One of the principal gains of the Cuban Revolution is the changes it has achieved in the status of women in that country. The systematic efforts to integrate women into Cuba's productive process, and the beneficial effect this has had in emanicipating them from their previous status, was discussed by Fidel Castro. we give extracts from a speech made to the Fifth National Plenary session of the Federation of Cuban Women meeting in Santa Clara on December 9, 1966. Arriving here this evening, I commented to a comrade that this phenomenon of women's participation in the Revolution was a revolution within a Revolution. And if we were asked what the most revolutionary thing is that the Revolution is doing, we would answere that it is precisely this - the revolution that is occurring among the women of our country! If we were asked what things in the Revolution wave been most instructive for us, we would answer that one of the most interesting lessons for revolutionaries is that being offered by our women. But why is this one of the most interesting lessons? You yourselves mgy ask why. In reality, the most honest answer that we could give - and I assure youthat the person who offers this answer is precisely one who has always believed himself free from prejudice - the answer is, I believe, that in reality all of us were prejudiced in regard to women. And if anyone had ever asked me if I considered myself prejudiced in regard to women, I would have said absolutely not, because I believed myself to be quite the opposite. I believed that an eno:mous potential force and extraordinary human resources for the Revolution existed in our women. We are finding that in reality, this potential force is superior to any thing that the most optimistic of us ever dreamed of. We say that perh ps at heart unconsciously something of bias or underestimation existed... This Revolution has really been two revolutions for women; it has meant a double liberation as part :of the exploited sector of the country, and, second, as women, who were discriminated not only as workers but also as women, in thet society of exploitation. And the support of the popular masses for the Revolution is directly proportionate tow what the revolution has meant to them in terms of their liberation... ; Discrimination will never be wiped out within the framework of capitalist society. Discrimination: with respect to race and sex can only be wiped out through a socialist revolution, which eradicates the exploitation of man by man. Now, does the disappearance of the exploitation of. man by man. mean that.all the conditions are immediately created whereby woman may elevate her position in society? Fo... The conditions for the liberation of women, for the full development of women in society, for an authentic equality of rights, or for authentic equality of women with men in society require a material base; they require the. material foundztions of economic and social development. In other words, in order to reach the social goal of liberating woman from all these activities that enslave her and dmpede her from full incorporation into work outside the home and all these activities she can engage in society, it is necessary to create the necessary material base, ‘to attain the necessary social development...Many of the plans that the Revolution is today drawing up and beginning to carry out could not have .been con-= ceived until the great reservoir of human resources that our society possesses in its women was clearly seen for what it was.
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