Their Revolution-and Ours

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

I tried not to think these thoughts. After all, this is Cuba, I reminded myself, where women and men are equal, where women have an incredibly high standard of living. I tried to be open-minded, but I still refused to hobble around in sweaty, sticky pants while men "complimented" me on my body parts. I was also sick of sitting in my room while the other students in my group had all the fun. So one day, although I feared what would happen if I wore a swimsuit in public, I decided to go swimming. I had Melissa, my short hair, and a long shirt covering my swimsuit to protect me. And it was fun, until we noticed two men on the shore, licking their lips and masturbating while watching us swim. Nothing I had read about Cuba prepared me for this-unless all that stuff I read about Cuban "sensuality" was just a euphemsim for "sexual harassment." Or maybe the guys who wrote my textbooks and travel guides really do think whacking off in public is sensual and erotic.

I remember, on one of the last days of class at the international relations institute, our professor told us that men and women in Cuba are equal. He said that what little machismo does exist in Cuba is a cultural by-product of Spanish colonialism and American imperialism, and that Cuban men have worked so hard to get rid of it. I'd heard this explanation several times before, and it didn't faze me. But my fellow female students-the ones I'd written off as spoiled, boozy brats-had had enough. "Everywhere we go," interrupted one student, "Cuban men stalk and harass us." The professor tried to ignore her, but another woman spoke up: "Do you realize that every woman in this room has seen a Cuban penis, even though we didn't want to?"

Looking back, I'm embarrassed to say I didn't speak up. I didn't join these women, or see them as companeras. I saw them as the enemy. And in some ways, they were: They had class privileges that I never had. They were rich. But they were also women, and I failed to see that. I wish I had not tried so hard to be relativistic-denying my own experience and blaming myself, lest I be labeled ethnocentric or anti-revolutionary-that I uncritically accepted excuses for the oppression of women. I wish I had not been so narrowly focused on finding solidarity with others in the struggle against capitalist imperialism that I had been blinded to this spontaneous demonstration of gender solidarity.

It wasn't until much later, after spending some time thinking about my experiences in Cuba, that I understood that it's much too simplistic to talk about "First World" travelers to the "Third World" as if we are a uniformly privileged group. Of course, when I cross a border from a colonizing country to a colonized country, I bring my citizenship privilege with me. But, as a member of an almost universally subordinated gender group, I know I will face gender oppression whether I cross borders or stay at home. Gender oppression, like racial and ethnic oppression, occurs to a different degree in different contexts, but is still there and should be challenged wherever it exists.