor health. An increasingly large number of women have taken up dual responsibilities of both work and family, as is the case elsewhere in the world. Even today, several women from traditional families find it difficult to walk out in the streets, however such an attitude has sharply decreased since the revolution. Presently, there is also an increased number of divorces in Cuba, because both women and men are allowed to change their partners. An ideal woman in Cuba, particularly in the rural parts, is the one who exercises her family responsibilities without fail. An epitome of a Cuban woman’s success is in her ability to act as a good mother and also a good wife who is tolerant, faithful and can sacrifice for the sake of the family and hence the society in general (Rosendahl 55-57).
Before their marriage, girls are expected to be reclusive in nature. They must remain in the house and help their mothers with household tasks. Most girls are not allowed out to the streets until they reach a specific age. Those who behave in an adventurous and flirtatious manner are labelled as bandolera, but an equivalent term for boys does not exist. Most men expect girls to be fully virgin at the time of marriage. Men who bear responsibility for the loss of virginity of a girl must marry them by obligation (Rosendahl 67).
Women during the Cuban Revolution
Economic opportunities for women first opened during the Cuban revolution, when the regime initiated policies to encourage female participation in workforce. Rosendahl notes that the Women’s Federation of Cuba was started along with the Socialist Party during the Cuban revolution. The federation’s aim was to improve awareness among women about their individual roles and responsibilities, particularly to persuade them to participate in the workforce. As a result, women were exposed to increased educational and professional opportunities. The party also declared equal rights and duties for both men and women, by announcing that both men and women should equally work for the development of society and to instill the socialist ideals in children (Rosendahl 74- 75).
Nuclear families were the state proposed models for societies where children were expected to be socialized according to the new revolutionary socialist norms. The regime had intended to eradicate oppression against both gender and racial discrimination, by implying that a true Cuban is simply the one who remained loyal to the state’s cause. As a result, Cuba was able to free the women from various traditional gender biased restrictions. Woman now had a choice and were allowed to be free, but a deeply entrenched pattern of racism and anti-feministic traditions still continued to affect the women. The process of change only proved to be a process underway for too long after the Cuban revolution, and was even worst affected after the economic crisis following the Soviet collapse. As tourism took center stage of the nation’s economic development, many Cuban women took up prostitution as a profession by choice (Bengelsdorf, Springfield 3-4).
During the start of revolution, the flourishing tourism industry was axed by the newly formed socialist government due its obviously capitalistic fingerprints. The revolution also treated the act of stepping back in tourism services as one of its great successes. As a result, several women who were working as either prostitutes or domestic servants were sent for education and trained for the workforce in the newly formed socialist society. Fernandez states in his book Sun, Sex and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean that prostitution was carried out in minute levels during the 1970s when tourists from few Non-American nations were allowed to enter by the Cuban government. It only became a widespread concern after the economic crisis in early 90s. Fidel Castro addressed the inequality issues that came with expansion into tourism industry as ‘necessary evil’ in times of severe economic hardships (Fernandez, Kempadoo 82-83).
Women of Pre-Revolution Cuba
In the pre-revolution era, nuclear families were virtually absent in Cuba and extended families with kin of two generations or more lived in a single household. These extended families had in some ways included both single parent and two parent households. Such extended families still prevailed in the end of twentieth century, but didn’t outnumber the number of nuclear families. Even within those traditional extended families, women were supposed to carry out an overwhelming amount of household task. During the economic crisis after the fall of Soviet, the extended families gained prominence once again as the state could no longer continue fulfil the material demand of its citizens. The import of oil and subsidized goods were no longer available, and the US trade embargo meant that Cuba was not well-equipped to compete in the free market. The changing dynamics affected every aspect of Cuban life and culture, and it certainly changed the way women functioned in the society (Bengelsdorf, Springfield 13-16).
A typical white mother of Cuba before revolution would be paranoid of letting their young daughters participate in revolutionary activities. They nursed a great desire to protect the virginity or honor of their daughters, and such concerns formed the ideals which took control over female sexuality. Fernandez in his book Revolutionizing Romance cites Yanez who writes about the words of a traditional Cuban mother saying that virginity is something not to be seen or touched, but only something that is lost. It was a common fear among several traditional white mothers during the time of revolution that their daughter would indulge in an interracial affair, particularly with a mulatto male. Even in the present day Cuba, it is hard to find an interracial marriage between whites and mulattos as the racial segregation still permeates the society (Fernandez 56-57).
Cuban women were largely undermined by the male-oriented machismo-centric society. The streets were occupied by men who competed for a woman’s body not for the sake of their sexual aspirations, but to establish their machismo status. Slavery was intense in the 19th century Cuba and it tremendously impacted the social, political and economic spheres. Preserving the racial purity was an important task for men, not just to protect their identities but to also retain property rights for white people alone. Men, especially the whites, wished to obtain possession of another’s wife for that was considered to elevate their status in the society. Springfield mentions that in the 19th century Cuba, sex was a biological necessity for men whereas in case of women, sex had to be simply tolerated to fulfill their desire for motherhood. The condition of white women from that period of time before revolution contrasts starkly with that of black women who were considered to be brute and violent. The pre-revolutionary Cuban society, which was predominantly ruled by white males considered that the mulatta females were a threat to traditional Cuban establishments. Even today, the themes of machismo and racial segregation of society continues to affect Cuba as one among many other hindrances towards development (Springfield, 11).
Conclusion
Cuban society is mired by contradictions. Poverty is widespread, yet somehow its people don’t go short of money. Havana is still admired as a beautiful location by millions of tourists travelling each year (Trumbull 305). As a result of trade embargo, Cuba is put up with dated commodities which allowed it to specialize in the need for recycling. Woman, who played a largely minimized role in the pre-revolutionary Cuban society have been granted equal rights and opportunities in the workforce. The aspects of racial segregation and traditional norms, however, still affected the women from participating in the labor, political or military workforce at large. The role of women has certainly changed in the aftermath of Soviet collapse. Cuba is once again in a transition period with the introduction of free market policies by its newly elected leader Raul Castro, and woman too are looking forward to re-establish their identity in modern Cuban society.
Works Cited
Bengelsdorf, Carolee. Daughters of Caliban: Caribbean Women in the Twentieth Century. Ed. Consuelo López Springfield. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1997. Print.
Fernandez, Nadine. Sun, Sex, and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean. Ed. Kamala Kempadoo. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Print.
Rosendahl, Mona. Inside the Revolution: Everyday Life in Socialist Cuba. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1997. Print.
Fernandez, Nadine T. Revolutionizing Romance: Interracial Couples in Contemporary Cuba. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2010. Print.
Trumbull, Charles, ed. Cuba in Transition: Papers and Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE), Miami, Florida, August 3-5, 2000. Silver Spring, MD: Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, 2000. Print.
