Re: Cuban Women: Randall's Reassessment

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> >>Louis: No revolution in Latin America, perhaps in the whole XX-XXI
> >century, has done so much for women than Cuba under Castro, but Margaret
> >Randall has become more critical of the Cuban experiment in changing gender
> >relations since Cuban Women Now" was originally published in the 1970s. (I
> >assume you are referring to the latest edition). Cf. her more recent work,
> >"Gathering Rage: The Failure of 20th Century Revolutions to Develop a
> >Feminist Agenda"
> >(NY: Monthly Review Press, 1992). Chapter four is dedicated to Cuba.
> >Revolutionary Greetings,
> >Julio Cesar
>
>Yes, Yoshie referred to this. The only question I am interested at this
>point, however, is whether it was right or wrong to rehabilitate
>prostitutes. Somehow I doubt that Randall came out in favor of socialist
>brothels, especially since the book was published by MR.
>
>Louis Proyect
>Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/

I've already discussed ambivalence in the Cuban government efforts to
"rehabilitate" prostitutes.  It seems that something of the double
consciousness was at work.  If the Cuban government truly believed
that no woman would voluntarily work as a prostitute unless coerced
by pimps & economic desperation, it wouldn't have made a law that
*threatened prostitutes* with *imprisonment*.  It would have simply
offered family stipends, educational opportunities, better economic
alternatives, etc.  Secondly, the government ended up schooling
prostitutes into domesticated femininity.  This is because the
efforts to "rehabilitate" prostitutes were rooted more in male Cuban
leaders' sense of national shame ("our women are being exploited by
Gringos") than in *critiques of sexism at home*.  Thirdly, since a
fundamental attack upon sexism was not within the "rehabilitation"
efforts, there was *no program for the rehabilitation of ex-johns &
men in general*.  And lastly, the Cubans regarded women who
voluntarily prostitute as having psychological problems -- therefore
it offered therapy as part of the "rehabilitation" program.  While
trauma can be part of sex work, as it can be part of any other kind
of work, and therefore therapy may be helpful, I notice a more
fundamental psychologization & medialization of "deviance" at work
here.  It has been common, both in capitalist & actually (and
formerly) existing socialist countries to treat sociological
"deviants" and political "dissidents" as if they suffered from
psychological malfunction ("if you do what we say you shouldn't do,
or criticize what we order, you must be *crazy*").  Such
psychologization & medicalization are problems, be they practiced
under capitalism or socialism.  Gay men and lesbians suffered from
the same treatment of "deviance" as prostitutes did (from threats of
imprisonment to medicalization).

Women's emancipation, in the end, has to be self-emancipation of
women.  The word "rehabilitation" already negates *self*-emancipation
& suggests top-down & technocratic direction.  Men can not emancipate
women, not even under socialism, just as middle-class feminist
reformers can not emancipate working-class women under capitalism.
*Women* under socialism have to take *leadership* in their own
emancipation.

Yoshie