Marta Núñez Sarmiento Department of Sociology, University of Havana ¨Cuban Strategies for Women’s Employment in the 90’s: a Case Study with Professional Women”

Prepared for delivery at the 2000 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Hyatt Regency Miami, March 16-18, 2000 Preparado para distribuir en la Reunión 2000 de la Asociación de Estudios Latinoamericanos, Hyatt Regency Miami, 16 al 18 de Marzo, 2000

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Cuban Strategies for Women’s Employment in the 90’s: a Study with Professional Women Marta Nuñez Sarmiento, Dept. of Sociology University of Havana (Paper presented at the LASA 2000 Congress, Miami, March 15-18) This paper discusses some aspects of the alternative project to neolibelarism that Cuba worked out during the crisis of the 90´s. It is basically a Socialist program, aimed at ending all forms of discrimination, including discrimination against women, and it has to struggle with obstacles common to all underdeveloped countries. In order to clarify this hypothesis, I summarize the results of a case study I recently concluded with women professionals and technicians in Cuba during the 90’s, as part of a larger study on Cuban women and employment. I intend to demonstrate that neither the process of women’s incorporation and permanence in the labor force in Cuba stopped during the crisis years, nor did all the changes in gender ideology that women’s employment has promoted during the last forty years. I have also used the findings from several case studies with Cuban working women in traditional and non-traditional feminine jobs, as well as from global research on women and employment in Cuba, that I carried out from 1985 to 1998. (1) I decided to use these findings in order to explain the high participation of women among Cuban professionals and technicians for more than 20 years, and the high proportion of professionals and technicians in the total number of employed women, that also began around 1978. Cuban social scientists must explain the fact that this trend did not stop during the hard years of crisis and readjustments. I grouped my arguments in two parts. The first one deals with “macro information”. This means statistics on women and employment in Cuba and, specifically, on women professionals and technicians, as well as the social policies that promoted this phenomenon beginning from the 60’s. Having in mind that this aspect is fairly well known, I decided to present it quite briefly. I dedicate more space and attention to the second part, which I constructed on the basis of a case study I did at the end of 1999 and the beginning of this year 2000 among 18 women professional and technicians living in Havana. My purpose with this research was to define certain aspects of these women’s gender ideology concerning the following four topics. 1. Which were the strategies you worked out during the 90’s to keep your jobs and to reproduce the everyday lives of your families? 2. How has your condition of being a professional or a technician influenced on your abilities for decision making? Do you feel capable of working as a manager? Have you ever occupied this post? Do you wish to work as a manager? 3. Do you believe that the way women’s employment has developed in Cuba, specially among women professional and technicians, has modified men’s attitudes?

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Being a professional or a technician, what has this meant for you in your personal lives? How has it influenced in your relations with your couple, with your parents and children, and in your relations with your colleagues at work?

The Sample and the Methods The 18 women professional and technicians in my sample represent different age groups from 28 to 66 years. All of them studied their carriers or graduated from them after 1959. They started working during the Revolution and represent different professions. Among them are women from different racial groups. They have different marital status. In this sample there are women with no children, with one child and with more than one. I do not know how all Cuban women professional and technicians are distributed among social and demographic categories. Therefore, I cannot say that the women in my sample clearly represent their colleagues in Havana or in Cuba. This, of course, limits the possibilities of extending my findings concerning their opinions and life experiences to the rest of the Cuban women professional and technicians. Another reason that keeps me from generalizing is the fact that I selected these 18 women because they know me. I decided to do so because this way I solved the problem of gaining their confidence to carry out the deep interviews. Therefore, this is an exploratory study of a wider research I am planning in the short term with women professionals and technicians in non feminine traditional jobs, as are considered outside Cuba: economists, lawyers and doctors. Who are these 18 women? Two of them are older than sixty; seven are between 50 and 59 years old; four are between 40 and 49; another four are aged from 30 to 39, while one is 28 years old. Fifteen of these women are professionals in the fields of Medicine, Dentistry, Economics, Architecture, Computer Sciences, Pedagogy, Languages, Scientific and Technological Information, Sociology, Civil Engineering and Music. Among the three technicians, one works in the field of Dentistry, another manages a laundry and the third works as an Executive Secretary. Nine of them are white, five are black and four are “mulatas”. Ten of them are divorced, separated or widows; six are married and two are single. Fourteen of these women have children (with an average of 1.5 child per woman, which is practically similar to the Cuban women’s average of 1.6 child per woman). (2) Four of them have no children. The fourteen women with children averaged 27 years when they had their first child. This means they were nine years older than Cuban women´s average age when they have their first child. Their average salary is 328 pesos, higher than Cuban workers’ average salary in 1999: 207 pesos. During the 90’s all fourteen women had to take care of their aging parents and other elderly members of their families. Eleven of them had working mothers, while the mothers of the other seven were housewives. Among the working mothers, only one was a professional and two worked as technicians.

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I used two methods in this study: I carried out deep interviews and I analyzed statistical data and other documentary information. The deep interview was the basic procedure: I used it to know how the women in the sample defined themselves as women, workers and, specifically, as professionals and/or technicians in the specific conditions in which they lived. I asked them to reflect upon the transcendency of being a woman in Cuba, basically during the years of crisis and readjustments that took place in the 90’s, and I asked them to illustrate their reflections with examples. The conversations that resulted from these interviews were deep and fluid, because, as I said before, all of them knew me, and because I am a professional myself, and lived in Cuba during these hard years. I analyzed Cuban statistical yearbooks, laws and resolutions related to Cuban social policies concerning women; documents elaborated by the Federation of Cuban Women and studies dealing with gender relations in Cuba, written by Cuban researchers and colleagues from other countries. Women professionals and technicians’ employment in the 90’s as part of women’s employment in Cuba. Social policies that promoted women’s incorporation to the labor force and their permanence in it before the 90’s: readjustments and new measures. The proportion of women in the total Cuban labor force increased stably from 1959 (13%) to 1970 (19%). (3) Between 1970 and 1989 this index kept increasing firmly, and much more accentuated than in the previous eleven years: from 19% in 1970 (4) it raised to 38.7% in 1989. (5) It also increased in absolute figures. From 1989 to 1996 this trend stopped: the rates of women’s participation in the labor force oscillated, and they were relatively lower than in 1989 (37.6% in 1995 and 37.2% in 1996). (6) This behavior is repeated in other estimates. In 1989 women’s participation in the labor force represented 35.5%, while in 1995 and 1996 it represented 35.1%. (7) The indexes that had a light increase were those referring to women’s participation in the State civil sector: 41.3% in 1989 (8) and 42.3% in 1997. (9) During the 90’s women readapted to new forms of employment. At the beginning of the “special period”, almost all female labor force belonged to the State Civil sector. Many women changed their job orientation after the economic restructuring that began around 1995, which, among other things opened and/or widened other non State sectors. Thus, in the private sector, women’s participation in the labor force increased from a 15.1% in 1989 to a 22.9% in 1997. (10) In the joint venture sector, women accounted for 34.3% of all workers in 1997. (11) Among women workers, their distribution according to occupational sectors in 1989 and 1997 confirms this job reorientation. According to data from to the Ministry of Labor of all women workers in 1989, 89% worked in the State civil sector. In 1997 81.3% of them worked in this sector. In other words, 8% less. In 1989, 0,8% of all women workers were employed in the cooperative sector , and in 1997 5.2% of all women workers were employed in this sector. The indexes for the private sector were 1.5% in 1989 and 2.8% in 1997. The so called joint venture sector did not exist in 1989; in 1997 2.5% of 4

