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Women and Work in Cuba During the First Three Decades of the Revolution, 1959–1989

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Women’s Work in Special Period Cuba

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Abstract

To situate women’s impressive advances in terms of education and employment in a historical context, this historiographic chapter examines how ideology regarding women’s employment was applied in terms of policy and practice during the first three decades of the Cuban revolution. By combining analysis of oral history testimonies with official revolutionary publications and other secondary sources, this chapter explores the direct confrontation between revolutionary polices inspired by Marxist ideology and traditional patriarchal cultural norms. Although Jerónimo Kersh demonstrates how the revolution failed to achieve gender equality in the private sphere, by juxtaposing examples of other socialist, regional, and capitalist countries, she highlights how Cuba managed to achieve more substantial gender equality in the public sphere than in other countries during these decades.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In 1910, a quarter of all Cubans were born in Spain—Mette Louise Berg, 2011, Diasporic Generations: Memory, Politics, and Nation among Cubans in Spain, New York Berghahn Books, pp. 49–50.

  2. 2.

    Ministerio de Justicia, 1977, La Mujer en Cuba Socialista, Havana, Empresa Editorial Orbe, p. 43.

    Helen Safa, 1995, The Myth of the Male Breadwinner: Women and Industrialization in the Caribbean, Colorado, Westview Press, p. 26.

  3. 3.

    Catasús, S., Farnos, A., González, F., Grove, R., Hernández, R., and Morejón, B., 1988, Cuban Women—Changing Roles and Population Trends, Geneva, International Labor Office, pp. 43–4.

    Ministerio de Justicia, La Mujer, p. 43.

  4. 4.

    Ellen Malos, 1982, The Politics of Housework, London, Allison and Busby Ltd., p. 7.

  5. 5.

    Ministerio de Justicia, La Mujer, pp. 1/52/294.

  6. 6.

    Ibid., pp. 46–7.

    Jorge Domínguez, 1978, Cuba: Order and Revolution, Cambridge Massachusetts, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, p. 270.

    Safa, The Myth of the Male Breadwinner, p. 28.

    Lois M Smith and Alfred Padula, 1996, Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 100.

  7. 7.

    Margaret, E. Leahy, 1986, Development Strategies and the Status of Women: a Comparative Study of the United States, Mexico, the Soviet Union and Cuba, Boulder, Lynne Reinner, p. 94.

  8. 8.

    Ministerio de Justicia, La Mujer, pp. 43–4.

  9. 9.

    Lillian Guerra, 2012, Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959–1971, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, p. 158—from UNESCO.

  10. 10.

    Ministerio de Justicia, La Mujer, p. 42.

  11. 11.

    Louis A. Pérez Jr., 2011, Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 282.

    Elizabeth Stone, 1981, Women and the Cuban Revolution: Speeches and Documents by Fidel Castro, Vilma Espin & Others, New York, Pathfinder Press, p. 11.

    Ministerio de Justicia La Mujer, p. 235.

    Geraldine Lievesley, 2004, The Cuban Revolution: Past, Present and Future Perspectives, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 140.

  12. 12.

    Elena Díaz González, August 1995, ‘Economic Crisis: Employment and Quality of Life in Cuba’, in Valentine M. Moghadam (ed) Economic Reforms, Women’s Employment, and Social Policies, World Development Studies 4, Wider, the United Nations University, p. 126.

  13. 13.

    Alejandro de la Fuente, 2001, A Nation for All; Race, Inequality and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba, Chapel Hill. University of North Carolina Press, p. 309.

  14. 14.

    Rosa Miríam Elizalde, 1996, Flores Desechables: ¿Prostitución en Cuba?, Havana, Casa Editorial, p. 37.

    Kamala Kempadoo, 1999, ‘Continuities and Change: Five Centuries of Prostitution in the Caribbean’, in Kamala Kempadoo (ed), Sun, Sex and Gold, Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc. p. 13.

  15. 15.

    Julie Bunck, 1994, Fidel Castro & the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press, p. 97.

  16. 16.

    Guerra, Visions of Power, pp. 240–1.

    Mona Rosendahl, 1997, Inside the Revolution: Everyday Life in Socialist Cuba, New York, Cornell University Press, p. 164.

  17. 17.

    Leahy, Development Strategies, p. 104.

