Running Head: When LawsAre Not Enough
Figure 1:
When Laws Are Not Enough: Race and Gender Inequality in a “Class Less” Society
SWGEN 2088: Cuban Social Policy Issues
The University of Pittsburgh
Gabriella Jones-Casey
April 28, 2012
In this paper, I will argue that although the Cuban national government has made numerous efforts to eradicate race-based and gender-based discrimination and violence, they have been unsuccessful in doing so due to their economic instability resulting in their dependence on the international tourism sector; and largely because of the failure of the 1959 revolution to address the prejudicial beliefs held by many Cubans, both domestically and abroad. Although the revolution granted universal access to education and healthcare, de facto racism and sexism have persisted, undermining those effortsby restricting the access of some Cubans to adequate housing and employment. What has caused this disconnect and why has the Communist party been unsuccessful in fulfilling the promises of the 1959 revolution? Perhaps more importantly, does the Cuban national government have the capacity to address this problem?
Presently, the Cuban government is struggling to meet the general needs of its citizens, such as adequate and safe housing, steady employment, and decent healthcare(U.S. Department of State, 2011, p.7). In addition, living conditions in Cubahave significantly deterioratedsince 1989 (U.S. Department of State, 2011, p.7);and problems such as alcoholism, drug abuse, prostitution, discrimination, harassment, and intimate partner violence are worsening (Dr. Maria del Carmen, personal communication, March 05, 2012). Although Cuba’s economic situation has improved since “The Special Period”, its leaders must find a way to create sustainable jobs and improve the living conditions if they aspire to address any of the aforementioned problems.
Cuba and The “Race” Problem
Akin to many Caribbean countries, slavery lay at the foundation of the early Cuban economy. In order to maintain control over the labor force, the Spanish developed and nurtured the spread of racist and sexist European ideologies (Robinson, 2000, p.3; Chomsky, 2011, p.134). Although slavery in Cuba was abolished in 1886, it is evident that remnants of thoseideologies are presentwithin the modern-day Cuba society (U.S. Department of State, 2011, p. 2). In the past, the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) emphatically denied that racism was a problem in Cuba. However, recent reports reveal that they have publicly acknowledged the opposite by stating that, “racism and racial discrimination persists in Cuba” (Terry, 2010, p.1).Regardless of this acknowledgement, discussions about discrimination and prejudice are not being encouraged by the PCC due to the fear that it will create an opportunity for countries like the United States to threaten and undermine the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) (Terry, 2010, p.1; Robinson, 2000, p.2). Though this is the position that the party now takes, historically the PCC has taken a firm stance against the racism and discrimination that remained after demise of the Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista.
Changes in the Law, but Not in Practice—Race
To address the residual stain of racism following the overthrow of Batista the PCCreplaced the blatantly racist legislation with laws that assigned severe penalties toovert acts of racism (Martin, 2009, p.2). Following the revolution, President Fidel Castro launched a literacy campaign, relocating 1.5 million black and mestizo Cubans to the cities, giving them homes, and teaching them to read and write (Martin, 2009, p. 4; American Association of University Women, 2011, p. 5). The ideal result therefore being that if a student desires to go to a professional school a high score on an exam is the sole requirement.
This was done to ensure that men and women, regardless of racial identity, would be represented throughout all aspects of Cuban society (Dr. Silvio Calves, personal communication, March 06, 2012).In addition to this, the government nationalized healthcare in order to lengthen the life spanof poor Cubans, most of whom identified as black or mestizo. Nationalizing healthcare aimed to increase the life expectancy of the poor and to improve the overall health of the country. The Cuban Healthcare system has therefore come to be divided into four levels: the Family Doctors (1st level), the Polyclinics (2nd level), the Hospitals (3rd level), and the Medical Institutes (4th level) (M. Blanco Rojas, personal communication, March 07, 2012; Dr. Teresita Frias, personal communication, March 08, 2012). This method of delivering healthcare increases access to preventative care, which can lower the amount of money needed to provide care to a person over their lifetime.
