Blog 6: In Cuba, Equality is Two-sided

Cuba has a terrible reputation in the United States, so much so that we’ve completely cut them off from us. In fact, Cuba leads the UN in its progress to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, especially in its legislation to aid women. The World’s Economic Forum ranked Cuba 19^th in the world for closing the gender gap, whereas the United States fell to 22^nd this year. However good their legislation is for gender equality, only 38% of the Cuban work force is female. Machismo and sexism still runs rampant despite the codification of equality. María Ileana Faguaga Iglesias, a Cuban anthropologist, reports that women have legal access to all the same opportunities as men, but that is not giving them power in society. It is one thing to have a position of power, but it is a completely different thing to be recognized as holding power. The United States’ attempt for gender equality is working backwards from this; we are protesting for respect to women before codifying laws to establish that equality. Cuba started from the top by codifying laws and is now having trouble working that equality down into everyday life.

For example, Cuba’s economy is a more open-private sector market, giving female entrepreneurs more opportunities to start businesses. However, this reduces the amount of state jobs available to women and that is inspiring fear that the legislation creating equality will be short lived. The recent step down of Raul Castro, who worked a half century to do all the legislation, is also worrying women in entrepreneurship. Government reforms are occurring while a new president comes into power, with the combination of women not getting state jobs. It is a dangerous mixture that could reverse all the work towards women’s rights in the work place.

I think this is a very interesting article that relates a lot to what I’ve been studying. Tunisia is also in a time of government reform, and women fear for their rights as well. Any time there is significant government turn over the codes of rights are always at risk of being lost. Society should not be able to remove laws protecting people’s rights just because the government is changing. In the United States we don’t see this problem every time we get a new president. While tax laws may change, the civil rights gained by a group are not lost (or at least haven’t been lost yet). Maybe this is why we try to culturally imperialize everyone? I really wish we could agree on a universal code of human rights, but culture to culture that seems impossible. At least in North and South America we do not have huge religious traditions to combat with; Islam in the Eastern world seems to be the biggest impediment to forever changing human rights. The UN needs to meet again to think about these Millennium Development Goals and ask the Cuban government what they have specifically done. Even though on a daily social basis equality is missing, other countries definitely need their guidance in changing laws.

Dylan Reddish
12:42 pm 3/6/13
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/world/americas/06iht-letter06.html?_r=0