How Did Women Join The Cuban Revolution

Women in Cuba experienced great inequality despite their contributions to the revolution. Many women did join the revolution and began a revolution within the revolution to increase women’s involvement in society. They created the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) to help get women out of the home and into the workforce. However, the attitude of the country still saw women as homemakers despite Fidel Castro, the Cuban government, and the revolutionaries wanting women to be directly involved and join the labor force. Castro was not completely successful in his goal to create equality between men and women by 1979. The government passed many laws in an attempt to make men and women equal, but by the late 1970s they had not fulfilled their goal
This was the common belief at the time; women were meant to stay at home even though the revolutionaries believed they should be part of the workforce. In Thesis Three it stated that women were denied promotions because of “possible difficulties occasioned by the demands of home and family” (Thesis Three, 139). Even in the government that said they supported women joining, women were still prevented from actually doing more for their country. Moreover, the FMC and government had to expend resources to combat “resistance to this modernization” in order for women to actually join (Purcell, 266). The families and husbands did not want them to leave to join the different organizations that the FMC created. They had to do more work to try and change their minds before they could begin to accomplish their goals. People did not want to change their beliefs about a woman’s place, so they did not have the assistance they required to be able to make the change at this time. The women who did join the work force still did not have the support they needed to be able to work and take care of their
Even when she wanted to leave Ramon, her mother wanted her to go back to him for their family. However, the FMC was successful in increasing the number of women being educated and the number of women in the workforce (Purcell, 266). Attitudes were changing slowly and the impact was seen in the number of women who were becoming professionals. They had the choice to do more than being just a mother and wife, but by the late 1970s there was still a considerable amount of work left to do to get women out of the home (Thesis Three, 148). This was great progress, but without the full support of the country or the Castro administration it was not attainable. Women would not be able to have total equality with men if this was not a priority. The work that had been done was good, but they still did not have as much support by the end of twenty years as was probably expected or needed. Women’s equality in Cuba was not a complete success by the end of the 1970s, as Castro had hoped. These laws were unenforceable because most people could easily ignore them with little repercussions since there were other things going on at the