  18. 18.

    Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, & Susan Rigdon, M, 1977, Four Women; Living the Revolution, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, pp. xiv–xvi.

  19. 19.

    Guerra, Visions of Power, p. 243.

  20. 20.

    Geoffrey E. Fox, 1973, ‘Honour, Shame and Women’s Liberation in Cuba: Views of working Class Émigré Men’, in Ann Pescatello (ed), Female and Male in Latin American Essays, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, p. 275.

  21. 21.

    Ana Serra, 2007, The ‘New Man’ in Cuba, Gainesville, University of Florida Press, p. 20.

  22. 22.

    Ministerio de Justicia La Mujer, p. 48.

  23. 23.

    Women contributed 20.1 million hours of voluntary labor—Domínguez, Cuba, p. 267.

  24. 24.

    Leahy, Development Strategies, p. 104.

  25. 25.

    Smith and Padula, Sex and Revolution, p. 99.

  26. 26.

    José Moreno, 1971, ‘From Traditional to Modern Values,’ in Carmelo Mesa-Lago (ed) Revolutionary Change in Cuba, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Green, Gil, 1970, Revolution Cuban Style: Impressions of a Recent Visit, New York, International Publishers.

  27. 27.

    Isabel Larguia and John Dumoulin, 1985, ‘Women’s Equality and the Cuban Revolution’, in June Nash and Helen Safa (eds) Women and Change in Latin America, Massachusetts, Bergin & Garvey, pp. 344–68, p. 350.

    Ministerio de Justicia, La Mujer, pp. 65–7.

  28. 28.

    Cuba automatically secured preferential international trade.

  29. 29.

    Smith and Padula, Sex and Revolution, p. 136.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., p. 135.

  31. 31.

    Szikra, Dorottya, 2009, ‘Social Policy under State Socialism in Hungary 1949–56’, in Sabine Hering (ed) ‘Social Care under State Socialism; 1945–1989’, Leverkusen, Barbara Budrich Publishers, p. 144.

  32. 32.

    The Socialist Childcare Collective, 1976, Changing Childcare; Cuba, China and the Challenging of our Own Values, Texas, Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, p. 12.

  33. 33.

    Larguia and Dumoulin, Women and Change, p. 351.

    Lewis, Lewis, & Rigdon, Four Women, p. xxii.

  34. 34.

    Díaz González, ‘Economic Crisis’, p. 126.

  35. 35.

    The percentage of married women working increased from 16.3 percent to 36.7 percent and of women with common law partners working from 9.2 percent to 24.8 percent—Larguia and Dumoulin, Women and Change, pp. 351–2.

  36. 36.

    Dharam Ghai, Cristobal Kay & Peter Peek, 1988, Labor and Development in Rural Cuba, Hampshire, Macmillan, p. 101.

  37. 37.

    Smith and Padula, Sex and Revolution, p. 101.

  38. 38.

    Ilja A. Luciak, 2007, Gender and Democracy in Cuba, Gainesville, University of Florida Press, p. 20.

  39. 39.

    Larguia and Dumoulin, Women and Change, p. 354.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., p. 356.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., p. 344.

  42. 42.

    Fifty-three percent of professionals.

    S. Catasús, A. Farnos, F. González, R. Grove, R. Hernández, and B. Morejón, 1988, Cuban Women—Changing Roles and Population Trends, Geneva, International Labor Office, p. 3.

    Larguia and Dumoulin, Women and Change, pp. 354–7.

  43. 43.

    Thirty-one percent of the Cubans that arrived in the US during the first decade of the revolution were professionals or managers—Silvia Pedraza, 2007, Political Disaffection in Cuba’s Revolution and Exodus, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 6.

  44. 44.

    Leahy, Development Strategies, p. 98.

  45. 45.

    Alfonso Farnos, Fernando González, and Raul Hernández, August 1983, The Role of Women and Demographic Change in Cuba, Population and Labor Policies Programs, working paper no 138, Geneva, International Labor Office, p. 41.

  46. 46.

    Harriet Bradley, 1989, Men’s Work, Women’s Work, Cambridge, Polity Press, pp. 16–7.

  47. 47.

    Leahy, Development Strategies, p. 105.

