RIGHTS-CUBA: Gender Equality Still Missing

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Apr 27 1999 (IPS) - Cuba has long trumpeted as fact that the country has genuine equality of the sexes but, while women indeed hold down university positions and technical jobs, there remains a scarcity of women in leadership positions and government posts.

It is true that Concepcion Campa, who developed a vaccine to combat meningitis is a member of the leadership of the governing Communist Party; then there is Idalmis Garcia, a 29-year-old civil engineer who works in a state-run business.

“I love what I do, and if I were a boss, I’d have to put my specialty on the back burner and spend my time in meetings,” she says in scorning the idea of advancing to top-level management.

It also is true there are others like her who prefer to prioritise their profession, or simply claim “I don’t have time to be a leader.”

But the fact remains that women often are not seriously considered when high-level jobs are being filled, with the argument that women must care for “the children and the house” or that “they could get pregnant.”

This contradiction between the professional level, the type of job and the access to power for women in Cuba “is starting to generate real conflicts and implies underutilisation of their potential,” warns a study by Maya Alvarez Doninguez.

The research by Alvarez Dominguez, a specialist at the Centre of Psychological and Sociological Research of Havana, concludes that the economic crisis confronting Cuba since 1990 favors the presence of women in education and the labor market.

Officials at the Workers’ Headquarters of Cuba indicated that the female labor force grew one percent between 1989 and 1994, while 150,000 men lost their jobs, mainly due to rationalisation of the labor market.

The most recent figures released by the National Office of Statistics (ONE) revealed that at the end of 1997, women represented 64.1 percent of active professionals and technical workers in Cuba and accounted for 60.6 of registered university students.

At the start of this decade, in four leading scientific centers in Havana specialising in the demanding fields of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, women represented 44.2 percent of the staff and 46.6 percent of the technicians.

“The reduction of opportunities in higher education provoked by the current crisis accentuated the trend toward feminisation” in learning, which started to be seen in the 1980s, says Alvarez Dominguez in her study, “The young woman in the 1990s.”

She emphasises the case of the University of Havana, one of 46 centres of advanced studies around the country, in which between 1990 and 1995 women were one-third of the alumni of 15 of its 25 colleges.

According to the most recent annual demographics published by ONE, Cuba has some 11.1 million inhabitants, with a ratio of 1,003 men to every 1,000 women.

Alvarez Dominguez thinks the stricter requirements of those hoping to study at the university level put women in more favorable positions compared to the male population.

It seems that the tight control exercised by families over their daughters for culturally stereotypical reasons helps the girls’ scholastic performance, and they are thus in a better position to do well on the entrance exams of the universities.

Other studies say that for the last decade, there has been a phenomenon called “auto-reproduction of the intellectuals,” with increased access to classrooms by the children of university alumni who took advantage of free education at all levels, started in 1959 after Fidel Castro’s successful revolution.

Thus, despite equal rights for every social class and race, “those high proportions of young women who engage in advanced studies are fundamentally white and the children of professionals,” says Alvarez Dominguez.

It is hoped that the current feminisation of higher education soon leads to greater participation of women in the professional workforce and highlights the contradiction of the low rate of improvement in Cuban women’s access to power.

Official sources indicate that in 1997, women occupied just 30 percent of leadership positions and 27.6 percent of the seats of the National Assembly of Popular Power (the Parliament).

Research by the Center of Women’s Studies (CEM) of the Federation of Cuban Women, the only feminist organisation in Cuba, reveals that the scant presence of women in all levels of government originates in local political patterns.

On analysing the island’s general elections of 1998, CEM concludes that there are still few women nominated to join local governments, which is an essential first step to occupy a position at any level of the state government.

However, the majority of women nominated agreed to take the post, few who were put forward felt incapable of leading, and 50 percent went on to be elected to some organ of the government.

Alvarez Dominguez believes that, in addition to the contradiction it poses in the “under-utilisation” of women’s potential, the high degree of professional preparation of the Cuban woman has “important implications on the family level.”

Female domination of the highly-qualified workforce could generate tensions, “if one takes into account that traditionally the predominant tendency is to be part of a couple in one’s own social group, with the man having a higher educational and occupational level,” warns the expert.

On the other hand, as Cuban women elevate their professional level, their expectations in a mate are also rising, they are postponing marriage and increasing numbers are opting for single parenthood. (FIN/IPS/tra-da/dm/pr-hd/ks/ 99)