CUBAN TRANSITIONS

Mariela Castro, director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education, is interviewed in January about the Sixth Congress on Sex Education, Orientation and Therapy hosted in Havana (Photo: Reuters/Stringer).

The recent eruption of women’s health issues on the U.S. political agenda has sparked controversy, to say the least. The latest point of contention manifested during a February 16 hearing on birth control held by House Republicans. The first five panelists to testify were men. “Where are the women?” asked Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader (D-Calif). “Imagine having a panel on women’s health and they don’t have any women on the panel.”

Coinciding with the Cuban gender and sexuality unit of our class curriculum, this controversy shaped the critical perspective with which I read and understood texts such as the article “Black Women, Gender and Families” by Tanya Saunders and the documentary Urban Design and Planning in Havana, Cuba (US, 2001). These works and my further research have painted a portrait of pre-revolutionary Cuba as a patriarchal state, practicing machismo, encouraging homophobia and revering the traditional heterosexual family. Within this society, trapped is the woman. She struggles to do all: raise children, build a career, make money and escape her silencing.

Still, sources agree that much has changed since the Revolution of 1959. In terms of women’s rights, one of the biggest pushes for change came with the promulgation of Article 44 of the Cuban Constitution, as modified in 1976. The amendment granted women equal rights in the economic, political and domestic spheres. Furthermore, women were recognized with equal access to education and health services and the right to family planning, abortion included. It had already been legalized in 1965 (Cuba Solidarity).

By nature of its socialist government, it is impossible to remove the social movement in favor of reproductive rights from its political context. Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) cooperates with other branches of the government and Cuban citizens; in some ways, it acts as a mediator between them. Mariela Castro, president Raúl Castro’s daughter, currently serves as CENESEX director. Her political ties are obvious, even from her surname.

Still, she becomes an accessible figure to Cuban citizens. She makes public appearances, gives talks, marches at Pride parades, and promotes the sex-positive publication, Sexología y Sociedad. She has spearheaded an initiative to provide free sexual reassignment surgery and recently announced her interest in a 2012 campaign for marriage equality. As CENESEX director, this individual humanizes a branch of government. She advocates LGBTQ rights, represents women’s reproductive interests and promotes the express mission of CENESEX: to aid in “the development of a culture of sexuality that is full, pleasurable and responsible, as well as to promote the full exercise of sexual rights” (MEDICC Interview with Mariela Castro; emphasis mine).  Her description of Cuban sexuality as “full” speaks to its tolerance—and perhaps even better, its budding acceptance—of all sexualities, all sexes and all genders.

Because of CENESEX’s acknowledgment that one size does not necessarily fit all, many of their programs are targeted to specific demographics. In the same interview with Ms. Castro, she speaks about sexual education programs oriented toward women: “In the 70s and 80s, we found a lot of fear and resistance to a national program for sex education with such a gender focus.  The program was finally accepted in 1996, and now it’s taught throughout the country; since then it has reduced school dropouts from early marriages and childbirth by one half.”

Other figures also support this claim. Despite its “developing” status, Cuba has been called a low-fertility area, a designation common to developed countries like Australia and many nations in Western Europe. This low fertility rate was not anticipated ten years ago. The 2001 documentary we watched last Sunday, Urban Design and Planning in Havana, Cuba, actually posed rapid population growth as a threat, but the island’s population has actually shrunk since the movie’s release. According to statistics from the CIA’s World Fact Book, the island’s low birth rate (9.96 births per 1,000 population) does not replace the population lost annually to death (death rate: 7.52 per 1,000 population) and emigration (net migration rate: -3.59 per 1,000). While much of the population decline can be attributed to the high emigration rate, the lowering fertility rate must be affected by wider access to resources essential to family planning like information, contraceptives and abortion.

Mariela Castro continues in her interview with MEDICC, “… education for safe sex must have a gender component, a gender approach… We have to learn to recognize which elements of the traditional masculinity or femininity are actually doing us damage.  What parts of the picture actually take away from our freedom, fulfillment and dignity.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if soon the U.S. could follow Cuba’s lead: to have accessible public representatives, women representing women?

Sources:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html

http://www.medicc.org/publications/medicc_review/0406/mr-interview.html

http://nwhn.org/not-feminist-not-bad-cubas-surprisingly-pro-woman-health-system

Saunders, Tanya L. “Black Women, Gender and Families.” Project Muse 4.1 (2010). Print.
Urban Design and Planning in Havana, Cuba (US, 2001). Film.

Photo Credit:

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/mariela-castro-head-cubas-national-center-sex-education-photo-235326689.html