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Even when women are trained for the same jobs as men, old prejudices can prevent then doing exactly the same tasks. visited a military cane technology institute where the women did not stand

guard duty alone. When we asked why, a male guard replied. "A woman might get scared out here alone."

In matters of sex and morality the double

standar of a traditionally Latin Catholic machismo society persists. Like men everywhere, Cuban men maintain the social "Of initiative. Many Cuban men told us, course, neither a man nor a woman should be unfaithful in a marriage, but if a man runs around it is understandable; if a woman does it, it is totally unacceptable.' Sex before marriage is the norm for men although discretion is necessary. The issue is more complicated for women, and attitudes are changing among the young students.

Mirta, an English student in Havana, said that she doesn't expect to have intercourse before she is married, but that some sexual contact before marriage is generally carried on. Sometimes students that plan to marry eventually have "intimate relations." Sexual activity is forbidden in some work camps and institutes but can be carried on in nearby towns. In vanguard work brigades such as the Followers of Che and Camilo, even holding hands inside the camp is not allowed because the work and study schedule is so heavy. At certain times of the year people get only three hours of sleep a night.

Although proud of their new role in production, Cuban women feel it important not to lose their femininity. Women who picked citrus fruits in grey work clothes with rollers in their hair said, "At night and on weekends we get dressed up." However, many North American women felt that the beauty standards for hairdo's and makeup accepted by Cuban women as their own resemble those of Madison Avenue. Black women invariably straighten their hair. It should be pointed out that many African women do too and Cubans claim this is a trait they brought with ther from Africa. The lean, fair-skinned, and straight-haired models in the pages of Mujeres, published by the lederation of Cuban Women, sport logue fashions.

Beauty, however, is not the capitalist industry it once was, since everyone can afford the hairdresser nowadays. In volunteer brigades the beautician, like clothes,

At the present time Cuba holds membership in several UN-related agencies: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO), and the General Agreement

on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

The Cuban View of the United Nations

In speeches made to the UN General Assembly during the past ten years Cuba has evaluated the UN's performance. This evaluation includes both praise and censure, for Cuba sees the Organization as both a sponsor of small countries and an instrument of national policy vulnerable to exploitation, particularly by its more powerful members.

Cuba uses the UN as all members do as a platform from which to plead her cause, defend her actions, express her sympathies, and attack her enemies. She sees the U as an ally or at least a sympathetic observer to many of her causes. In a 1967 General Assembly speech, for example, in which the Cuban

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representative attacked economic imperialism in Latin America, he pointed out that many of the causes of revolution in Latin America are documented in publications produced by the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and by UNESCO.

Cuban ambassadors list both failures and successes of the United Nations, and a balance sheet could be drawn from their speeches. On the negative side are instances in which they feel the UN has failed them or sister countries and has worked to the advantage of the countries they consider to be their oppressors and exploiters.

The exclusion of East Germany and the People's Republic of China from UN membership, the occupation of Korea by forces under United Nations sponsorship, the failure of the UN to rescue pre-revolutionary Cuba from the "excesses, tortures, and crimes" of the Batista regime, the failure of the General Assembly to chastise piracy directed toward Cuban ships and planes as well as toward those of other countries, the UN action in the Congo, the unall changed status of Puerto Rico are viewed as situations in which the UN bowed to the pressures exerted by its most powerful members and ignored the wishes of the poorer and less powerful.

Cubans are angered, too, by the times when the UN was made to violate its own principles (in the Congo situation, in which, as Cuba sees it, UN authority was ignored by Moise Tshombe, who initiated the secession of Katanga with Belgian support) or to ignore violations by its members (the Bay of Pigs invasion, in violation of Article 2, Paragraph 4, of the Charter, which states that UN members shall refrain from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State). They have particularly resented the fact that the UN has not dealt with the "Cuban problem" but has instead given it to the Organization of Amer

In April, 1961, when Cuba was being bombed by B-26's, shortly before Cuban exiles invaded the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Foreign Minister Raul Roa denounced the attack in the UN as U.S. aggression, claiming that the planes and pilots were North American. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, told by the State Department that the planes were Cuban ones, flown by Cuban deserters, repeated this information to the UN. Later the U.S. goverment admitted that the planes had been American ones, painted by the Central Intelligence Agency. The American image, and Ambassador Stevenson's standing, were considerably damaged because of the revelation of great power aggression and because of the breakdown of honesty displayed in the international organization.

In the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the UN was peripheral to the decision-making processes, with American and Soviet government officials deciding the final outcome. The Security Council was used as a forum by the countries concerned