ABSTRACT
Before 1959, a capitalist model of development appeared to be the most viable means of escape for Latin America from its age old backwardness and dependency, with a dynamic middle class leading a process of industrialization and social reform. Cuba’s economic growth rate was far superior to that of the rest of Latin America, with an overall growth rate of 22.6 percent from 1981 to 1983, while the rest of Latin America registered a negative growth rate of 2.8 percent. Cuban caloric consumption, to take but one index of social progress, is the highest in Latin America according to UN statistics. Cubans take special pride, however, in their educational achievement. Although Latin American women have made definite strides in the past half-century toward emancipation from legal, economic, and political disabilities, throughout most of the continent the ideology of machismo, with its corollaries of patriarchal rule and the double sex standard, continues to reign.
