Forget the fact that Cuba is a one-party totalitarian state where leadership is entirely dependent on how closely related one is to a certain Fidel Castro rather than any electoral process. The good news is that "Cuba may be the most feminist country in Latin America." That laughable premise has been published by New York Times blogger Luisita Lopez Torregrosa. Of course, that revelation would be news to the best known female group in Cuba, the Ladies In White (photo) who have been oppressed by the Communist regime and their thugs. Ms Torregrosa bases much of her analysis on the leftwing pro-Castro Center for Democracy in the Americas which helps explain her complete divorce from reality in her paean to one party feminism:
In sheer numbers and percentages, Cuban women’s advance is notable. Cuba has a high number of female professional and technical workers (60 percent of the total work force in those areas) and in Parliament (43 percent), as well as high levels of primary, secondary and tertiary education enrollment, according to the Gender Gap report.
Wheee! Such good news for the most prominent of the Cuban women, blogger Yoani Sanchez. Oops! Not such good news as Voice of America notes:
Yoani Sanchez is a Cuban blogger who is not permitted to leave the country. She has attracted an international following for her blog, Generación Y, which gives readers unprecedented insight into the harsh realities of life in Cuba. Her work has won numerous awards, including Columbia University’s Maria Cabot prize for journalism, and the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award in 2011. But Cuba’s Communist government has refused to allow her to leave the country to accept these honors. Requests by Ms. Sanchez to travel have been denied 19 times.
Obviously Ms Sanchez was not one of the women interviewed by the Center for Democracy in the Americas since the women they talk to just love conditions in Cuba:
Sarah Stephens, the director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, a Washington-based advocacy and research organization that focuses on Cuba and U.S.-Cuba relations and opposes the U.S. embargo, is working on a report on the status of women in Cuba. “Cuban women tell us that they feel lucky to have come of age since 1959,” she says. “Before 1959, women comprised only 5 percent of university graduates and only 12 percent of the work force, often holding menial jobs.”
Today, she says, women make up 41 percent of the Communist Party, half of the island’s work force, the majority of students in high schools and universities, 60 percent of university faculties and the majority of provosts and department heads (but not presidents). And women hold top portfolios in ministries and in key provincial positions.
Of course, women make up zero percent of any other party since they are all outlawed, a point overlooked by the ironically named Center for Democracy in the Americas. The best analysis of this absurd blog comes from a comment by Mike Shepherd:
#3 in political particpation in Cuba's Parliament? No real elections, no freedom of speech, no parties, the government is an ogliarchy if not downright totalitarian. I suppose one could make the case that the USSR had the most diverse parliament back in the bad old days. But still not much of an endorsement of rights, women's or otherwise.
If the New York Times wishes to make themselves appear less ridiculous with blogs about the status of women in Cuba, why not publish on their pages a blog by a woman who actually lives in that island nation? ...Llamando a Yoani Sanchez!!!
