Re: Cuban Women: Randall's Reassessment

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yoshie:
>I would have advocated offering family stipends, educational
>opportunities, better economic alternatives, etc. _without_
>threatening prostitutes with imprisonment and medicalization.

Okay, no imprisonment. I am not sure what medicalization is however. It
sounds pretty bad, so I guess I am against it. In any case, since you seem
to have no objection to Cuban prostitutes being required to go to the farms
described in the interview for job training, etc., then that's that.

>What you say above, though, basically confirms oft-cited feminist
>complaints that socialist men are not interested in women's
>emancipation _unless_ it is good for socialist men's notion of the
>good & transient necessities (actual or perceived) of national
>exigencies.

I am sorry, Yoshie. "National exigency" misrepresents what I wrote. Cuba
had a socialist revolution. It was a big brothel for tourists from
imperialist countries. "Godfather II" was an accurate description of what
Cuba had to offer: big-assed, rumba-dancing, bandanna-topped mulattos (in
Margaret Randall's words) who would fuck or give you a blow job for a
dollar. If the Cuban government did not take forceful steps to change this
immediately, then the revolution would have no credibility. Accepting the
status quo in terms of "the right of women to decide" would have undermined
the revolution from day one.

>Now, negating women's self-emancipation or subordinating
>women's needs & desires to the program of national survival (e.g.,
>denying women reproductive rights & freedoms in the interest of
>pro-natalist policy in order to increase labor supply, especially in
>Romania) may look convenient in the short term, but in the long term
>it is counter-productive, threatening not just women but also the
>very viability of socialism.  Denial of women's self-emancipation
>sows the seeds of counter-revolution & capitalist restoration.

Why introduce the right to an abortion. This is just a red herring. The
right to make a living as a whore is not the same thing.

>BTW, being under the guns of imperialism does not explain changing
>Cuban attitudes to prostitution.  The government tried to abolish it
>then; now it tolerates it shamefacedly, without regulating it in the
>formal economy, because it has come to rely on tourism.  At both
>points in history, Cuba has been under the guns.

The presence of prostitution in Cuba today is a terrible shame. It simply
represents the power of the marketplace in the socialist world, just as the
massive entrance of Russian and Eastern European women into the sex
business marks it in the postsocialist world. Frankly, it seems beyond the
power of the Cuban government to change this. In any case, there is no
possible way to put a 'feminist' spin on this, is there?

>Lastly, shamefaced toleration is as bad as top-down abolition with a
>threat of imprisonment.  Since Cuban prostitutes exist under the
>shadow of informal economy, they do not enjoy government protection.
>If the government is going to tolerate it, it might as well bring it
>into the light of formal economy where prostitutes would be safer &
>less exploited.

I think Cuban socialism faces a dilemma on this question. Creating Nevada
style brothels would represent a step backward. I suspect that if the Cuban
economy continues to recover, then fewer women will be willing to sell
their body. This is just one of those things, like defecting athletes, that
reflect a poor relationship of forces economically and socially. The goal
is not to cave in to the status quo but to change it.


Louis Proyect
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