all women workers were employed in this new sector. The so called category of “other sectors” did not change : 8.7% of all women workers were employed there in 1989, while in 1997 they represented 8%. There is a positive understanding of women’s readaptation to the process of economic redimensioning in the field of employment, in the sense that they flexibly repositioned themselves in the job structure. But we still have to analyze if, acting that way, women changed to less qualified activities, or if in the near future there will be signs of discrimination against them in the private sector (specially among the self owned employments), in the joint sector ( where employees indirectly benefit from hard currency) and in the cooperative one. Since 1977 women represent more than half of Cuban professionals and technicians, and this trend increased up to 65.5% in 1997. Beginning from 1978 the category of professionals and technicians concentrate the majority of women workers, and the trend has increased. Neither of these trends stopped during the crisis years of the 90’s. I will explain reasons for this behavior. There has been a process of feminization in the field of education, specially at the high school and university levels. The Statistical Profile of Cuban Women in the Threshold of the XXI Century , edited by the National Office of Statistics, reads that “ ...at the junior high school and high school levels, more and more girls per 100 boys are enrolling, up to a point where, at the latter level, they doubled the boys. Several reasons explain this behavior. For example, boys are interested in enrolling mainly in technical and professional working courses, in order to rapidly enter the labor market when they graduate from 12th grade.” “Beginning from the eighties, a process of feminization in higher education took place: in 1996-97 women represented 60% of total enrollment at this level.” (12) In 1996 women accounted for 65% of all graduates from the high school and technical and professional high school levels, as well for 58% of all graduates at the higher educational level. (13) Women´s labor force, compared to men´s, has higher educational levels. This trend has been going on since 1978. That year, 4.9% of women workers graduated from the university level, compared to 3.5% of male workers. In 1996 16.1% of women workers had graduated from universities, compared to 10.9% of male workers. In 1996 44.95% of all women workers had graduated from high school levels, compared to 32.2% of male workers. (15) Women are employed in all economic sectors, both in women´s traditional and non traditional jobs. In 1996 71% of women workers highly concentrated in the sectors of education, industry, public health, sports, tourism and trade. The rest of them was distributed among the sectors of construction, agriculture, transportation, communications and others. (16) Women´s participation in the total labor force is higher in the sectors of 5

education (61.5%), public health, sports and tourism (62.1%) and finances and insurances (60.7%). (17) They are also employed in non traditional women´s sectors, according to Cuban standards. For example, they represent 19% of all workers in the sugar industry and 21% of all workers in agriculture. They are present as well in non traditional sectors, according to others countries standards. In 1994, 55.4% of all district attorneys were women, and 47% of members of the Supreme Court were also women. In 1994, women represented 51% of Cuban physicians, 62% of family doctors and 45% of all scientists. (18) In order to understand this trend in women´s employment, we have to consider the social policies aimed at eliminating all forms of discrimination against women, and also the legal framework and the specific measures coming from these policies. They have been enacted since the sixties, and have been submitted to constant changes in order to adapt themselves to the ever changing conditions and needs of Cuban women and society. I have named this trend as a process that has taken place “from the top” and “from the bottom”. Although all institutions have participated in this process at various levels, the Federation of Cuban Women has acted as a sort of a basic “conscience raising institution in favor of women” since it was founded in 1960. I will mention just eleven different “actions” enacted during the last 40 years, aimed at benefiting working women, including professionals and technicians. During the 90´s none was abolished, and some of them were readjusted. 1. Maternity Law (1974) included in the Labor Code. It regulates maternity leaves for working women. It was modified in 1993, in order to extend the length of time given to mothers to look after their newly born children. 2. Family Code (1975) 3. Free education from kindergarten up to postgraduate levels (since 1961). 4. Day care centers for newly born children from 45 days old up to five years old. (1961). 5. Lunches at primary schools for working women´s children. 6. Scholarships available for students needing them at all levels of education. 7. The State assigns jobs for all those graduating from university and professional and technical high school levels. 8. Divorced parents have to pay their children´s alimony. 9. Social security insures pensions to those retiring from the active labor force. Working women´s parents benefited from these measures, as well as widowed working women. 10. The right of all those working for the State to have a paid month vacation every year. 11. Several public health services, that have promoted health habits among working women and their families as methods for family planning; breast and uterus cancer tests; vaccination; access to institutions at all levels of public health (family doctors, policlinic, hospitals, specialized research centers). When the crisis began in 1989-90, women workers had benefited from these measures. As all the Cuban population, they had lived decades of sustained economic growth. During 6

these years, everyone, including women, had access to a relatively equal distribution of income and to decent levels of human development. Therefore, at the beginning of the crisis the quality of life of Cuban human resources were higher than those of other Third World countries. Three arguments explain why Cuban working women stayed at their jobs along the crisis and readjustment years. A. Approximately, one third of Cuban women wage-earners head their households. They are the sole “bread winners” in their homes or theirs is the highest income. This figure increases if we were to include all working women who remarry or establish new marital unions, who are not the “official” heads of their household, but who consider themselves responsible for their children´s economic support. This is typically the case of remarried women who live with their own children from previous marriages or marital unions. B. At present, women account for two-thirds of all Cuban professionals and technical workers. Cuban women, thus, represent the majority of a highly qualified labor force which is needed in a country that has a development strategy based on promoting economic activities requiring highly sophisticated technology and efficiency. C. Women wage-earners dramatically increased their participation in the Cuban labor force during the last 28-29 years (beginning from 1970). Therefore, it can be induced that there is already a considerable proportion of women workers, basically among the youngest generation, who can be considered second generation workers through their mothers´ line. The fact that they have empirical referents of women workers in their families could reasonably explain why they stayed in the labor force during the crisis. D. Cuban legal and political regulations and framework promoting women permanence in the labor force remained during the crisis years and adapted to the different changes were taking place. I will mention some examples to illustrate. q q q

q q q

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In the process of rationalizing personnel, explicit policies have been conducted for not rationalizing women first. Gradual and planned redistribution of surplus labor force, resulting from managerial restructuring seeking higher standards of economic efficiency; Protection of workers who cannot be relocated after their work centers interrupt their production. Such workers receive a 60% of their salaries. Additional subsidies are allocated for working single-mothers who have been rationalized. Job incorporation of most vulnerable segments of women population ( disabled and single mothers); The Cuban state continued ensuring jobs for new university graduates and graduates from intermediate technical schools. Coordinating commissions for women employment were resumed. Such commissions are made up of representatives from the Federation of Cuban Women, Trade Unions and the Ministry of Labor; Widening of job opportunities and options in the cooperative sector (basic unions of cooperative production and cooperatives for agricultural production) and in the private 7

sector, basically through strengthening and developing self-employment as well as leasing unused land to families. In 1997 the Cuban State Council passed the “Beijing Conference National Action Plan”, which is the legal document that summarizes all proposals examined by the United Nations World Conference on Women, which took place in the Chinese capital in 1995. This document expresses the political will of the Cuban State concerning women´s advancement, and enacts 90 articles to do so. Measures contained in this “Action Plan” are mandates for all Cuban State institutions, and are regularly controlled in seminaries organized by the Federation of Cuban Women, with the participation of representatives from these institutions. Women professional and technical workers, as well as all women workers, suffer inequalities in their every day lives, which affect them physical and psychologically. I will mention three. A survey conducted by the National Office of Statistics of Cuba in 1996 concluded that women workers dedicated an average of 34 hours a week to house chores, while men worked only 12 hours a week in these chores. Men basically performed “auxiliary” chores. (19) Cuban women workers´ salaries, considered as a whole, represent 80 to 85% of salaries earned by men. This difference is not due to salary discrimination towards women. The Constitution mandates equal pay for equal work. The answer to this problem is that men are the absolute majority of workers in those economic sectors with higher salaries: for example, mining and construction. There are several opinions concerning the ways to calculate this macrosocial index. The authors of “Research on Human Development in Cuba 1996” concluded that “...the ratio between women´s and men´s salaries should be equal to 1.00, instead of 0.75.” (20) In that same study, the ratio between women´s and men´s salaries appears to be estimated in 0.75. (21) Women participate in 31% of managerial posts, which is relatively low, considering that women represent two thirds of all professional and technical workers. It also has to be considered that these women have relatively higher educational levels, compared to male workers. I have summarized statistical data on women´s employment in Cuba, emphasizing on women professional and technical workers. I also referred to the political and legal framework that promoted its basic trends. This is a necessary introduction to the fundamental goal of this presentation: to approach how women professional and technical workers represent themselves as women, whose actions and ideological representations have changed and, doing so, have changed the way society acts and thinks. Strategies carried out by women professionals and technical workers during the 90´s in order to keep their jobs and reproduce their every day lives 8

