Laboring for the state : women, family, and work in revolutionary Cuba, 1959-1971 / Rachel Hynson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hynson, Rachel, 1982- author.

Series:

Cambridge Latin American studies ; 117.

Cambridge Latin American studies ; 117

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Families--Cuba.

Families.

Sex role--Cuba.

Sex role.

Sex discrimination--Cuba.

Sex discrimination.

Sexual division of labor--Cuba.

Sexual division of labor.

Cuba.

Physical Description:

xvii, 314 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Summary:

Contrary to claims that socialism opposed the family unit, Rachel Hynson argues that the revolutionary Cuban government engaged in social engineering to redefine the nuclear family and organize citizens to serve the state. Drawing on Cuban newspapers and periodicals, government documents and speeches, long-overlooked laws, and oral histories, Hynson reveals that by 1961, and increasingly throughout this decade, revolutionary citizenship was earned through labor. While men were to work outside the home in state-approved jobs, women found their citizenship tied to affording the state control over their reproduction and sexual labor. Through all four campaigns examined in this book - the projects to control women's reproduction, promote marriage, end prostitution, and compel men into state-sanctioned employment - Hynson shows that the state's progression toward authoritarianism and its attendant monopolization of morality were met with resistance and counter-narratives by citizens who so opposed the mandates of these campaigns that Cuban leadership has since reconfigured or effaced these programs from the Revolution's grand narrative.

Contents:

Introduction: socialist morality, the nuclear family, and state labor

In the hands of physicians : abortion, birth control, and claims to womenʹs labor

"the husband must protect the wife and the latter obey the husbandʺ : operation family, wedding palaces, and nuclear families

From the streets to the home : the reeducation and resistance of female prostitutes

The elasticity of truth : creating male heads of household through forced labor

Epilogue: the erasure and legacies of four early revolutionary campaigns

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781107188679

1107188679

9781316640500

1316640507

OCLC:

1100449300