Cuban history is marked by the role of women. Names such as Ana Betancourt, Mercedes Sirvén Pérez and Adela Azcuy, became famous for their participation in revolutionary processes and for the defense of women’s rights.
In the first half of the 20th century, feminist parties and national fronts were created, and in the 1936 elections, Cuban women were able to vote and be voted on for the first time. The 1940 Constitution established the equality of all Cubans before the law and the recognition of different rights, but in practice women had to face several obstacles to live an integral citizenship.
In recent years initiatives such as “Women in the History of Cuba” or “Women who Make History” have tried to recover and shed light on the important legacy of Cuban women in different spheres. It is in this context that the contesting role they played and their participation in key moments of national history such as the Cuban Revolution assumes special relevance.
Women in the Cuban Revolution
Conquest and protection are two essential faces of masculinity in different armed conflicts, which makes the presence of women among combatants ambiguous, seen either as a sign of weakness or as a source of desire. The case of the Cuban Revolution is no different and, throughout the revolutionary process, guerrillas were treated more as a problem than a solution, because supposedly, in addition to distracting men, they also needed protection.
In general, women were assigned to positions associated with supposed “qualities of their sex”, acting as nurses, cooks, seamstresses, messengers, drivers, propagandists, seeking support and collecting weapons, ammunition and funds. Functions often associated with care that were not minor or accessory, on the contrary, were extremely necessary for the continuity of the revolutionary process, but delegated to women because they seemed less heroic than taking up arms.
Still, some women became famous in the revolutionary process. Haydée Santamaría is one of them. Participating in the assault on Moncada, then the most important barracks in Cuba, on July 26, 1953, Haydée lost her brother, Abel Santamaría, and her fiancé, Boris Santa Coloma, in the operation thwarted by the troops of Fulgencio Batista. Both were arrested, tortured and killed.
After the attack on the Moncada, Haydée was assigned a mission to the US in search of weapons and financial support. Randall’s (2015) work on the author reveals several gender tensions involved in the revolutionary process. In the text, Haydée testifies how certain ways of acting and dressing, now considered normal, were completely forbidden for her, who was never just Haydée, but above all Abel’s sister, Boris’s girlfriend and the person connected to Fidel. As a consequence, she should redouble her care about her behavior, under penalty of impacting the movement as a whole.
Haydée carried with her not only the responsibility for her actions, but also for the men and for the movement she was part of. The “care” to which she refers would be in the erasure of her private image, so that it would not compromise the fight. A woman who couldn’t just be herself because she felt responsible for all those who, in turn, thought they had to protect her.
The gender role, reinforced in the case of guerrilla men – virile, desiring, protective and who wielded weapons – should be, in part, annulled by guerrilla women so that they would be respected by their own and others.
Women in Socialist Cuba
Between Moncada and January 1, 1959, other women also began to demand participation in the revolutionary process, especially in direct combat against Batista’s forces. Among the most remembered names are Célia Sánchez, Vilma Espín, Aleida March and Isabel Rielo. The latter led the Mariana Grajales Platoon, created in September 1958, composed only of women.
Although Cuban historiography gives these heroines a prominent place, highlighting their multiple roles in the revolutionary process, as stated by Cássia Vassi (2007), the image that was fixed in the fight against the Batista dictatorship was that of the three heroes – Fidel Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara – entering Havana with tanks and rifles.
The year after the revolutionaries’ victory, the Federación de Mujeres Cubanas (FMC) was created, unifying the Agrarian Feminine Column, the Revolutionary Feminine Brigades, the women’s sections of the 26 de Julio and the unions under the direction of Vilma Espín. with the participation of Haydée. For the organization, the guerrilla’s new place was that of a woman-mother at last protected and at peace to help build a new society, giving birth to and educating the nation’s future generations. The guerrilla, therefore, needed to exist to make room for her mother, with a family, home, job and stability.
In the midst of the Cold War, with attacks of all kinds perpetrated by the US, the Revolution increasingly approached Soviet-based socialism to guarantee its existence. In 1966, after the establishment of a one-party regime, the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and the rapprochement with the USSR, Cuban women should assume a new role: that of defending the homeland from imperialist attacks, protecting the socialist revolution in progress, but also to guarantee the existence of future generations.
The place of women in the Cuban revolutionary process can be understood as multifaceted and constantly negotiated. Sometimes the erasure of its gender so as not to compromise the movement’s image or generate “uncontrollable wills” in its members, sometimes its reinforcement to guarantee its participation in the struggle. Between the war –which cannot have a woman’s face– and the house –which must have one. Transitioning to survive in a world of virile heroes and often still having to do more than all of them.
Today, although there are several advances, the challenges that Cuban women face in achieving full equality are manifold. Cuba was the first country to sign and the second to ratify the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. In political terms, women represent 51.1% of the leadership of the State and the government and 53.2% of the National Assembly of Popular Power (Parliament).
However, in 2019, the National Bureau of Statistics and Information published data from the latest National Survey on Gender Equality, in which 39.6% of women said they had been victims of violence at some point in their lives, highlighting psychological violence. and economic as the main forms of aggression. In addition, according to the survey, stereotypes about femininity and masculinity still remain on the island and there are still gender disparities in the total workload between men and women.
