The Woman Question in Revolutionary Cuba: Is Marxism Really Working for Women?

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The Woman Question in Revolutionary Cuba: Is Marxism Really Working for Women? University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons CUREJ - College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal College of Arts and Sciences 4-1-2013 The Woman Question in Revolutionary Cuba: Is Marxism Really Working for Women? Lillian SK Gomperts The College of Arts and Sciences - University of Pennsylvania, gomperts@sas.upenn.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/curej Recommended Citation Gomperts, Lillian SK, "The Woman Question in Revolutionary Cuba: Is Marxism Really Working for Women?" 01 April 2013. CUREJ: College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal, University of Pennsylvania, https://repository.upenn.edu/curej/165. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/curej/165 For more information, please contact repository@pobox.upenn.edu. The Woman Question in Revolutionary Cuba: Is Marxism Really Working for Women? Abstract Since the 1959 revolution, there has been substantial advancement towards women’s equality in Cuba. But the progress is incomplete. Though Marxists argue that this indicates that the revolution’s work is not yet complete, I take a different stance: the fact that the problem is not solved means that a targeted attack on women’s oppression is needed. Cuba has adopted a traditional Marxist or Marxist feminist approach to women’s equality, which helped produce some positive changes for women. However, the limitations of the theory – namely, the ideas that women’s equality should be subsumed to a larger Marxist revolution and that patriarchy is a historically specific situation that would dissolve with the change to a communist mode of production – mean that Cuba cannot adequately address gender inequality. Because Cuban leadership prioritizes the revolution and does not believe that patriarchy needs to be directly attacked, women’s oppression to continues. Even though they acknowledge that the progress is incomplete for women in Cuba, leaders stand by Marxist theory – the only way for the “remnants” of past societies to disappear is to keep the revolution pressing forward. Contrary to the position of the Cuban state, I argue that more revolution alone will not generate full women’s equality. I present evidence in the areas of health, work, and politics that illustrate that patriarchy persists. Rather than dissolving with a change in the material base, Cuba’s patriarchy has evolved into Marxist machismo. Women’s equality cannot be a secondary goal of the Cuban revolution: in order to achieve full equality in Cuba, a women’s movement that directly attacks women’s oppression as women is imperative. Keywords feminism, Cuba, Marxist feminism, Socialist feminism, revolutionary feminism, Cuban Revolution, Social Sciences, Political Science, Nany Hirschmann, Hirschmann, Nancy This article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/curej/165 The Woman Question in Revolutionary Cuba: Is Marxism Really Working for Women? By Lily Gomperts Dr. Nancy Hirschmann, Advisor A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with Distinction University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA April 1, 2013 Gomperts 2 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 4 Table of Acronyms............................................................................................................................... 5 Section 1 – Introduction..................................................................................................................... 6 Section 2 – Theories Regarding Women in Marxism .............................................................11 The Traditional Marxist Analysis of Women ...................................................................................... 11 Marxist Feminism......................................................................................................................................... 13 Socialist Feminism ....................................................................................................................................... 15 Applications of Marxist and Socialist Feminism to the Cuba Case............................................... 15 Section 3 – Women in Prerevolutionary Cuba .........................................................................20 Section 4 – The Federation of Cuban Women...........................................................................23 Goals and Evolution of the FMC ............................................................................................................... 23 The FMC and the Cuban Government .................................................................................................... 26 Feminine, Not Feminist .............................................................................................................................. 29 A Critical View of the FMC.......................................................................................................................... 31 Section 5 – Health Care.....................................................................................................................35 Bringing Care to the Masses...................................................................................................................... 35 General Health Benefits ............................................................................................................................. 36 Cuba’s Success for Women (and For All) in the Health Care Arena............................................. 43 Section 6 – Work: Women in Production ...................................................................................46 Before the Revolution................................................................................................................................. 46 Integration into the Revolutionary Workforce.................................................................................. 49 Early Projects .................................................................................................................................................................49 Beginning to Integrate................................................................................................................................................52 Incomplete Integration ..............................................................................................................................................58 Material provisions for working women.............................................................................................. 59 Commitment to Collectivization ............................................................................................................................61 Day Care Centers and Other Services for Working Women.......................................................................62 The Family Code............................................................................................................................................................67 The Persistence of the Double Day .......................................................................................................................69 The Double Day and Workforce Integration ....................................................................................................71 The Effects of Material Burdens on Women in Cuban Communism ......................................................73 The Stratification of the Cuban Workforce.......................................................................................... 77 Horizontal Stratification of the Cuban Workforce .........................................................................................77 Vertical Stratification of the Cuban Workforce ...............................................................................................84 Analysis of Workforce Segregation by Sex........................................................................................................87 Section 7 - Political Participation .................................................................................................89 Before the People’s Power ........................................................................................................................ 90 Women in the People’s Power Assemblies and the Cuban Communist Party ......................... 91 Background – State and Party Structures, 1974-Present ...........................................................................92 Gomperts 3 Women’s Political Participation in the State and Party...............................................................................95 Analysis of Political Participation ........................................................................................................106 Section 8 – Why Marxism Is Not Enough ................................................................................. 111 Success and Failure....................................................................................................................................112 Marxist Theory and Cuba’s Apologist Explanation.........................................................................113 Limitations of Marxist Theory ...............................................................................................................116 The Case for
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