PODIUM. Journal of Science and Technology in Physical Culture, September-December; 16(3):681-684
Translated from the original in spanish
The Cuban woman in sports
La mujer cubana en el deporte
Mulheres cubanas nos esportes
Fernando Emilio Valladares Fuente1*
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4952-1846
1University of Pinar del Río "Hermanos Saíz Montes de Oca". Faculty of Physical Culture "Nancy Uranga Romagoza". Pinar del Río, Cuba.
*Corresponding author: fernando.valladares@upr.edu.cu
It has been demonstrated in various studies that in the history of civilization it has taken a long time for women, worldwide, to aspire to have participation in social activities such as sport (Teijeiro, et al., 2005; Gil, 2017).
If the situation of women is compared through historical processes, it can be understood that the objective and subjective conditions were not met for them to share the same sports scenarios with the male sex (Rodríguez, 2020).
However, from the beginning it was not so; in the primitive community, there was no marked difference between men and women, the common goal was to survive. Physical activity was not appreciated as a sport, but in the pursuit of giant prey, which required the effort of all, it was not a requirement to hunt if you had to belong to the male or female sex. It all began in the communities of Greece and Rome, where human beings were classified by ethnicity, gender, social castes; female physical activity was more associated with dances, games, domestic chores.
In the Olympic Games, only single women could participate as spectators. In medieval times, much less they had the opportunity, a stage full of obscurantism and reinforced by the later stage of the Renaissance where they were disassociated from any physical activity, except for quiet dances. It is in the twentieth century when women began to fight for gender equality, disputes that cost lives and efforts (Arias, 2019; Rodríguez, 2020).
In Cuba, as a colonized island affected by the same values that prevailed in Europe, women received the same conception that in the rest of the world received in its historical periods. It was not until after the revolutionary triumph, when women, with their airs of social emancipation, untie themselves from the patriarchal yoke and claim their place after the struggles that are being waged in the world and specifically in the democratic Cuba and with equal rights for all (Lamrani, 2015).
"Years would have to pass for the reality to be different and for Cuban women to begin to occupy other spaces within culture, education, sport and society. The revolutionary triumph of January the 1st of 1959 was the determining factor in the long awaited development of sport in the country, a date that marked a turning point in quantitative terms, which showed a projection in accordance with existing needs. Several programs have been developed, ranging from preschool children to the elderly. The results that Cuban women have obtained in sports are the irrefutable proof that the path was the right one". (López, 2017, p.3)
With this social transformation that began in Cuba, women's life expectancy rose to 80 years, the infant mortality rate dropped, laws were created to defend women, the Cuban mother, and to speak out against discrimination based on race and gender. These, among other advantages, are creating the conditions for women to develop in areas as fertile for them as sports and physical culture (Lamrani, 2015; Hernández, 2017).
Personalities have emerged in women's sports that have put Cuban sports in a privileged place and, at once, have erased that republican past where sport was only part of the profit of the wealthy classes. Next, it will be named some of the nation's sportswomen who have stood out in their modalities and have appeared in specialized literature on the subject of the incorporation of women in Cuban sport (Pérez, et al., 2020).
Surely, there are many famous Cuban sportswomen who have not been included in this list, but the intention was only to cite some examples that have defended the Cuban flag with dignity in sporting events at the international level.
Cuban women have gone through stages such as being domestic help, the object of mistreatment and prejudice, to becoming the ideal companion of routines at home, at work and in a variety of social activities such as culture, education and sports.
Despite the financial and economic blockade by the United States government, which has not ceased to hinder all plans and fairer works, the country has made efforts to provide young and adult women with basic resources and opportunities to practice sports. These actions have been taken, considering the relevance in these sports, the system, sports training to which they belong, the results they have obtained, the recruitment of talent and the type of sports they practice, among other factors (Hernandez, 2017; Cardona and Soto, 2018).
In Cuba today, very similar to many countries in terms of health, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, women continue to train in conditions of social distancing. She sets herself personal challenges with limited resources and often resorting to innovation and ingenuity of conventional training methods.
But hope will never be lost. The revolutionary government, as with sports, makes its vaccination candidates available to the people so that soon the Cuban Woman, like every citizen who sets her or him mind to it, will shine again in her sports facility.
REFERENCES
Arias, F. G., & de D'Amico, R. L. (2019).Mujer y Deporte. FIDIAS G. ARIAS ODÓN.
Lamrani, S. (2015). Mujeres en Cuba: la Revolución emancipadora. Université de La Réunion, Saint-Denis, IndianOcean. http://www.josemarti.cu/dossier/mujeres-en-cuba-la-revolucion-emancipadora/
Cardona, E. Y. R., & Soto, J. A. R. (2018). El rol de la mujer: una perspectiva sociocultural en el fenómeno del fútbol. Ánfora, 25(44), 157-176. https://publicaciones.autonoma.edu.co/index.php/anfora/article/view/401
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Teijeiro, D. R., Patiño, M. J. M., & Padorno, C. M. (2005). Identidad y estereotipos de la mujer en el deporte: una aproximación a la evolución histórica. Revista de investigación en educación, 2, 109-126. https://reined.webs.uvigo.es/index.php/reined/article/view/17
Conflict of interests:
The authors declare not to have any interest conflicts.
Authors' contribution:
Fernando Emilio Valladares Fuente: Conception of the idea, literature search and review, database preparation, general advice on the topic addressed, drafting of the original (first version), review and final version of the article, article correction, authorship coordinator, translation of terms or information obtained, review of the application of the applied bibliographic standard.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license
Copyright (c) 2021 Fernando Emilio Valladares Fuente