There is, however, a disconnect between ideology and implementation. Hansen (2001) argues thatthe victory of the 1959 revolution was the temporary elimination of unemployment; the banning of discrimination and racism; the expansion of equal rights for women; the establishing of nationally run day-care facilities; the creation of a free-educational system; the instituting of a social security system; the creation of a national health care system; and the inheritance program for housing (p.19; Vega and Vilaboy, 2010, p. 79). According to Robinson (2000), the result of these policies is the 13,000 black physicians that Cuba has produced in comparison to the 20,000 produced by the United States; a country with a population twenty five times that of Cuba (p.2).
In spite of these efforts, black Cubans are not earning college degrees in proportion to their population (30-60% of Cubans are of African descent); they are also not holding significant government positions; they are not getting high paying jobs in the tourism sector; and they are often unlawfully stopped by the Cuban police (Robinson, 2000, p. 2-6; Martin, 2009, p.1; Chavez, 2005, p. 75). Although Raul Castro, President of the PCC, publicly denounced discrimination with statements such as, “if a hotel denies entry to a person because he is black, then the hotel should be shut down”, little else has been done to officially address this problem (Robinson, 2000, p.3). With the government unwilling to more wholeheartedly address the problems of racism, black Cubans have little recourse since the PCC does not allow the forming of associations or movements based on race (Robinson, 2000, p.3).
Addressing racism solely through changing the law had little effect on the mindset of many racist Cubans. This would also prove true with issues of sexism and gender-based discrimination.
Changes in the Law, but Not in Practice—Gender
To promote the advancement of women, the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) enacted numerous laws to ensure that discrimination based on gender or sex was officially prohibited. These laws were detailed in the 1976 Constitution and the 1992 amendments; article 295 of the criminal code made any violation to the “right to equality” unlawful (Gender Equality in Cuba, p.1; Luciak, 2007, p. 14, 34). This progressive legislation outlined the rights of women in reference to education, prenatal care, maternity leave, contraception, abortions, property, inheritance, custodianship, marriage, political office, and employment (Gender Equality in Cuba, p. 2; Chavez, 2005, p. 37; Perez-Stable, 2012, p.79). The results were astounding.
In 2008, the University of Havana graduated 67.7% women as compared to 32.3% men (Dr. Sonia Cerrera, personal communication, March 09, 2012). Additionally, from 1990 to 2008, women have increased their seats in parliament from 34.3% to 43.3% (Dr. Sonia Cerrera, personal communication, March 09, 2012). Moreover, women have become more active in the workforce due the policies around maternity leave and education. According to Dr. Silvio Calves, women who want to work forty-five days after giving birth can do so due to the establishment of the Children’s Gardens, which houses children from a month up to 5 years old (personal communication, March 06, 2012).
Although women have achieved much, little has been done to address “traditionally sexist behaviors and gender stereotyping” that shape women’s roles and lives in Cuban society (González, p. 1; American Association of University Women, 2011, p.2). According to Luciak (2007):
…inequality persist, if not in the laws, in the worst of all places—in social conventions. Laws are one thing that can be changed rapidly, but customs cannot. The key deficiency…overemphasis on legal achievements to the detriment of recognizing the need to focus more on changing traditional thinking, in order to move toward substantive gender equality. (p. 35-36)
Due to biased policies women continue to be the population most affected by poverty and intimate partner violence; women have limited access to bank loans and land; they are underrepresented in the highest positions of government and education; and they are underrepresented in the fields of information technology, engineering, physics, chemistry, and mathematics (Gender Equality in Cuba, p.1-2; American Association of University Women, 2011, p. 4).
According to Dr. Maria del Carmen (2012), machismo or aggressive masculine pride, is the cause of many domestic issues in Cayo Hueso (personal communication, March 05, 2012). Comments like those made by Ray Denis Matamoros, “a man should never let a woman disrespect him or try to show you that you are weak”, depict the extent of the machismo problem in Cuba (González, p. 1). Natividad Guerrero, director of the Center for the Study of Youth (CESJ), suggests that the machismo mentality justifies placing the responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, and caring for children, aged parents and grandparents solely on women; working mothers are, for the most part, saddled with the “double day” (Dr. Sonia Cerrera, personal communication, March 09, 2012; González, p. 1; Gender Equality in Cuba, p. 1; American Association of University Women, 2011, p. 3).
