WOMEN AND POST-COLD WAR SOCIALISM: THE CASES OF CUBA AND VIETNAM

This paper compares the post-Cold War experiences of women in Cuba and Vietnam. The regimes in both of these countries suffered gravely from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The disappearance of the Soviet bloc and the subsequent economic slowdown forced the Cuban and Vietnamese leadership to sort quickly through various policies that might bring about recovery and rapid economic growth while averting the unraveling of socialism and communist- party rule. However, the two countries took markedly different paths. Vietnam opted to embrace the market and carried out sweeping economic reforms, from privatizing state enterprises and agriculture to devaluing the currency, from drastically slashing subsidies to eliminating thousands of state firms, from opening the country to foreign trade and investment to laying off almost a million workers. The Cuban regime chose a more cautious and less costly approach of adjustment and limited reform. Enticed by the prospect of rapid economic development, the Vietnamese were prepared for a bold and risky move. Concerned at the possible wrench on their grip on power, the Cubans preferred to muddle along with incremental changes. Given the cultural and structural differences between Cuba and Vietnam and their contrasting post-Cold War approaches to recovery, the experiences of wom-

en in each country raises important questions to which this paper advances partial answers. How similar were the experiences of women in Cuba and Vietnam throughout the prerevolutionary and revolutionary phases? In what ways has the post-Cold War period of reform affected women in each country? In other words, what have women gained and what have they lost? WOMEN AND THEIR PREREVOLUTIONARY EXPERIENCES Women in prerevolutionary Vietnam and Cuba wholly lacked equal rights and lived in sharply discriminatory societies. Women in Cuba, however, fared noticeably better than those in