I asked these women to describe the strategies they worked out concerning employment and taking care of the elderly members of their families. I also asked them about how much their life styles changed due to the shortages endured during the “special period”. In terms of employment, all the women in the sample stayed working for a salary, and, simultaneously, performed other jobs, in order to have additional incomes. Sixteen of them kept their jobs as professionals and technical workers (among them, fifteen worked in the so called State civil sector, and one became a free lancer). The other two changed their professions: a teacher decided to work in a hard currency shop, and a lawyer became a secretary at a joint venture enterprise . Why did the majority of these women stayed working as professionals or technical workers? The following quotes describe how these women decided to assert their professional identities during the crisis of the 90´s. This was a very difficult moment in their lives, when they needed to maintain their condition as professional workers, because it meant keeping something that “cost” them tremendous efforts, and that dignified them among their coworkers, their family members and their neighbors. “My profession meant everything to me”, said one woman. Another one told me: “I cannot explain with economic arguments why I defended my right to stay as a professional during those years. I was defending the role I had assigned myself, and that I did not want to abandon. It was a sort of fidelity towards something that made me a human being.” A third woman said: “Keeping our jobs as professionals meant struggling for a dream, a goal that cost us so much.” “If you want to find answers to this question, you have to divide your arguments in two dimensions: one concerning the salary and another concerning the profession. The latter was more important than the salary. In the 90’s, salaries practically lost their meanings as stimulus. Meanwhile, my profession was something I had to keep, in order to resist and develop myself.” “ Deciding to keep my profession made me feel worthy. It was like a shield that protected me from all the anguishes of the crisis.” “For years I had cultivated my brains, my life style, my looks, and I did not want to loose it.” “Working as a professional liberated me from the dullness of the house chores.” Their jobs insured them monthly salaries, whose real values had decreased due to the crisis, but were still considered stable incomes, much higher than the average salaries of Cuban wage earners. Women in the sample thought that the crisis had to end, and they wanted to maintain their professional posts up to the moment when money would regain its value and/or salaries would be raised. Furthermore, they believed they would disqualify themselves if they stopped practicing their professions. Which were the alternative activities to their jobs that they developed to ensure a second income?

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. They rented rooms. . They sold personal belongings. . They taught private lessons. . They typed thesis for students graduating from university and professional and technical high school levels. . They rented their cars and/or taxied (themselves or with the help of relatives). . They cooked food and sold it to self employed owners of small cafeterias or sold it themselves. . They sew clothes. . They traveled, as part of their job responsibilities, and saved their per diem. . They raised chicken and sold eggs. All along the 90’s, when they organized strategies to take care of the elderly members of their families, Cubans over sixty five represented almost 10% of all the population.(22) Moreover, the few asylums for elderly existing in Cuba basically hosted old age people without families. Cuban tradition criticizes those who “give away” their elderly to these institutions. The widely accepted rule is that the old age relatives must stay with their children and grandchildren. Cuban women over 45 years old usually are responsible for taking care of the “senior adults” in their families, as part of the fact that women are burdened with house chores. During the 90’s all eighteen women in the sample had to look after their elderlies without quitting their jobs. At the beginning of the crisis, Cuba had benefited from social policies, social programs and institutions aimed at enabling decent living standards for third age citizens. They included social security programs, geriatric services at policlinic and hospitals, family doctors (one for every 120 families, and live in the same neighborhood as their patients), grandparents’ clubs and the so called “day care facilities” for third age citizens (elderly people attend these institutions from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm ). Besides, TV and radio stations advertised spots designed to promote respect and understanding towards third age citizens. If all these actions could have been kept working during the 90’s, and could have been adapted to the real needs of elderly people, then they would have supported working women over 45 years old. But the crisis affected these actions: pensions decreased their actual values; food and medicines were scarce; grandparents’ clubs practically closed, and no new “day care facilities” for the elderly were inaugurated. Geriatric services and family doctors continued operating, with enormous material shortages. What did women in the sample do during these years? All of them planned different alternatives with very little resources or, as Ofelia Schutte states, they engaged in cognitive actions to develop an “ethics of care”. (23) They wore down physical and psychologically along this period.

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All the women in the sample decided to stay as wage earners, because they could not afford to lose their incomes. Non of them gave away the elderly members of their families to asylums. On the contrary, they did their best to adapt their living conditions according to the new needs of their old age folks that lived with them and were losing mental and physical capabilities. Thirteen women involved almost all members of their nuclear and extended families to share the chores of looking after the elderly. This meant involving their children, cousins, uncles, aunts and available friends. They used these peoples’ help mainly while the women in the sample worked at their jobs. Occasionally they hired non family members, when their incomes allowed them to do so. Among the interviewed, two moved their elderly relatives, who were living alone, to new houses, situated nearer their homes. They also asked their children to move over with these old aged relatives, in order to take care of them and inherit the houses. They did so, because formerly their relatives lived very far away, and during the 90’s public transportation almost didn’t run, and these women had to walk long distances. They devoted the largest part of their budgets to feed their children and the elderly. Most of the earnings spent buying food came from the alternative economic activities listed above. These women affected their nutrition during the first years of the so called “special period”, and severely lost weight. All women in the sample organized their elderlies’ health care basically using the family doctors and nurses. They took them to hospitals only when they needed specialists. The medicines they took came from donations distributed through the drug stores system or were sent by relatives or friends living permanently or temporarily outside Cuba. They began to use “ green medicine”. One of the interviewed women said: “It was almost a miracle how these old relatives survived the crisis years with so little resources. Women have to be thanked for this.” Women’s life styles considerably changed. In terms of public transportation, under conditions of huge fuel shortages and lack of spare parts for Soviet and Eastern European buses, cars, and trucks, five of them rode bicycles, one was able to keep her car running and linked to her work placed (this meant she received a gasoline quota), while the rest walked, “hitch-hiked” or rode on the “camels” (huge two humped cabins dragged by trucks). Two women confessed that they usually walked 12 kilometers two or three times a week. Moreover, they changed the ways of spending their leisure hours. They stopped going out to eat in restaurants, because the better ones started charging in dollars and these women couldn’t afford them. Instead, they started meeting with friends at their houses. They also stayed at home watching TV, and spent more time in their neighborhoods.

