How socialist feminism in Cuba was restricted by Hegemony

Abstract

Throughout history, subordinate groups in society have accommodated and adjusted to higher authority in order to advance individual rights. More specifically, revolutionary women in Cuba during and after the revolution of 1959 adjusted to the socialist, and later communist ideologies that established limitations and restrictions through the establishment of hegemony over subordinate groups. In the context of this paper I define hegemony as the dialect between dominant and subordinate groups; further, this working definition will not be used in the context of dominance, but mutual struggle that results in a 'give and take' relationship . During Batista's dictatorship, large numbers of women held positions of domestic servitude and even prostitution. However, after the revolution, Fidel Castro came into power and declared Cuba a socialist state with gender equality. This political environment contributed to a specific relationship between the government and the leading women's organization, the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC). For the first time, national reforms were educating women in "study circles" so that they could be integrated into the workforce while organizations like the FMC began to further women's legal rights. Despite having gained freedoms and liberties that weren't available before the revolution, Castro's creation of the FMC essentially monopolized women's commitment to an institution that was bounded by ideological restrictions; consequently, the hegemony that developed stopped Cuba from becoming the paradigm of sexual equality that the revolutionaries fought for.