Gender Stereotyping in Cuba’s Health Missions Abroad

Gender Stereotyping in Cuba's Health Missions Abroad
November 15, 2013
Irina Echarry

HAVANA TIMES — Margarita had always wanted to be a doctor and had been
willing to practice anywhere in the world, even in Havana's Calixto
Garcia Hosptial, where she's been working for several years now. "It's
like a relative one watches deteriorate slowly and progressively," she
says to me when I ask her about the hospital's reportedly poor conditions.

Shortly after graduating, she travelled to Venezuela to work on a
government sponsored internationalist mission. It was her opportunity to
get to know other customs, places and people.

There, she would learn quite a lot indeed, particularly how to treat
diseases she hadn't seen here in Cuba. She worked with families affected
by gang warfare and even assisted a delivery. The one painful memory
Margarita has involves living with other Cuban doctors.

She shared a house with four other doctors (aged 45, on average),
renowned professionals with proven experience in their fields.

As she was the only woman there, everyone took for granted she would be
doing the cooking. Margarita, who had been cooking for her younger
sister ever since their mother died, took on this task without
complaining. Her time began to be consumed entirely by meetings,
patriotic functions, consultations and improver's courses on practically
every topic.

Margarita felt exhausted. She didn't have anemia and wasn't even sick,
but she always felt tired. She started to think, to look for something
that could explain why she was constantly tired…and she found it.

It so happens that Margarita didn't only cook. She also cleaned and
tidied up the house, did the dishes, hauled buckets of water when
necessary and even did the groceries. She came to her senses and
immediately called a meeting with other doctors in the house.

Not everyone came. Some had more pressing matters to attend to, like
buying a bottle of rum for the weekend or "picking up" some Venezuelan
woman that could make them forget their distance from home. The two who
went to the meeting, after suggesting that what she said was a
hissy-fit, a bit of female hysteria, agreed to pitch in part of their
earnings for the things around the house.

Of course, this didn't last long. One way or another, Margarita
continued to pay for everyone's food for another week…until she got fed
up. She called another meeting and only one person showed up (there's so
many hissy-fits a person can take, after all).

The only person who claimed to understand her (though still didn't pitch
in any of his own money) told her about how lonely he felt and what this
was doing to him. He tried to convince her he could take her side
against the others, help her – the only thing he needed to know was
whether she would consider alleviating the pain of being away from his wife.

Immediately, Margarita asked to be moved somewhere else. Since they
wouldn't, she decided not to cook for others anymore. She stopped
cleaning the house and caring whether it looked messy or not. She
concentrated on the room she slept in and, sometimes, the bathroom.

Margarita spent four years of her life living next to these "selfless"
health professionals. An unforgettable experience – she tells me – which
she would rather not go through again.

The news proudly tells us that half of Cuba's doctors working abroad are
women. Some articles describe comradeship, the fulfillment of duty or
their work as professionals. But who talks about this other side to the
whole story?

The vast majority of female doctors working in missions abroad continue
to endure gender stereotypes. Their compatriots carry their male
chauvinist prejudices with them to the farthest corners of the earth and
they continue to enable them. Those who speak up tend to have a much
harder time. This is the reason Margarita has no interest in going to
work in Brazil (currently with 4,000 positions for Cuban doctors).

Source: "Gender Stereotyping in Cuba's Health Missions Abroad - Havana
Times.org" - http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=100076