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Several started visiting friends and relatives. At the beginning of the “special period” nobody visited at lunch or dinner time, because food was scarce. Visitors did not expect to be offered the traditional cup of coffee. Herb and flower decoctions substituted coffee . Now that living standards have improved, the cup of coffee returned to these homes and decoctions stayed. One woman, who is a very keen observer, said: “ In the ‘special period’ it was almost impossible to ‘show off’. People behaved as they were. As we all lacked almost everything, we stopped being ashamed of lacking what others had.” Thirteen of the eighteen women in the sample started saving in banks. Before the “special period” they lived “up to date”, because their salaries covered their spendings. Those that saved in banks, spent the money during their yearly vacations or used it to repair their houses. Now they save money for any possible illness affecting them, and keeping them from working, or affecting other members of their family, who require additional care and expenses. These women lived through four moments during the crisis years of the 90’s. The first was a moment of surprise at the crumbling of the Socialist field and the decrease of their personal standards of living, all of which happened in less than a year. They were taken by surprise, although in 1990, at the Congress of the Federation of Cuban Women, Fidel warned the country that conditions would become worse. The second was the moment of depression, anguish and bewilderment, because living standards kept deteriorating in all possible spheres: food, medicines, transportation, domestic fuel, electricity. Furthermore, many work places closed. People compared this dramatic situation with the relatively high living conditions fostered by the increasing levels of social mobility promoted by the Revolution since the 60’s. This was the moment when no one saw the “end of the tunnel”. The third moment took place when these women decided to come out of the depression by ways unsuspected up to that moment. At this minute they made personal decisions: they changed jobs or took an additional one; they sold everything that could be sold; they decided to emigrate or stay ; they moved from their homes, their provinces or the towns where they lived; they divorced or stayed with their couple. They did everything that was needed to pay for the basic food for their children and their elderly , and to buy clothes and shoes for the younger ones in their families, who were growing. After many years accustomed to live protected by the State, they had to learn to redefine their life projects by themselves, with very little help from the State. At this moment they started looking more at their communities and neighborhoods. The fourth moment , the one they are living in now, and has been enriched by the experiences from the previous three, is the moment of not going back to the calamities of the first years of the crisis. 12

All through these four stages, women in the sample prepared their children in order to be able to encounter any kind of obstacles. They have insisted in the need to keep studying. They have looked after their personal health, mending the illnesses that came from lack of food and the stress they had to endure in their every day lives throughout almost seven years. Several conditions explain why these women’s survival strategies worked out during the crisis years. First. Social policies, legal frameworks and subsequent measures aimed at incorporating women to jobs were not abolished. As I explained in the first part of this article, these policies were adjusted and new ones were enacted. Second condition. New economic measures were enacted according to changes in domestic economic conditions and to new external economic relations. I will mention seven of them. (24) Women in the sample worked out their survival strategies under these conditions. 1. Law No. 77 concerning foreign investments was enacted on September of 1995, substituting decree No. 50 of 1982. Its goal was to promote joint ventures with foreign capital, in order to ensure markets, top technology and financial resources that would complement the Cuban side. It allowed creating joint ventures, associated contracts and enterprises with foreign capital. 2. In 1992 the government approved the creation of self financed enterprises operating with hard currency. These were enterprises and State agencies that were already selling their products and services in hard currency, and , thanks to this authorization, they started using their incomes to cover their operational expenses as well as to stimulate their workers . 3. Decree 140 of 1993 allowed Cuban citizens to use hard currency inside Cuba. Actually, it permitted Cubans to receive remittances in hard currencies from abroad, opened exchange offices all over the country and extended the chains of shops in dollars. 4. In 1993 self employment expanded. In 1997 citizens were allowed to rent rooms in hard currency. 5. Central State agencies were restructured in 1994, based on decree 147. For example, 15 State ministries, institutes and committees were cut out. 6. Agricultural goods and handicraft markets opened in 1994. 7. A new enterprise system was enacted in 1998. Third condition. Living in the neighborhood and the community has become more relevant in people’s every day life. Women in the sample acknowledged that now they dwell more in their neighborhoods; because they are working near their homes, or because they looked for more help among their neighbors; because they have worked out part of their strategies to seek a second income through the aid of their neighbors; and because they grew accustomed to consult the family doctor and the nearby policlinic instead of attending hospitals.

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Fourth condition. Along the 60’s, 70’s and the 80’s Cuba accomplished high rates of social mobility in all the country. This trend was not concentrated neither in the national capital, nor in the provincial ones, and, thus, it promoted in practically all Cubans higher levels of education, health, nutrition and social security than the levels existing during the 50’s in Cuba, and far more equitable living standards than those prevailing in other Third World countries. This became a positive characteristic for women in the sample, in the sense it created certain “reserves” with which these women professionals and technical workers were able to face the crisis. But it had a negative reading, since these women strongly felt and understood how much they had lost when living standards abruptly fell. Fifth condition. The actions and ideas aimed at struggling against all forms of discrimination did not stop during the 90’s. Cuban women played a visible and essential role in the survival of their families and of Cuba’s economy, and it helped increase their self esteem. The crisis made inequalities between women and men even more visible. And it also underlined Cuban women’s potentialities, strengths and abilities to overcome the crisis at the individual level, as well as the levels of the family, the community and the Nation. Women have come out of the crisis stronger, as Collette Harris foretold in 1995 and so did Luisa Campuzano in 1996. (25) Sixth condition. Several characteristics of Cuban social psychology contributed to women’s creativity. These traits are flexibility, non dogmatism, ability to assimilate changes and to promote them. Seventh condition. Women in the sample had to construct their strategies living in a still patriarchal society, where they are burdened with the double shift; where men predominate among managers; and where women earn 80% of men’s salaries, although law establishes equal pay for equal work. How has the fact of being professionals and technicians influenced in these women´s abilities for decision making? Do they consider themselves able to become managers? Have they occupied such posts? Would they like to become managers? They all became professionals and technicians after a long and fairly complex process of learning from educational programs and labor experiences. Thanks to this process, they became accustomed to take decisions at their jobs, whether they have stayed there for years or are new ones, where they transferred permanently or temporarily. They made decisions when they “built” their working specialties. One of the women in the sample wanted to become a fine piano accompanist and teacher, instead of being a medium piano player. Another one decided to become a professional in the field of computer sciences, instead of becoming a pure mathematician. A third one left her job as professor of Philosophy to become a sociologist. These examples stress that all these women had to study hard to improve their skills and/or redefine their specialties. All said they continue studying to keep from staying behind.

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Those who reoriented their jobs during the “special period” also made decisions: from teacher to sales woman; from lawyer to secretary; from State employed to free lancer. They make decisions at work, for example, when they plan their work chores annually, monthly and daily. Many have trained themselves to say “no” to extra plan activities, or simply to those they consider not interesting. Women in the sample unable to say “no” in their labor lives, are compelled to carry out boring activities. Nine out of the eighteen interviewed women chose to change their labor activities during the “special period”, always seeking ways to improve their living conditions. Women in the sample consider that they constantly make decisions in matters related to their specialties, basically those dealing with the jobs they perform. For example, they choose when they propose research topics; or when they modify the programs they teach; or when they select new materials to substitute others that are scarce. All of them love to decide and participate in the process of operationalizing these decisions, in order to evaluate if they were right in doing so, and to be able to work together with other colleagues. They love to perform their best, even if they are not heading the labor process. They make decisions when they distribute chores. Three confessed it was hard to learn to delegate or share with others different chores in the process of carrying out duties. They thought others could consider they were “avoiding” responsibilities. But, on the other hand, they mistakenly centralized responsibilities, and people criticized them for it. Fifteen said they were not willing to become managers or to perform any kind of leadership at their jobs. The following are the eight reasons they gave. One. They love to be “their own chiefs”, meaning they like to organize their work projects along a long period or during the working day. This does not mean they reject to inform their superiors, or that they are undisciplined. It means they are willing to introduce new activities, which they are sure can be fulfilled, although they are much more complex than those originally included in their work plans. Two. The real value of the salary “plus” they would earn working as managers is actually very small, in spite of the present devaluation of the Cuban peso. Three. Working as managers would be an additional burden to the “second shift”. It is easier for men to accept managerial posts, because they bear no responsibilities at home. “Their rear guard is covered”, said one of the women in the sample. Four. Managerial culture in Cuba has been designed by men and for them. This does not mean men are more capable than women to do this job. For example, it is easy for them to 15

