Sex and Revolution Women in Socialist Cuba

The Cuban revolution attempted to make equality in every sphere the basic operating principle of society. Equality among the sexes, it postulated, would resolve the "woman issue" once and for all. Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba is the first book-length examination of revolutionaryCuba's attempt to conceptualize, prioritize, and implement sexual equality, offering an assessment of the successes, failures, and dilemmas of that process. In the wake of the revolution, which crushed both Cuban capitalism and Catholic power, a host of redistributive policies helped make Cuba oneof the most egalitarian societies in the world. The history of the Cuban revolution provides rich detail regarding the interplay among gender, power, ideology, and culture. Certain revolutionary efforts to transform women's lives were extraordinarily successful, while others fell short ofexpectations. This book reviews the range of revolutionary strategies encompassed in structures, policies, and laws to address sexual inequality and difference. Ideal for courses in Latin American studies and women's studies, it offers insights into the implications of the way power is organized andmanaged, and analyzes the limitations of state policies in promoting and managing social and cultural transformations as significant as those regarding relations between the sexes.

Lois M. Smith is a National Science Foundation Fellow at the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas, Austin. Alfred Padula is Chair of the History Department at the University of Southern Maine.