    Julie D. Shayne, 2004, The Revolution Question: Feminisms in El Salvador, Chile and Cuba, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, p. 138.

    Larguia and Dumoulin, Women and Change, p. 355.

  48. 48.

    Interview took place on 29/11/13 in Nuñez Sarmiento’s home, Miramar, Havana.

  49. 49.

    Larguia and Dumoulin, Women and Change, p. 357.

  50. 50.

    Bradley, Men’s Work, Women’s Work, p. 13.

  51. 51.

    Leahy, Development Strategies, p. 105.

  52. 52.

    Ministerio de Justicia, La Mujer, p. 43.

    Larguia and Dumoulin, Women and Change, p. 357.

  53. 53.

    Women in the Americas: Bridging the Gender Gap, 1995, author unknown, Washington DC, Inter-American Development Bank, p. 58.

  54. 54.

    Bradley, Men’s Work, Women’s Work, pp. 16–7.

  55. 55.

    Larguia and Dumoulin, Women and Change, p. 355.

    Ministerio de Justicia, La Mujer, p. 44.

  56. 56.

    Ibid., pp. 20/343–5.

    Leahy, Development Strategies, p. 100.

  57. 57.

    In the Caribbean, between 70 percent and 96 percent of manufacturing employees were female—Women in the Americas, p. 61.

    Safa, The Myth of the Male Breadwinner, p. 156.

  58. 58.

    George Psachropoulos and Zafiris Tzannatos, 1992, Women’s Employment and Pay in Latin America, Washington D.C., World Bank, p. 199

    Women in the Americas, p. 59.

  59. 59.

    Psachropoulos and Tzannatos, Women’s Employment…, p. 204.

  60. 60.

    Marifelli Pérez Stable, 2012, The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 115.

  61. 61.

    There was a 22 percent rise in Cuban salaries in 1981—Farnos et al., the Role of Women… p. 43.

    Cosmetics, perfume, creams, and fashion began to be sold in the newly created free market tiendas de la amistad during this period—Armando Navarro Vega, 2013, Cuba, el Socialismo y Sus Éxodos, Bloomington, Palibrio, p. 289.

    Mirta Rodríguez Calderón interview took place on November 29, 2013, in her home in Vedado, Havana.

  62. 62.

    Leahy, Development Strategies, p. 100.

  63. 63.

    Pérez Jr., Cuba, p. 281.

  64. 64.

    The CDRs were originally created in 1960, as an instrument of state vigilance, to report on anti-revolutionary activity at a neighborhood level, but were later used to promote social welfare. In Otivar, the CDRs organized parties and other community social activities as well as delegating tasks, such as clearing away trash or delivering groceries to elderly residents.

  65. 65.

    Larguia and Dumoulin, Women and Change, p. 360.

    Leahy, Development Strategies, p. 100.

  66. 66.

    Leahy, Development Strategies, p. 100.

    Larguia and Dumoulin, Women and Change, p. 346.

  67. 67.

    45.8 percent—Ibid., p. 360.

  68. 68.

    Margaret Randall, 1981, Women in Cuba: Twenty Years Later, New York, Smyrna Press, p. 25.

  69. 69.

    Farnos et al., the Role of Women, p. 44.

  70. 70.

    Díaz González, ‘Economic Crisis’, p. 127.

  71. 71.

    Hotensia Torres, 26/5/90, ‘Apilarían horario prolongado en círculos infantiles’, Granma, p. 2.

    Georgina Jiménez, Vladia Rubio, Iraida Calzadilla, Diana Sosa, Hortensia Torres, & Ricardo Roger Luis, 8/3/90, ‘Viviremos con la revolución o moriremos defendiendo la revolución’, Granma, pp. 1 and 3.

  72. 72.

    Leahy, Development Strategies.

    Larguia and Dumoulin, ‘Women’s Equality and the Cuban Revolution’.

    Randall, Women in Cuba.

    Lewis, Lewis, & Rigdon, Four Women.

  73. 73.

    Catasús et al., Cuban Women, p. 27.

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  1. Richmond, The American International University, London, UK

    Daliany Jerónimo Kersh

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Jerónimo Kersh, D. (2019). Women and Work in Cuba During the First Three Decades of the Revolution, 1959–1989. In: Women’s Work in Special Period Cuba. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05630-8_2

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