Sexual Politics in Cuba: Machismo, Homosexuality, and AIDS
Sexual Politics in Cuba: Machismo, Homosexuality, and AIDS
Synopsis
Excerpt
Sex education as we conceive of it in the broad sense of the term, should be oriented toward preparing new generations for the purpose of developing stable, enduring and happy partnerships; thus we educate our children in the principles of our socialist society.
There is no other sphere of human life where prejudice, taboo, ignorance, the bourgeois double standard and other left-overs of class society persist with such strength and have grown such deep roots.
--Monika Krause Peters
Women's participation in the Revolution is a revolution within a revolution. And if we are asked what is the most revolutionary thing that the revolution is doing, we would answer that it is precisely this: the revolution that is occurring among the women of our country.
--Fidel Castro
In the Cuba of the mid-1970s, there were those in the new generation of education activists who were calling for something very new and very radical--sex education. Resistance was enormous, and the fact that the effort has gotten as far as it has is a great testament to the perseverance of a few key people. It should not come as a surprise that the sex education program sprang from the women's organization, the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), which itself is representative of the changing situation of women in Cuban society since 1959. An outline of the changes is relevant for the process of sex education.
Out of the House and into the Workforce
Dramatic changes for women came about as a result of the government's program to encourage women to enter the paid workforce, including new and broader opportunities for women to get the kind of education . . .