LavenderRed_Cubabook

‘Gendering’ domination
In 1898, North American capitalism burst its boundaries and outfought its colonialist
predecessors to claim Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico as U.S. possessions. Imperialist
spin doctors developed racist campaigns as ideological cover for invasion, or more
covert forms of “regime change.” These white supremacist campaigns that spewed claims
of racial and moral superiority—stimulants for the reactionary nationalism of an oppressor
nation—aimed at dehumanizing peoples who were in the gunsights of U.S. finance
capital.
Speaking as the rising voice of imperialist military aggression at the turn of the 20th
century, Theodore Roosevelt—who extolled male “virility”—added: “The greatest danger
that a long period of profound peace offers to a nation is that of effeminate tendencies
in young men.” Aggression by the rich, and later the super-rich, whether economic or
meted out on their behalf by the armed bodies of the state, has always been “gendered” as
masculine, superior and invincible.
An infamous article in the Philadelphia Manufacturer on March 6, 1889, was headlined
“Do We Want Cuba?” Like Nazi eugenicists, the article—written by several powerful
Republican politicians—bandied about the pros and cons of annexing Cuba, referring
to Cubans as an “effeminate” people, lacking “virile” strength. (Bejel)
With the imperialist takeover of Cuba came a brutal re-structuring of the division
of labor based on the sexes, kinship, family, marriage, sexuality, living accommodations
and other aspects of social organization. The drive behind the changes was the insatiable
appetite for profits of the banks and corporations. U.S. big business, including crime syndicates,
organized urban Cuba into a giant brothel, super-exploiting the sexual labor of
Cuban females and males, feminine and masculine, homosexual and heterosexual.
Then came the 1959 revolution. New ways had to be found to criticize and disparage
the Cuban people. It became fashionable in imperialist culture to accuse Cuban males of
“machismo” of being too “too masculine” When Cubans use the term, they are referring
to the legacy of male chauvinism and sex/gender and sexual prejudices inherited from
centuries of patriarchal rule by colonialism and imperialism. But in the imperialist oppressor
country, the term is chauvinist, blaming Cuban male gender expression for all the
ills of patriarchy.
The charge of “hyper masculinity” against men of African descent has been a cornerstone
of Jim Crow lynch law within the U.S., as well.
‘New man,’ ‘new woman’
People “make their own history,” Karl Marx wrote, “but they do not make it just as
they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under
circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.”
Since the victory over the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in 1959, Cuba has mobilized
the people to reorganize the economy to meet the needs of the whole laboring
population. As the Cubans say, “It’s not easy.” It’s especially hard when U.S. imperialism is
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Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba