ABSTRACT
Cuba embarked on a cooperative movement in response to the need for modernization in the fragmented private agricultural sector. The cooperative movement also stemmed from the national need to produce an agricultural surplus for export and home consumption and to generate an infrastructural base and financial surplus for further rural investment. This chapter considers why women were singled out for special policy attention within the cooperatives and what the subsequent impact was on the position of women. Cuba is perhaps exceptional in the Third World in that although the country is characterized as an agro-export economy, the majority of women are not defined as rural. Women were defined as an integral part of Cuba's development policy from the outset of the revolution. They were afforded equality before the law, employment on the basis of equal pay for equal work, and training schemes.
