Their Revolution-and Ours

Off Our Backs, Mar/Apr 2004 by Manzano, Angelita

I went to Cuba with an open heart and mind, eager to study, learn from, and embrace the Revolution. I had already read quite a bit about Cuba, so I knew about their enlightened and humane systems of education and health care. I knew that Cuba, suffering through a 40-year embargo imposed by the U.S., had achieved a lower infant mortality rate than that of the U.S. Even after the demise of their trading partner, the Soviet Union, Cuba continued to provide free, high-quality education and health care for all-something that U.S. politicians claim is impossible or too expensive to implement in the U.S. I knew that, according to all of the statistics I found on work, health, and education, the standard of living for women in Cuba was high, and probably equal to that of men. But I wanted to experience Cuba for myself. I wanted to know what daily life felt like in a country built on values so different from those of my U.S. government.

I spent my first month in Cuba with a group of students from different countries, studying international relations at a Cuban institute. Most of the students were rich and well-traveled. I was not. I suspected that, for most of these students, Cuba was just another stamp in their passport, an exotic, forbidden fruit to consume. They came to class hung over after spending their nights at some flashy nightclub. They liked to pass around pictures of themselves in class, taken at various "dollar-only" discos (nightclubs for tourists). Their ethnocentrism and self-absorption embarrassed me.

I tried to avoid them and spent most of my time with Melissa*, a classmate who traveled with me from Washington, D.C., to Cuba. When Melissa was not around I stayed in my room because I didn't want to walk the streets of Havana alone. I usually have no problem walking around D.C. by myself. But I didn't feel safe in Havana. I thought it was probably just my imagination-I mean, it had to be just my imagination. After all, this is Cuba, where women and men are equal, where women have such a high standard of living. And when men "greeted" me with piropos, telling me exactly what they wanted to do to a particular part of my body, I was told that I should feel flattered, not threatened. And the strangers who followed me to the store, to school, and to my apartment? I guess I should have been flattered by that, too, but I wasn't. It made me wonder why Cuba didn't (and still doesn't) release statistics on rape and other forms of violence against women. It made me suspect that, as much as I considered myself a revolutionary, and as much as I dreamed of becoming part of a revolutionary society, I'd never be a companera, but just a piece of ass.

I decided it was probably my own fault for attracting too much male attention. So I cut off my hair and started wearing loose-fitting clothes and a baseball cap. It seemed to work, except now my appearance confused and offended my few Cuban women friends, who I did not want to alienate myself from. Cristina, a feminist, asked me why I didn't wear makeup and why I didn't have a boyfriend. Then there was Lydia, who wanted to set me up with some guy, and found the perfect dress for me to wear for him. "I'm sorry," I told her. "It's not that I don't like it. It's just that I want to wear clothes that are more comfortable." She rolled her eyes and sighed, "You American women-why do you always want to be comfortable?"

It's true that Cuban women looked a lot less comfortable than foreign women. After the Revolution, thousands of women were given scholarships to schools-established by male leaders of the Revolutionary government-where they were "taught to curl their hair, shave their legs, wear high heeled shoes, nylon stockings and matching accessories."1 I don't think these schools still exist. But on a 100-degree day, you'll still see many Cuban women wearing spandex pants and high heeled shoes.

The little girls in Havana looked more comfortable, but not much happier. I remember walking the long, wide pedestrian lane of the Malecon, the famous seawall in Havana, many times that summer. I often saw boys running, screaming, and daring each other to jump off the seawall into the choppy waters below, while the girls sat discretely on the sidelines. When I went to the beaches, I was surprised, at first, to see so many bored-looking Cuban teenaged girls sitting in the sand, surrounded by groups of middle-aged, sunburned European men. But it was such a common sight that I soon grew accustomed to it. Castro says that in Cuba, '"(t)here are no women forced to sell themselves to a man, to a foreigner, to a tourist. Those who do so, do it on their own, voluntarily."2 He didn't mention that, in an effort to attract men's tourist dollars, the Cuban government legalized prostitution,3 or that it invited Playboy to photograph Cuban women, or that it distributed posters of naked Cuban women to travel agencies all over the world.4 The fact that the government promoted Cuban women's value as a sexual commodity to rich white men had nothing to do with it. No, Cuban women became jineteras (prostitutes) "because they like sex," he said.2 So why did I feel such sadness when I saw those girls? And why did Castro sound more like Howard Stern than Che Guevara to me?