call a meeting after working hours. Or they prefer to impose their points of view, instead of seeking consensus with the personnel they head. Graciela Gonzalez, who has studied women managers in Cuban enterprises, arrived at similar conclusions. (26) Five. These women do not want to fail as managers. It cost them too much to become good professionals and technical workers, and they would be ashamed if they were replaced as managers. This is not the case of men: when they fail as managers, they are “moved” to similar responsibilities. Six. People would start peeking at their private lives, if they worked as managers. Seven. Managerial posts are merely bureaucratic activities. “Max Weber already explained this in the XIX century”, pointed out one of the interviewed women. Eight. “If one works as a manager, one faces problems, specially when you propose solutions, which others consider will not work. And one knows that the proposals are intelligent ones, although they are very difficult to implement, and you find yourselves new enemies.” “It is easier to demonstrate that you are right, when you propose solutions while working as a specialist.” Working as professionals and technicians has permitted them to make decisions in their personal lives. For example, they compel their children to study, as a way to find good jobs in the future. This has been tougher for the seven women in the sample, who headed their households while their children studied. These women have carried out simultaneously chores at their work centers, at their homes and at the political level. This has created in them abilities to make decisions almost “every minute”: from choosing what to cook, to organizing their work agendas (which include labor activities, house chores, political and leisure activities). They consider that they are better trained than their mothers in the field of “decisionmaking”, concerning “transcendent” matters as well as “every day” ones. They perform them almost automatically. The way women in the sample reflected upon their access to managerial posts and upon their capacities in matters of decision making, fit the abilities that I believe Cuban women professionals and technicians already have in terms of empowerment. They also correspond to the conditions created in Cuban society. I believe that there are two conditions for Cuban women to hold power more visibly. First, it is said that once women acquire the knowledge previously denied to them as part of the patriarchal subordinating strategy, then they are bearers of a sine qua non condition to hold power. Cuban women have acquired knowledge in several ways:

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v Due to the feminization process of education in all levels of the Cuban education system, and particularly at secondary and the tertiary levels, women represent 58% of university graduates and 62% of senior high school graduates; v Women have steadily increased their presence in science and technology. Women account for 45% of all Cuban scientists and approximately 60% of university faculty. v Women represent two-thirds of all Cuban professionals and middle technicians. v If compared to active men working population, active working women have higher educational levels. Second, Cuban working women have been trained in problem-solving and decisionmaking, two essential requirements to hold and exercise power. Consciously or unconsciously, Cuban women make decisions when they organize their activities in their jobs, their chores in the second shift, and in social and political activities. Third condition. Cuban women wage earners, considered as a whole and including professional and technical workers, have promoted at work, because they are present in all occupational categories (including managers); because they perform complex activities; because they are working in all economic spheres (including women’s traditional and nontraditional jobs); and because they have higher educational levels than men. Fourth condition. During the last forty years, discriminatory actions against women have become gradually more visible, as well as the need to struggle against any form of discrimination. (27) Fifth condition. Professional and technical working women in the sample admit they have abilities to make decisions, and they make them, but the majority of them does not want to bear “formal” power. Do you believe women’s employment in Cuba, and specifically the high presence of women professionals and technicians, has modified Cuban men’s attitudes? Women in the sample answered that Cuban men have learned to respect women. This “respect” towards women has always been one of the intrinsic values of Cuban social psychology. Its meaning of chivalry has high quotas of patriarchal contents, in the sense that women are respected because they are “mothers”, “wives” and “weak beings that must be protected”. When the interviewed women said men “respect women more”, they incorporate new meanings. That is, men respect women more, for they work and earn salaries: because they are more independent; because they are trained to perform their professions, as well as men; because there are women managers, who have men subordinated to them; because men listen to the opinions of women, who are their co workers; because there are men, who accept that their wives earn more than them; because some of the men agree that their wives return late from work; because women workers do not accept violent acts from men, and they know it.

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Summarizing, women in the sample consider that Cuban men have learned to be a little less “machistas”, and women also have become less “machistas”. Along this process, women have played a much more active role than men. It has been an evolution, that has taken place in society as a whole, promoted by policies intended to enable women to construct their own identities; policies that acknowledge women’s individualities in respect to men’s, without provoking confrontations among them. Women’s employment has made men perform publicly chores that before were only accomplished by women. This means, for example, standing in lines to buy food, carrying shopping bags in their hands. One of the women in the sample said that there are men, who even buy sanitary napkins at drug stores for their wives and daughters, and sometimes carry them unwrapped on the streets. The woman pianist helped me understand what is happening in the world of music in terms of gender relations. She explained that there is a will to rescue high quality levels in texts of popular music, and also in their melodies. “Salseros” have been criticized for the low artistic quality of their compositions, taking into consideration that the majority of them have graduated from Cuban art schools. They are also criticized by the ways they humiliate women in their texts. I will mention such refrains in songs danced by most Cubans. For example, there is one that discriminates mature women, reflecting them as “old hens, that must be cooked over high heat”. Another refrains indignation towards women, calling them “witches”. There are also songs that turn visible men’s contradictions towards independent women. For example, there is a song called “The Black Man is Cooking”, that tells how a divorced man, who is living alone, is compelled to “cook”, alluding the sexual act, and has to stop his women neighbors, who want to “taste his cooking”. The pianist continued reflecting upon true potentialities among Cuban musicians to solve this discriminatory trait. She said that Cuban musicians are capable of improvising, in terms of texts and musical performances. What must be done, continues arguing the pianist, is guide them to interpret non sexist songs. She added that women are successfully occupying spaces in music, that formerly were considered “for men only”. She referred to the “explosion” of women’s musical groups in Cuba, even playing Afro-Cuban religious instruments, historically forbidden to women. I continued asking about changes in Cuban men, in the dimension of relations inside the couple. Women in the sample consider that there are still men incapable of sharing their lives with working women. This phenomenon caused divorces among two of the women I interviewed. Nonetheless, their ex husbands remarried to working women. They believe they needed their new wives’ salaries, and their ex wives “trained” them to be able to share their lives with women workers.

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All the women in the sample expressed that Cuban men have changed in one way or the other, influenced by the “women’s revolution”. Changes varied in intensity, according to men’s ages: older men act more prejudiced towards changes, while younger men accept them more naturally. But all women in the sample agreed that “we still live in a ‘machista’ society”. I can illustrate this with something I recently heard a thirty year old man say in a Havana street. He said: “I am able to do all house chores. But if my father in law neither cooks, nor washes the dishes, than I won’t do anything either. He is not more “macho” than me.” These words could illustrate the majority of Cuban men’s reactions, because due to house shortages, up to three generations live together under the same roof. Furthermore, the hypothesis that emerged from the research of Cuban women textile workers in Ariguanabo, carried out in 1987, with Helen Safa and the Federation of Cuban Women still works. According to it, men tend to share house chores with their couples, when both work, and have been able to create the necessary conditions to live as a nuclear family, even if they live under the same roof within an extended family. I can infer from the rich arguments expressed by the interviewed women, that men have changed in the ways they act and think in relation to women. Working women, as an important social phenomenon in Cuban society, has highly influenced these transformations. Although different forms of discrimination against women still persist on the macro social and micro social levels, it must be acknowledged they are highly visible and, in terms of political ideology, are considered unacceptable. I have worked out several hypothesis concerning new values that have appeared in Cuban men’s gender ideology, and that are related to women’s employment. Working women are social figures, who arrived at the Cuban labor scenario to stay. Men accept them as co workers, chiefs, wives and daughters, but with paradoxical feelings. Cuban men are publicly performing roles, that used to be exclusively women’s domestic chores. Although people are mocking less at these men, such jokes have not disappeared from gender ideology. Men acknowledge that women workers depend economically less from them. Men wish their daughters studied a career to become qualified workers, whether they are professionals or technicians. Men accept to work under women managers. Men agree to share their lives with women, who earn more than they do. Men know women workers reject domestic violence against them.