The limited access that most Cuban women have to washing machines, dryers, microwaves, and dishwashers lengthens their workday, since they must do these and other tasks by hand. According to the American Association of University Women (AAUW) (2011), the laws that require the equal division of household labor are pointless since they are never enforced (p. 2).
According to the Comision Cubana de Derechos Humanos y Reconciliacion Nacional (CCDHRN) and the Cuban Chapter of the Latin American Federation of Rural women, intimate partner violence remains a serious problem in Cuban society (AAUW, 2011, p. 6). As in many other countries incidences of spousal abuse (physical, verbal, and/or physical) often go underreported, making it extremely difficult to address the problem on a national level; in 2006 the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) reported an increase in reports taken by police (Gender Equality in Cuba, p. 2). According to Dr. Teresita Frias (2012), physically and/or psychologically abused Cuban men and women often do no seek assistance from the police due to the fear of being ridiculed (personal communication, March 08, 2012). More often it is the family doctors, and not the police who first address these types of problems in the community (Dr. Teresita Frias, personal communication, March 08, 2012). Survivors, like Mercedes Toyo, says she declined to seek help from the police due to the previous experience of being ridiculed:
I began to defend myself and acted like a wild animal. One day he slapped me, but the police officers only laughed about it. They told me, “You can accuse him, but he can accuse you too, without them ever realizing that he (the husband) was going to attack me with a machete. (Grogg, 2009, p. 2)
Situations, like the one described above, demonstrate how little this is considered a serious problem in the Cuban society. According to Grogg (2009), there is no police department to handle domestic violence situations, neither are the officers trained to deal with victims of violence (p. 2). As of 2009, there were no shelters where women (with or without children) could go to escape abusive situations; this is probably due to the shortage of housing in the country, as well as the misconception that it is not an issue in the Cuban society (Grogg, 2009, p. 2). Domestic violence is not considered a medical problem, but a social and “private” one, therefore social workers and psychologists are the ones to treat this issue (Dr. Teresita Frias, suggests personal communication, March 08, 2012).
Interestingly, not all communities are equally affected by this problem. One reason for this is that there is a substantial economic disparity between communities whose residents have access to income from family members abroad and those who do not. According to Martin (2009):
Cuba probably did more than almost any country in the hemisphere to try and eliminate racial disparities, but they fell short. And one of the things that we’ve seen is the intensification of market relations as well as the unequal flow of remittances to the island have exacerbated the gaps that were not entirely closed by the leveling policies implemented during the revolution. (p. 2)
Most black Cubans do not have access to the income that some white and/or mixed-race Cubans have, since many of the exiled Cuban living abroad identify as white (Robinson, 2000, p.4; Martin, 2009, p. 1-2).
According to the Directors of the Social Cultural Community Project, incidences of intimate partner violence and child abuse are more prevalent in impoverished neighborhoods, since many of these residents struggle with drug and alcohol addictions (Social Cultural Community Project, personal communication, March 07, 2012). Communities that have a large number of solares, or overcrowded one-room living quarters, are reported to have the highest rates of homicide, gender violence, and people struggling with alcohol and drug addictions (Dr. Teresita Frias, personal communication, March 08, 2012). According to Cuban sociologist Clotilde Proveye, unemployment and drug and alcohol addiction “act as catalysts to violent behavior” (Grogg, 2009, p. 3). Therefore intimate partner violence is assumed to be more prevalent in Afro/black Cuban communities where poverty and drug abuse is a greater issue.
Interestingly, there are no official statistics published on domestic violence (Grogg, 2009, p. 3). Lack of data, as well as lack of visibility, makes it impossible to argue that this is a significant issue in Cuba. This inadvertently places the problem of intimate partner in the “don’t ask, don’t tell file”. Though research is lacking, the statistics on women murdered in Cuba reveals an interesting trend (Grogg, 2009, p. 3):
- 70% of women murdered were previously in relationships with their murderers
- In the number of murders of women by males, 50% of the killers were their husband
- 60% of women die as a result of a situation connected to a relationship
- 52% of women die in their homes
Currently, there is no explicit legislation that punishes violence against women. Instead cases of domestic abuse are categorized and charged under assault laws (Gender Equality in Cuba, p. 2; AAUW, 2011, p. 5-6).
