Cuban Strategies for Women's Employment in the Nineties: a Study with Professional Women

Abstract

The article focuses on how Cuba developed an alternative project to neoliberalism during the 90’s to solve problems concerning women’s employment. The author summarizes her findings in several case studies she carried out with women employed in traditional and non traditional feminine jobs between 1985 and 1998, in order to explain the development of women professionals, which is the main topic of the present work. Based in a sample of women professionals, she studies which were the strategies they worked out during the 90’s to keep their jobs and to daily reproduce the lives of their families; how the fact of being professional women influenced their abilities in decision making; up to what degree they have contributed to change Cuba men’s gender ideologies, and what being professionals has meant to their personal lives.