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Gender ideology guiding this process does not imply irreconcilable confrontations between men and women. These new values are taking form in Cuban gender ideology; they are not “enrooted”, but they are already here. The Cuban socialist project supports them. There is no “stalled revolution” in Cuba detaining “women’s revolution”, as has been the case in the US, according to Arlie Horschilde in The Second Shift. Women have played important roles in these changes, specially professionals and technicians who have been able to “negotiate” transformations in gender relations at their work centers, their homes and their neighborhoods. Women professionals’ and technicians’ role in transforming men goes far beyond changing their husbands. Other male members of their “surroundings” have felt how much these women have influenced in them to become less “machistas”. How has the fact of being women professionals and technicians influenced your relations with your couple, your father, children and colleagues at work? Marital relations Women in the sample considered that working as professionals and technicians helped them decide which kind of person they wanted to live with. All the eighteen interviewed women consciously selected their mates at different stages of their lives, and, in doing so, experimented conflicts. Working as professionals and technicians demand time, as well as physical and intellectual efforts, resulting in external obligations to the couple’s dynamics, which can damage the act of living together. These “obligations” can also enrich this “living together”, if men and women are capable of negotiating among them in order to find common ways to sort out difficulties. Undoubtedly, working as professional women is something highly demanding, and “one has to decide what must be left out, and who will be damaged from it”. Women usually consider that taking away something from their children, specially if they are small, hurts too much. They prefer to take this “something” away from their partners or from themselves. This erodes emotional relations, and , basically, women endure the pains. Marital relations can sustain damage from professional competitiveness among husband and wife, specially if she is the one that excels. Discussions explode due to superficial and more visible reasons, although women’s competitiveness lies on the basis. For example, husbands argue that wives return late from their jobs; that they are always tired; that they dress and make up to go to work, and neglect their views when they are at home; or that their wives have little time to look after their children. Three of the women in the sample told me that they suffered from competitiveness with their husbands. Two of them confessed that they were subject to some degree of domestic violence. One of them decided to divorce her husband for this reason.

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This blend of professional competitiveness and “machismo” detonated in several types of conflicts inside the couples of the interviewed women. These women’s mothers reacted differently according to their age groups. The older women’s mothers advised their daughters to “understand their husbands” and to “keep their marriages under any circumstance”. The younger women’s mothers told their daughters that they must not tolerate anything from anyone, because “they had studied very hard to become professionals”. Women in the sample that experienced divorces, separations or widowhood, used their works to “come out of the holes”. Their jobs became “refuges” to surmount the stage of mourning. Their works made them feel useful, since they recognized they were able to carry their children and themselves forward. According to the answers of married women in the sample, in terms of how much their husbands shared house chores with them, they ranged from those who did nothing to those who performed all domestic chores. The majority of these women provided most of the domestic work, according to the general trend among Cuban women, whether they are workers or housewives. Relations with children Women in the sample with children agree upon the fact that working as professionals or technicians helped them guide their children in their studies. It helped them organize children’s schedules after school to do their homework ; it helped them pay for extra private classes; and it helped them maintain their children throughout their studies. As I noted before, these women encourage their children to study, as a way to become qualified workers. They also understand it is important to “go places” with their children and to encourage them to talk with their mothers. Women that lived together with parents and relatives benefited from their help: they took care of their children while women worked or studied. These women averaged 27 years when they had their first child. I concluded very little from this fact and from the stage in their work history when they gave birth to their first child, because information is quite disperse. For example, two of them had their only child before becoming professionals; other two gave birth during their professional lives: one waited eight years after getting married and the other, four years; another had her first child while she was studying, and her second child once she was working as a professional; two had their two children after concluding their studies, but one had her children in two different marriages and the second had them in one same marriage; a technician started working after her third child was eight years old; another one, who is a single mother, decided to have her child while working as a professional. All interviewed women with children, who have undergone divorce, consider themselves as the basic bread-winners for their children. This was the same ideology I saw while studying women “blue-collar” workers. It is expressed in the following words: “I raised my child, because I gave him/her birth, and I am responsible for him/her”. 21

During the “special period”, women concentrated their efforts to maintain themselves working and to work for a second income, in order to feed their children, dress them and buy them shoes. Of the four women with no children, only one wanted a child, but could not become pregnant, because she is sterile. The other three decided not to have children, because they were not part of their life projects. Two of them explained that they did not want to have children without fathers, because in Cuba the father plays a very important role. They added that children must be wanted by both parents. The other woman without children is married, but does not want a child, because her health is frail, and she has no economic conditions to have a baby. Her husband has children from previous marriages, and she is happy to have them come to her house. Relations with parents I grouped these women’s views of their parents’ roles throughout their professional lives in three parts. These views reflect the concept of the family, that is present in Cuban culture. They are also influenced by the fact that, due to housing shortages, most of these women had to live under the same roof with relatives from three generations, and even four. First. They acknowledged the way their parents, grandparents and other relatives helped them throughout their studies and their initial professional practice. One of them described the way her father brought up his three daughters with the following words: “ He educated us as men, so that we would be able to get rid of those men we did not want to have at our sides”. Ten out of eighteen women admitted that their working mothers definitively influenced in their decision to become professionals and technicians. They recognized that they also imitated their fathers’ and other relatives’ labor culture, in their own professional performances. Second. They appreciated the help granted them by their parents and near relatives raising their children, beginning from nurseries up to university levels. They likewise appreciated their mothers’ collaboration with the double shift. Nevertheless, they pointed out that this was a paradoxical kind of help, since frequently their mothers rejected them for returning late from work. Third. They described which were their strategies to take care of third age parents and other family members, living with them under the same roof or as part of their extended families and living in other houses. They are summarized in section “Strategies...” of this paper. These women’s experiences taking care of the elderly, illustrate Dr. Ofelia Schutte’s hypothesis concerning the “ethics of care”, in the sense that it is a process in which women develop their intelligence, and not only their sentiments. Along this process, interviewed women have unfolded tenderness and remorse towards the elderly, because taking care of them is an obligation that “rewards” what their parents and relatives did for them, but, at the same time, it is something that enslaves them.

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Relations with co workers Women in the sample consider that, when they began working, they had to demonstrate their professional abilities, far much more than the male co workers that started working with them. They grew accustomed to perform their professions so well, that it is not difficult for them to excel at their jobs. Only two of the eighteen women in the sample acknowledged being discriminated at their jobs. They said men did not recognize their professional knowledge, their ability to make decisions and their capacity to endure the “special period” and keep their jobs. Both said they demonstrated their capacities. All consider that their fellow workers respect them. Seventeen like their jobs. They say they feel “fulfilled”; their “ headaches and pains disappear”; they “forget their domestic problems”; “conversations at work are interesting”. Ten of the women who endured divorces, separations or widowhood took refuge in their jobs to repair the losses. Only one of the interviewed women does not like working as a teacher, although she enjoys the subject she teaches. However, she loves to see her daughter talking proudly of her “professional mother”, and she likes to demonstrate that she is a cultivated woman. She likes to work outside her home, because “you remain behind when you stay as a housewife”. These women relate with all their co workers: with those with professional levels similar to theirs; those with lower educational levels, and with managers. Three said that women like them were considered “bridges” among workers with different educational and professional levels. I asked them if it is true that women do not like to work with other women. What they said helped me unveil this myth. The quality of the so called “working atmospheres” does not depend upon the sexes of the members of a labor group. Workers construct relations among them based on their levels of professionalism, their capabilities to develop interpersonal relations, and managerial efficiency. There are women managers in all the work places where women in the sample work, and they do not promote conflicts among workers. On the contrary, their managerial styles are consensual; they promote participation; they are open to changes; and they tend to unite staff members. Furthermore, women managers are capable of understanding other women, when they have lived through vital experiences such as give birth, raise children, take care of the sick and the elderly. More on gender ideology I asked the women in the sample to comment on four popular Cuban expressions related to women. I summarize their reflections.

