HAVANA — Cuban entrepreneur Natahlie Fonseca gets up at dawn, washes, cooks, takes care of her two girls, cleans, helps her husband run a cafeteria and tries to get by her own business, an online store of children's decoration products that she makes herself with colorful fabrics. Although she feels energetic, she once got sick and had to slow down.

“The day is enough for none of us. We are women who get up very early to work and go to bed very late,” she told The Associated Press. Fonseca, 32, owner of “Carrete”, who is part of a nascent group of businesswomen on the island and is considering the possibility of taking the next step and turning her project into a small business. "If only we had a little help!"

A few decades ago, the island was at the forefront of women's rights, for example, in the 1960s it approved a regulation that allowed free abortion and in the 1970s it promoted its massive incorporation into the production. However, in the current framework of an economic opening to private initiative that allows them to be the owners of their businesses, women entrepreneurs are barely a third of the self-employed workers (TCP) -independent of the State- and just over 20% of the members of the new small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Overwhelmed by unproductiveness and United States sanctions, Cuba began a gradual process of easing into private initiative in the past decade, unthinkable until then in an economy with strong state control and in which private work was stigmatized. Former President Raúl Castro expanded licenses to practice trades, legalized the real estate market, and handed over idle land in usufruct, among other measures.

The streets on the island were filled with street vendors, small shops, repair service workshops or the manufacture of parts, flower shops, craft stalls, taxi drivers and renting rooms or restaurants.

But it was not until September 2021 that the current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, went one step further and approved the creation of SMEs -some of them already had dozens of employees-, a milestone if he considers that since 1968 the revolutionary authorities had closed all small private businesses on the island.

According to official figures in 2020 there were 602,000 TCPs and of them 210,000 were women and in the last update of the Ministry of Economy it was reported that from September to December 2021 1,014 SMEs were approved, of which 22% are made up of partners .

These economic actors -the TCPs and the SMEs- join the large socialist state company, the main employer on the island, although in recent years the private sector has generated more jobs and better pay wages.

"As a woman you always have to be demonstrating that you can do certain things," reflected with AP Ena María Morales, 30, who created "Selva," an artisanal soap venture.

Morales's clash with reality came when he tried to get his own raw material. “I set out to become a farmer to obtain the plants and produce a 100% organic product. That was my first confrontation with a macho world... men told me, 'you with that long hair, no, no, no'”.

The pandemic and the nearly two years of restrictions it brought with it - including the closure of schools - have pushed many women entrepreneurs in Cuba back to their traditional role.

“We are still the directors of the house,” reflected Ana Mae Inda, 43, who recently achieved approval for her toy-making SME “Tragaluz”. "My husband continued working and many women stayed with small children."

On the other hand, several of the interviewees noted, there was a kind of explosion of groups of entrepreneurs on social networks, a space that serves to exchange places to sell raw materials -difficult to find for the lack of supplies that exists on the island-, advice for procedures and even affective support.

Paradoxically, in a mestizo country like Cuba, things get a little more complicated for female entrepreneurs if they are also black or mulatto.

"Cuban society is quite macho and unlike other countries there has not been as much awareness of that," Yurena Manfugás, 28, co-founder of the clothing brand BarbarA's, told the AP.

Manfugás and his mother Deyni Terry, 54, not only opened a store, but also their clothing line that focuses on the Afro-descendant population and uses light fabrics, geometric designs in contrasting colors, and huge necklaces .

"The fact of being a woman and being black represents that we face certain barriers," commented Manfugás, who gave, for example, the difficulties she has in finding a good place to sell, given that SMEs and the TCP are usually installed in homes in the absence of commercial premises.

“Black people are also located on the peripheries, where the most marginalized neighborhoods are... A white woman who was born in El Vedado -a central municipality-, perhaps the only thing she has to do it is to accommodate his own house to set up his business”, commented Manfugás.

For her mother Terry, a lawyer by profession and feminist activist, the basic problem is “a social construction”. “That is represented in the State. It is followed from the Constitution of the Republic speaking in masculine. Today we are discussing the Family Code (in the process of parliamentary approval) and we have discovered more than 30 articles that continue with a macho approach," he added.

Although women in Cuba make up 60% of university graduates, according to official figures, at the time of job placement, both in the state and private sectors, they tend to go to the least paid sectors - such as education or social assistance-, explained to AP the expert on gender issues and researcher at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Ailynn Torres.

"In the 1960s and 1970s, Cuba took a very big leap in terms of what at that time was called the incorporation of women into production, into formal employment," Torres said, but in some point “stuck”.

Currently only 54% of women of working age report paid work in Cuba. A study by the Inter-American Development Bank showed that at the regional level this figure is 58% compared to 82% for the male rate -a gap of 24 points-, but with different figures by country: while in Guatemala or El Salvador the participation of women is 39% and 48%, respectively, in Uruguay and Peru it is close to 70%.

Last year the authorities approved a Program for the Advancement of Women, a policy with which the Cuban State hopes to coordinate efforts to prevent violence and eliminate discrimination, giving them opportunities.

But, among other factors, the phenomenon is marked by the domestic overload that women have and their place as caregivers in the face of any family contingency -small children or the elderly in their care-.

In addition, in the case of Cuban entrepreneurs, the tendency to have less initial capital and the absence of the real application of labor rights -such as maternity leave- affect their low insertion in the nascent private sector.

A policy of soft or preferential loans, greater formality in the application of the labor code, priority for care systems - nurseries, dining rooms, geriatrics - and a communication campaign to raise awareness are some of the Torres's recommendations and with which the interviewed entrepreneurs broadly agree.

“I believe that conscious and systematic state actions... are essential to guarantee women's participation,” Torres said.

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