(Saturday 21 March 2009)
Interview: Catching up with Cuban women's activists Carolina Amador Perez and Gilda Chacon Bravo
Comrades: Gilda Chacon (left) and Carolina Amador enjoying spring sunshine in Glasgow's George Square
"IT'S always cold in Aberdeen," I tell Carolina Amador Perez and Gilda Chacon Bravo on a sunny and mild March day in Glasgow.
"Yes, we arrived there on a very cold night, but in the middle of this cold we had a very warm welcome and a great meeting," Chacon assures me.
Amador is international relations officer of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and Chacon represents the international department of the Cuban Workers' Confederation (CTC).
This self-styled "mixed delegation" of two leaders from the women's and trade union movements in Cuba is on the Scottish leg of a month-long whistle-stop tour around Britain to celebrate International Women's Day - and the first half-century of the triumph of the 1959 Cuban revolution.
I catch Amador and Chacon for a bite of lunch with Kath Campbell of Scottish Cuba Solidarity.
Amador surprises us with some figures on the gains that have been made by Cuban women since the revolution.
Around 43 per cent of parliamentarians in Cuba are female, she tells us.
Campbell and I can't help remarking that Scottish women and the more progressive males would give their right arm to have that state of affairs here - our Scottish Parliament only has 35 per cent of women now, having peaked at 39 per cent in 2003-7, while the corresponding figure in Westminster is a mere 20 per cent.
The pair also inform us that women now make up 46 per cent of the total labour force in Cuba, up from less than 8 per cent in the 1950s.
"This is a gain we have made in Cuba," says Amador.
"Before the revolution, the only work for women was as domestic cleaners or in workshops making clothes, and a few nurses."
There is high female participation in sectors like education, health and justice, with women comprising an absolute majority of professional and technical workers, researchers, doctors, university professors and more than 70 per cent of judges and lawyers.
"The situation now, for Cuban women and Cuban society, is a result of an education process which has transformed the cultural tradition based on discrimination of women. It has changed the roles and perceptions of both females and males in Cuban society," says Amador.
I observe that successful attempts to improve gender equality in Britain have often produced legal changes such as the vote or equal pay laws, but in reality society is still not transformed.
There's a 14 per cent pay gap 30 years after the Equal Pay Act and we still have a gendered society with very macho mentalities.
Has that been altered in Cuba, I wonder. Presumably, they still have macho men?
"It is true that in some Cuban families, the traditional roles of women are reproduced," Carolina replies. "The women take care of children or they do the domestic tasks at home.
"But it is not like that in most families, because there has been a transformation in relations between couples and between fathers and children. Since we passed the Family Code in 1975, the Cuban family itself has been able to have a revolution."
Chacon adds that the FMC has just held its eighth congress, which considered a strengthening of the Family Code. It discussed a renewed focus on social inclusion and diversity and how to push for more efficient action by legal bodies dealing with family issues and cases of violence against women.
"The revolutionary gains for women are part of the gains of unions too," Chacon argues, "because it was about working women.
"One of the most important gains for women was to provide them with opportunity. In Cuba, there are a lot of pluses but the most important thing ... is the opportunity that you can give the person to develop herself, in the way she wants to be developed and to realise her aspirations in society."
As our discussion turns to the international situation, Amador and Chacon explain that they desire solidarity with their nation which is based on respect for self-determination.
Could the arrival of a new president produce the desired effect in the US?
"In my personal opinion, Cuba is not a priority for the Obama administration," says Amador. "They have a lot of problems with the global economic crisis, since the US is the most affected country. As Fidel Castro said, Obama now already knows what it means to be president of America and its empire."
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