Overview
Since the Revolution in the 1950s Cuba has been a communist country ruled by Fidel Castro and more recently his brother Raul Castro. Cuba is interesting to look at because a lot of their ways to improve women's rights have come from the central government, where most of the power is consolidated
Government
Cuba has three branches of government, with the Executive Branch being headed by the Castro brothers. The Legislative branch is headed by the "National Assembly of the People's Power" which has 613 members. The legislative branch can make laws and amend the constitution. However, it should be noted that the President can make decrees that hold the force of law. There is also a judicial branch with a supreme court as its highest court.
The most recent constitution overhaul was in 1992 which said that Cuba would be "guided by the ideas of Jose Marti and the political and social ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin." This constitution also allowed the existence of political parties, although it denied them the right to assemble and reaffirmed that the communist part was in charge of the country.
http://www.parlamentocubano.cu/ingles/constitution.html
Women's Rights in Pre-Revolution Cuba
Cuba has historically been very progressive as far as women's rights. Women had been elected to legislative positions and had the vote in 1934. In addition, their female literacy rates were among the top in Latin America. However, there was still sexism within pre-revolution Cuba, but after the Revolution the movement towards gender equality continued.
http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/women1.htm
List of constitutional changes that affected women's rights in Cuba:
ReplyDeleteMaternity Leave (1974)
The Family Code (1975) established the official goal of equal participation in the home,
Law for the Protection and Hygiene in the Workplace (1977)
Law on Social Security (1979)
Code on Childhood and Youth (1984)
Labour Code (1985)
National Action Plan for the Implementation of the 1V UN Conference on Women (1977)
Law #62 on the Penal Code (1987) - Article 295 recognises discrimination based on any reason and the violation of the right of equality as a crime.
Women represent 49.5% of all graduates at higher educational levels and 62% of university students. Women constitute 35% of Parliamentary members, 61% of attorneys, 49% of judges, and 47% Judges in the Supreme Court.
ReplyDeleteThey even have male quotas in fields like Medicine!
ReplyDeletehttp://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/emint16&div=15&id=&page=
ReplyDeletePre revolution Women’s rights in Cuba
-When fighting for independence women were called mambisas and partook in guerrilla warfare and fought beside men
-Women were commissioned in the rebel army by the late 1800s
-Created the Federacion Nacional de Asociaciones Femeninas
-The Federacion held a National Women’s Congress in 1923 and a second one in 1925
-To fight the oppression of the Machado government women created the “Women in Opposition” in 1931
-Batista drafted a new constitution in 1940 that increased women’s rights
Cuba:
ReplyDeleteGLOCALIZING LAW AND CULTURE: TOWARDS A CROSSCONSTITUTIVE
PARADIGM
In this article the author explores the use of law to govern cultural norms initially through conceptualization, and later through application in Cuba.
The article begins by stating a common assumption in law: Law is a derivation of culture.
“[l]egal systems do not float in some cultural void, free of
space and time and social context; necessarily, they reflect
what is happening in their own societies. In the long run,
they assume the shape of these societies, like a glove that
molds itself to the shape of a person’s hand.”
On this view, the author states that the law’s effectiveness isn’t to be solely understood in a prescriptive manner.
“Rather, everyday codes of conduct, in civil society settings such as
families, communities, businesses, schools, churches, and other
voluntary associations and organizations are all law, whether or not
they are recognized and codified by the state’s legal apparatus.7 In
some contexts, this “living law” may be even more effective than the
legal norms created by the state, some of which may not reflect the
norms of the society generally.”
(continued on next post)
This changes the tools that law can use to change the norms of a culture. Education, economic incentives, coercion, persuasion, as well as restrictions on places. Law becomes concerned with the tools that promote moral structure in a wider sense, the results of which being social norms that are largely self-governed. Laws practiced in a manner that they are not thought of as “law” but as culture. The author next analyzes cultural norms that change with respect to law, and norms that are resilient to law in the larger sense.
ReplyDeleteThe author then looks at CEDAW, [The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, is often described as an international bill of rights for women. Consisting of a preamble and 30 articles, it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination] to see how its application has revealed what cultural traditions remain impermeable to legal change, and what traditions have changed. Particularly, in the instance of Cuba those rights have been brought into the Cuban culture.
Beginning with the dichotomy between pre and post Socialist Cuba, the author highlights that pre-revolution Cuban Women on paper possessed rights many other Latin American countries are still striving for to this day. However Castro, after outlawing religion, made Women’s rights a focus so that they too may become productive members of society.
The author then looks at two examples, one which succeeded in changing cultural norms, and one that didn’t.
Organizations trained women in skilled labor jobs, offered maternity leave, and day care for children which all encouraged women to fulfill greater roles in the new society. This led to women having greater mobility in the culture. Women now commonly have many children from different fathers, with the father’s role in this greatly minimized. Women now often regulate discipline stances toward the kids. The Patriarchal role is now filled by the state, that offers educational opportunities and day care facilities to fulfill the historical role of the father.
In another instance, the government changed the Family Code in 1975, requiring men and women to be equally responsible for the raising and care of children. (It’s written into the marriage ceremony.) Research now suggests that women still have the majority of the burden of child rearing, and that the law, while strictly and powerfully enforced, had little effect on the day to day life of Cuban married women.
(continued on the next post)
In another instance, the government changed the Family Code in 1975, requiring men and women to be equally responsible for the raising and care of children. (It’s written into the marriage ceremony.) Research now suggests that women still have the majority of the burden of child rearing, and that the law, while strictly and powerfully enforced, had little effect on the day to day life of Cuban married women.
ReplyDeleteHighlighting the discrepancies of the the two instances of law combating cultural norm the author makes three helpful distinctions in categorizing how a law combats social norms.
-The Nature of the Law: The distinction between whether the law will affect the household, or public at large is significant. Changing the household is difficult, while a public law change occurs much easier.
-Consequences: Is the view likely to be understood as liberating or subordinating? In the case of the public, economic, and service based laws women viewed the situation as liberating and preferable to the other case. While men taking on more work, or the work of a women can be considered subordinating.
-Relation: Is the law going to influence you a lot? For women in both cases yes. Men however had different opinion. In the public law, men were largely indifferent, while in the private one men will have to take over a substantial workload.
All of this information is especially pertinent in identifying and applying Women’s Rights laws in Haiti.
http://www.albanylawreview.org/archives/67/2/GlocalizingLawandCulture--TowardsaCross-ConstitutiveParadigm.pdf
The Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) was created by Castro to “prepare women educationally, politically, and socially to participate in the Revolution....Its main function....is the incorporation of women in the workforce.”
ReplyDeleteThe author argues that all of this equality was only pushed because they wanted to increase the labor force by adding women
- by 1970 1,343,098 women were part of FMC which was over 54% of women (over the age of 14)
The FMC also:
- Organized literacy campaigns
- 60 schools for domestic servants
- Helped regulate and eradicate prostitution
- Also created circulos which were daycare centers for kids so their parents could work
-These are controversial as they indoctrinated children with state values
Family code of 1975
Passed with the intent of making household work split more evenly between men and women
However, although these did have an effect it was not as strong as would be expected by the amount of effort that was put into them. Education of women did rise, however women did not enter the work force as rapidly as was expected and mainly stuck with lower jobs.
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=GVRK5HLf-0gC&oi=fnd&pg=PA443&dq=Cuba+Women's+Rights&ots=89xldtR1LY&sig=JpxjYj9IRHXv-lkQXjsGdG3ojBA#v=onepage&q=Cuba%20Women's%20Rights&f=false