Aware that overcoming gender discrimination would be a difficult task, groups like La Federación de Mujeres Cubanos (FMC) fought for the infusion of sex, gender, and human rights education into the school curriculum (Dr. Sonia Cerrera, personal communication, March 09, 2012). The FMChas also organized meetings between ministries, the National Center for Sexual Education, the University of Havana, the Supreme Court, and the Cuban Institute Radio in order to address this social problem (Grogg, 2009, p. 4).Finally, the FMC founded the Grupo Nacional para la Prevención y Atención de la Violencia Familiar, which studies domestic violence, provides support to victims, and is editing the Family and Criminal Codes to include explicit punishments for perpetrators of domestic violence (Grogg, 2009, p. 4; AAUW, 2011, p. 6). According to AAUW (2011), sex, health, and relationship education were mainstreamed into schools during the 1990s, and is currently taught from pre-K up to the doctoral level, to address the issues of discrimination, violence, and sexually transmitted diseases (p.7). Although these efforts are essential, the problems of gender and intimate partner violence will never be fixed until the problem of poverty is addressed and solved.
The “Special Period” and the Modern Economic Crisis
During the 1990s disaster hit Cuba. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba found itself without its benefactor, isolated and economically injured by the U.S. economic blockade (Higman, 2011, p. 257; Vega and Vilaboy, 2010, p. 101). The Special Period saw the Cuban economy collapse and the standard of living suffer (Higman, 2011, p. 257). The loss of Soviet Union subsidies (40% of the GDP) left Cuba with no choice but to open their borders to tourism in order to maintain their social programs (Martin, 2009, p.2; Vega and Vilaboy, 2010, p. 101). Although the United States, and their allies, made every attempt to undermine Cuba’s communist government, Castro stood firm (Chomsky, 2011, p.173-174).
From 2008 to 2011, Cuba experienced another severe economic crisis, which necessitated the laying off of 500,000 to 1 million “redundant” government employees (Mesa-Lago, 2011, p.6; U.S. Department of State, 2011, p.8). According to Mesa-Lago (2011), this was done so that the Cuban government could “decrease their expenditures, raise labor productivity, and increase badly depressed wages” (p.6). Although it is illegal to discriminate against an employee based on their sex and/or race, it was reported that some of the staff being laid off were pregnant women, who recently went on maternity leave (Mesa-Lago, 2011, p.6-7).
The employees who were discharged were expected to become self-employed or to go into the tourism sector (Mesa-Lago, 2011, p.6). However, due to residual racism and the implementation of blatant discriminatory hiring practices, by hotels like Varadero, many of the people being hired by the tourism sector are fairer in complexion (white or mestizo), with curly or straight hair (Mesa-Lago, 2011, p.6-8; Robinson, 2000, p.2). The information above depicts Cuba, as Eugene Robinson’s says, “as hardly the paradise of racial harmony and equality that it pretends to be” (Martin, 2009, p.2)
Service jobs in the tourism sector yield salaries in convertible Cuban pesos and tips in foreign currency, thus creating a $1 billion (US) dollar gap between those who have access to the industry and those who do not (U.S. Department of State, 2011, p. 7; Robinson, 2000, p.2). Robinson (2000) argues that a “new elite” is formed by this practice: elite waitresses, doormen, tour guides, and cab drivers; all of these men and women being much fairer in complexion than the rest of the Cuban population (p. 2).
Impact of the Tourism Sector on Race and Gender Relations
The Cuban tourism sector, which some Cuban officials refer to as “the heart of the economy”, generated approximately $2.4 billion in gross revenue in 2010 (U.S. Department of State, 2011, p.8). Each year the government reports a steady increase in the number of foreign tourists that visit the island; in 2001 1.7 million tourists visited the island compared to 2.53 million in 2010 (U.S. Department of State, 2011, p.8). The present economic situation, the steady influx of foreign tourists, and Cuba’s dependence on the revenue yielded from this industry places them in a vulnerable position. Applying and enforcing significant regulations to that industry around serious affirmative action hiring policies may destabilize the relationship between the foreign owners, investors, visitors and the government. Can Cuba afford to damage this relationship?