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theses

My dissertation develops a rich account of how the two political projects of socialism and feminism were mutually articulated in the pursuit of women’s liberation by the Cuban revolution and through the multifaceted practices and living labor of Cuban women. Grounded in materialist feminism and feminist political economy, as well as theories of care, democracy, and liberation, my research argues for a thorough rethinking of socialist feminism. Through a careful examination of the theory and trajectory of gender equity as women’s liberation within Cuba since 1959, I note significant gains achieved across myriad social dimensions but a marked resilience of gender inequalities cemented by the theoretical foundations of Marxist-Leninism espoused by the Cuban Communist Party and the Federation of Cuban Women through analyses of its keynote texts. I argue, nonetheless, that socialism and feminism are still key to degendering structural differences among human flourishing, and that cooperatively they hold the promise of a deeper social transformation beyond a gender equality purchased at the price of women’s disautonomy and hypertrophied commodity production. My dissertation makes this argument through a materialist feminist analysis of Cuban women’s socially invisible work which challenges the rigidities of gender-blind socialism, labor-blind feminism, and masculine versions of liberation and proposes that the identification of care-work as a distinct category of labor illuminates new possibilities for human liberation. This proposal carries within it the explicit critique of the idols of the political economies of both neoliberalism and socialism, commodity production, and begins to chart a third way toward the non-exploited, non-alienated, and interdependent wellbeing of all members of society through a feminist theory of revolutionary democracy. This theory aims toward social justice and the realm of freedom by outlining the substantive social recognition of care-work as a means to empower people to gain control over their economy, temper commodity production, incorporate women fully in politics and governance, and alter the sites, forms, and contents of social democracy. By attending to care-work and encouraging its universal practice, we open possibilities for social justice that have to date eluded us.

ETD_4473

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Joseph de la Torre Dwyer

http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10001600001.ETD.000067764

doi:10.7282/T3PC3130

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.