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“I don’t admit intruders in my kitchen.” Women professionals and technicians in the sample reacted saying: “those words belong to women of other generations”; “today not even housewives think that way”. Only two of them confessed they enjoy cooking, while the rest consider cooking as an obligation. They explained that they grew under the conditions of a rationing system and lived through the enormous shortages of the “special period”. This meant they have long been cooking with “very little”, “just the necessary”, or “the goods we have to fight for, because what we can buy through the rationing system is not enough”. Therefore, they and their mothers had to develop creative and saving abilities, in order to feed their families. “Feeding a Cuban family” means breakfast, lunch and dinner. Besides, families prepare snacks for children attending preprimary, primary and junior high school levels, to reinforce school lunches. Parents also provide adolescents attending boarding schools with supplementary food. Women in the sample consider that most men are unable to develop similar notions of creativity and saving in terms of house chores. They and the older women are responsible for cooking and washing dishes in the multigenerational families where they live. Men are appointed to other chores of the so called “private sphere”, which previously they did not perform, and which do not require “saving” abilities: shopping for food and taking kids to nurseries and primary schools. Some women criticized how men shopped for food: “sometimes they are unable to notice that vendors cheated them”. These are examples of women’s rationale concerning the phrase: “I don’t admit intruders in my kitchen”. Even those that like to cook, said they wished to “leave the kitchen as soon as possible”; they “do not like cooking every day as an obligation”, or they are simply “willing to give away the kitchen to anyone”. Two of the interviewed women enjoy cooking, but despise washing dishes; two hire other persons to do these chores; in two other cases, their mothers and grandmothers cook and wash the dishes; seven women share these domestic duties with other female relatives, and only two among the married ones, distribute cooking and dish washing with their husbands. One said: “ You have to promote men’s participation in the kitchen, but only if they have the ‘know-how’”. Another considers men should take part in these chores, and, simultaneously, chat with their wives. I observed these women’s kitchens: they were tidy and clean. It is true they expected my visit, but, as I said before, I knew them and had visited their houses before. With the usual ups and downs, they are usually clean. I asked why they kept them clean. They answered: “I can’t stand neither a dirty kitchen nor a dirty house.” “What will people think: that pigs are living here?” “I feel depressed when I

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see my house untidy.” One said she kept her living room as clean as the tourist section in Old Havana: it is her “show case”, the place where she receives unannounced guests. These habits of cleanliness are traditionally Cuban. A survey on Cuban illiterates in 1960, evidently low-income groups, showed they usually spent part of their budgets in detergent and soap. During the years I studied women blue collar workers, I verified that their clothes and homes were clean. This is an example of contradictions in gender ideology. Women professionals and technicians do not want to waste time cooking and washing, but they devise means to reproduce these aspects of their daily lives. “ First you have to be a mother; the roles of wife and worker come after.” All eighteen women believe that one can and must perform these three roles simultaneously. “There is a moment for everything.” “Men prefer women who are capable of playing these roles at the same time.” “Husbands respect their wives more if they carry on simultaneously these roles.” A highly “machista” Cuban saying points that “women must be housewives at home; ladies on the street, and prostitutes in bed”. Surely this “proverb” was constructed in times when women were not employed. Therefore, at present the words “and a wage-earner, who adds to the family budget”, could be added. Consequently, the ideal women’s description would sum up four characteristics, instead of the former three, although men consciously would not admit the “wage-earning” one. Women in the sample think that both Cuban women’s and men’s mentality have changed in terms of gender relations and women’s role in society. But women are the ones who did “marvels”, “miracles”, and “struggled hard” to accomplish their roles as mothers, wives and workers. I infer that men have played passive roles in the process of gender ideology transformation, acting and thinking according to norms dictated by the “very machista saying of the ideal woman”. On the other hand, thanks to the dynamics women incorporated in society when they became wage-earners, stayed in the labor force and promoted in terms of professionalism, women surmounted this scheme: they raise their children and perform house chores, trying to share responsibilities with men; learn about sexuality; and are active and acknowledged workers in society, carrying out jobs that require knowledge, that generate relatively high incomes and demand decision making. One of the interviewed professionals expressed: “In an underdeveloped country such as Cuba, it is very difficult to be mothers, house wives and workers at the same time. I think this must be easier for women in developed countries.” I asked myself, how would women social scientists as Mary Garcia Castro, Helen Safa, Yolanda Prieto, Susan Faludi,

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Elizabeth Jelin, Judith Astelarra and Ann Ferguson, who have studied women and employment in developed countries, would react to these words? Another interviewed woman keenly summarized my hypothesis related to the Cuban model of women’s employment, that says that this process was generated “from the top” and “from the bottom”. She expressed that: “Cuban women, and basically professionals, changed so much not because they simply ‘wanted to change’. They were able to transform themselves, due to their individual efforts and due to the Revolution they were living in, engaged in women’s advancement.” “Women need men beside them, who are able to ‘represent’ them.” All women in the sample said this is false, because women are capable of representing themselves, at least in Cuba. “Maybe this is true for other societies, as used to be in Cuba. But, nowadays, no one believes in this saying, and less among professionals.” They consider women need men to share their lives, if he is worth it, and to have someone at their side. Concepts like “husband”, “couple”, “partner” must imply “love”, “understanding” and “respect”. One thinks that: “There are occasions when I would like to have a man beside me, specially at public places, so that he encountered anyone who offended me.” “In Cuba, women have told men: ‘if I were a man, you would not dare offend me’. This happens, because men symbolize power.” Another woman believes that: “Men are needed at home, for example, to repair things. But if women are able to pay for repair services, than they do not need husbands to do that.” A professional described how contradictory operates her gender ideology. “On a Saturday at home, I was cleaning, washing clothes and cooking simultaneously. I was self pitying myself for living alone, without a husband that could help me. The mechanic, who was repairing my car, comes up to me to consult me. I decided what to do, and went back to my house chores. Then I recognized that, if I had a husband, he would be sitting beside the mechanic, watching him and talking to him, while I would be performing the same domestic chores I was doing at the moment.” Many women in Cuba head their households. They approximately account for one third of working women, according to studies I consulted. The National Office of Statistics concluded that in 1995, 47% of all women heading their households were employed. (28) High divorce rates and economic independence attained by women through jobs partly explain this trend. These women living alone (divorced, separated, widowed or those who never had stable relations with men) were stigmatized years ago. They still are for many Cuban men. I wish to study more deeply the relational perception prevailing among Cuban women and men concerning “women’s loneliness”, basically among women workers. This is my hypothesis: 26

women living on their own have been compelled to reconstruct their marital status through different means. Their main ideal, I believe, is to find a new partner to share their lives. Among professional women, I am almost sure that they want to live with a man, but their selective standards are very high. They are afraid of a new failure, if they failed before. And as times go by, older men prefer younger women, and men start confronting “problems as impotence and illness of the prostate gland”. A reconstruction of the “woman living alone” is taking place in Cuban society. Maybe this explains the way women in the sample consensually answered “no” to the phrase that heads this section. This ideology also includes these same women’s desire to find a new couple, which can be found in their words “I keep my doors opened”. Is it be possible that Cuban men tend to look for a stable partner more than women do, because they are unable to live alone? Maybe we should ask them to comment on the saying: “ I need a woman to look after me, so that I could be able to represent myself”. During the interviews, women’s first reaction was to deny they needed a man who represented them. They consider they are capable of representing themselves. Afterwards, they argued that they do not refuse having a partner, and they wish to share their lives with a man capable of helping them through “the bad and the good times”. Women without stable partners strive to find good men to share their lives with. Therefore, these women are experiencing a process in which they are reconstructing their definition of marriage, whether it is a legal one or not. They are redefining what it means to be a woman living alone in Cuban society, where this status is still stigmatized. It is a process of enhancing their self esteem, with all the pains it implies. Conclusions 1. The evolution of women’s employment in Cuba includes the high proportion of women professionals and technicians in the labor force, considering that since 1978 they account for more than half of all workers in this category, and considering the fact that the majority of Cuban working women are also grouped in this category. Reasons for this behavior must be found in changes undergone by Cuban society since 1959, in terms of economy, politics and ideology, due to a project aimed at eliminating all kinds of discrimination, included gender discrimination. It has been a hard and highly contradictory process, also loaded with satisfactions, that has transformed gender ideology of all Cubans and not only women’s. 2. This trend did not stop during the years of crisis and readjustments of the 90’s; there were no substantial backlashes. However, the critical consciousness towards women’s policies, which has prevailed during the last forty years, must be maintained. Cuba is coming out of a crisis of almost ten years, using its own methods, which were conceived and introduced in short periods . These methods had practically no references in the Eastern European countries after the crumbling of socialism. Cuba has strongly promoted higher standards of efficiency and the use of high technology as one of the main ways to surmount the crisis. Development strategies derived from this conception 27

cannot ignore women, for they have higher educational levels than men in the labor force, and constitute two thirds of all Cuban professionals and technicians. 3. Cuban social scientists have seriously and creatively studied gender relations, emphasizing on women. Now we have to understand scientifically what has happened to Cuban men along the last forty years.

Havana, February 15, 2000

NOTES (1)

Marta Núñez Sarmiento, “La mujer cubana y el empleo en la Revolución cubana”, Equipo internacional de investigaciones comparadas sobre la mujer, oct. 1988, Ed. de la Mujer, La Habana. “Estudio de las trabajadoras textiles: balance preliminar en la empresa Ariguanabo”. Helen Safa, Marta Núñez, Rosa M. Cartaya, Margarita Flores, Rita Pereira y Raúl Ramos, 1987 (mimeografiado). “Informe de la investigación realizada en el combinado textil Celia Sánchez Manduley del 27 de enero al 13 de febrero de 1987”. Marta Núñez, Rosa M. Cartaya, Margarita Flores, Rita Pereira y Raúl Ramos. 1987, mimeografiado. Marta Nunez “Las trabajadoras en una fábrica textil. Resultados de una investigación.”. En “Debate sobre la sociedad cubana”, editado por el Seminario Etnológico de la Universidad de Zurich y la Universidad de Berna. 1988.Marta Nunez “Case Study of Cuba: Women and the Economic Crisis”. SWEC/1988/CS.2. 9 September 1988. United Nations Interregional Seminar on Women abd the Economic Crisis. Vienna, 3-7 October, 1988.Marta Núñez, “Estudio de caso de Cuba: dos programas de seguridad y asistencia social dirigidos a la familia y su impacto sobre la mujer”. Joint INSTRAW/UNFPA Training Seminar on Women, Population and Development, Sto. Domingo, May 22-26, 1988. Marta Núñez Sarmiento, “Mujeres en empleos no tradicionales”, Ed. Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, 1991. Marta Núñez, “La mujer en el periodo especial”, revista “América Latina”, Ed. Ciencia, Academia de Ciencias de Rusia, No. 12, 1993 (en ruso). Marta Núñez, “Las mujeres de la carreta”, dic. 1993, Moscú (inédito). Marta Núñez, “Proposiciones metodológicas para investigar con enfoque de género”, en Jornadas sobre Políticas Sociales en el Marco del Mercosur, Presidencia de la Honorable Cámara de Diputados de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Centro Integral de la mujer, La Plata, Argentina, 1999; Marta Núñez, “La mujer cubana y el empleo: datos y subjetividades (1985-1998)”, en Jornadas sobre ..., op. cit y en la revista “El Economista”, Año 1, Nro.5, La Habana, Cuba, 1998;..Marta Núñez, “Las mujeres de la carreta cinco años después (1992-1997)”, ponencia presentada al Encuentro “La mujer en los umbrales del siglo XXI”, Universidad de La Habana, nov. 1997; “El ajuste económico en los noventa en 28

(2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20)

(21) (22) (23) (24)

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Cuba y la mujer: realidades y políticas para evitar la pobreza”, en proceso de publicación; “Necesidades y valores nuevos en la identidad de género en Cuba”, en proceso de publicación. Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas de Cuba, Perfil estadístico de la mujer cubana en el umbral del siglo XXI, La Habana, febrero de 1999, pag. 50. Marta Núñez Sarmiento, “La mujer cubana y el empleo en la Revolución cubana”, op. Cit. IBIDEM. Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas, Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 1996, tabla V.11, pag. 116. IBIDEM. Datos aportados por el Ministerio del Trabajo. “Mujer, economía y desarrollo sostenible”, documento de la delegación cubana al Encuentro Internacional de Solidaridad entre Mujeres, La Habana, abril de 1998. IBIDEM. Datos aportados por el Ministerio del Trabajo. IBIDEM. Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas (ONE), Perfil estadístico... , op. cit., pag. 116. “Mujer, economía y desarrollo sostenible”, op. cit.. Comité Estatal de Estadísticas, Anuario Estadístico de Cuba. 1988 , tabla IV,16, pag. 202. IBIDEM. ONE, Perfil estadístico... , op. cit., pag. 141. IBIDEM “La mujer cubana en cifras, documento de Cuba a la Conferencia de Beijing, Ed. de la Mujer, La Habana, 1995. ONE, “Perfil...”, op. cit., pag. 148. Centro de Investigaciones de la Economía Mundial (CIEM), Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), “Investigación sobre el Desarrollo Humano en Cuba”, Editorial Caguayo S:A:, La Habana, 1997, pag. 108. Se extrae del PNUD, “Informe sobre el Desarrollo Humano 1996”, Madrid, Ediciones Mundiprensa, 1996, pag. 160, cuadro 3. ONE, Anuario Demográfico de Cuba. 1998 , tabla 11, pag. 55. Ofelia Schutte, “The Ethics of Care and the Creation of Culture”, Tenth Conference of North American and Cuban Philosophers, Havana, June, 1998. Batia Lapidus, y otros, “Factores de la transformación espacial e impacto de agentes económicos seleccionados en el Consejo Popular Vedado-Malecón”, Instituto de Geografía Tropical, Ministerio de ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente, La Habana, 1999. Collette Harris, “Sicialist Societies and the Emancipation of Women: The Case of Cuba”, en la revista “ Socialism and Democracy”,Vol.9, No.i, Spring, 1995, NY. Luisa Campuzano, “Ser cubanas y no morir en el intento”, revista “Temas”, No. 5, 1996.

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Ver de Graciela González, “Las mujeres en la dirección de las empresas industriales. Un estudio de caso en cuatro empresas de Ciudad de La Habana”, tesis para optar por el grado de Doctora en Sociología, La Habana, febrero del 2000 Ver de Mary García Castro y Sherryl Lutjens, “La política desde el género: la contribución feminista latinoamericana a alternativas al neoliberalismo”, ponencia al “Seminario internacional: Mundialización, desarrollo sostenible y alternativas al neoliberalismo en América Latina”, La Habana, junio de 1998. ONE, “Perfil...”, op. cit., pag. 49.

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