Dentro de la "tierra del Hombre Nuevo": la Federación de mujeres y el discurso de la Nueva Mujer en la revista cubana Mujeres

Abstract

The dissertation analyses the construction of the discourse of the New Cuban Woman after 1959 within the changing language used by both the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), its leadership and its official voice, the magazine Mujeres, following as the leading thread the way in which the ideology of the New Man put forward by the leaders of the Cuban revolution permeated this discourse, and the impact of the official rejection of any form of feminist thought, including the pre-1959 Cuban feminist past. It examines the analytical tools and theses used by the leadership of the Revolution and the magazine to codify the ideal of a new Cuban woman and to delineate models of conduct and icons to be followed by women according to the political and economical needs of the new society. The strategies and signs used by the magazine to speak to the readers and to convey its messages are also analyzed, particularly those that present an essentializing and unifying image for women in Cuba that emphasize its role as sacrificed mothers of the New Man, iconized in the selective use of the figure of Mariana Grajales, the mother of Antonio Maceo, general of Cuban independence wars. The translation of this image into specific tasks assigned to women is also scrutinized, particularly those of educators, agricultural workers, seamstresses, revolutionary cooks, keepers of femininity and beauty for both their own bodies and its "extension", the home. Special attention is devoted to the fiction published by the magazine, to reveal the space given to the narrative written by Cuban women in it, the priority given to certain themes and messages, the selection criteria used by the editorial board and how the fiction published interlocks with the signs and myths at the bases of the ideal of the New Cuban Woman.