Vilma Espin
1930-2007
Cuban Revolutionary leader, helped found the Cuban Federation of Women
(FMC) and was it’s president up to her death in 2007
"Feminists have given the impulse to the process of raising social consciousness of women's oppression.
In particular, I believe in those feminist groups who tie the solution to the oppression of women, of the
liberation of women, to the liberation of all the exploited, the oppressed, the discriminated against, which also means
taking into consideration social, political and ideological, as well as economic problems, from the perspective of a class,
sex and race analysis.
I am convinced that the problems women face cannot be seen in isolation from other social problems, and that
they cannot be analyzed outside of their economic context. Nor should they be considered as side issues within
a particular social, historical situation. Thus there are no solutions to women's problems unrelated to their context.
It is ridiculous, for example, to think that in an imperialist country a businesswoman and a woman worker can be equal.
Therefore, I can say that I believe in the feminist groups that propose radical social changes in socio-economic
structures, as the undeniable basis of the struggle for equality between the sexes. But naturally in today's world the
fight for sexual equality in many places is simultaneous with the struggle for revolutionary change.
Excerpt from an interview with Vilma Espín by Greek journalist Elisabeth Popagay in 1989.
