Some women became guerrilla fighters. Individual women fought on different guerrilla fronts and there was also a group of women combatants called the Mariana Grajales Platoon, named after the Black woman active in Cuba's first war of independence. This legendary unit grew to the size of a company during the final stages of the revolutionary war and was maintained afterwards.

The women who joined the struggle to overthrow Batista not only had to have the courage to face the repression and torture of Batista's police, but they also had to buck the prevailing prejudice against women's involvement in politics. Describing the tremendous pressure put on women by their families and others not to participate, Haydée Santamaría, one of the leaders and heroes of the revolution, commented, "My own mother was the kind of woman who thought that men were the only ones who had the right to make revolutions."

Women had to counter the prejudices of their own comrades-in-arms as well. A speech by Fidel Castro, given in Granma Province on January 20, 1981, described the opposition among the male guerrilla fighters to women having a combat role:

"I remember that when I organized the Mariana Grajales Platoon--in fact, I took part in the combat training of those comrades--some of the rebel fighters were furious, because they didn't like the idea of a platoon made up of women. We had some spare M-1s, and the M-1 was considered a good light weapon and, therefore, we thought it would be the right one for the women. Some of our fighters wanted to know why they had Springfields while the women were going to get M-1s. On more than one occasion I got so annoyed that I would answer, 'Because they are better fighters than you are.' And the truth is that they showed it...."

One of the first activities to draw in large numbers of women was the creation of the militia. As the revolution deepened with the carrying out of the land reform and the nationalization of large imperialist holdings, the U.S. government and counterrevolutionaries within Cuba began to organize armed opposition. Bombings, sabotage of factories, and the burning of sugarcane fields went hand-in-hand with the threat of military attack from the United States. To help counter this a popular militia was organized in the workplaces and schools, and women who worked or who were students joined it.

There was a big hue and cry from counterrevolutionary elements about women's incorporation into the militia. They questioned the "morals" of women who dressed like men, wore pants, and carried guns. When the militia women went out to drill, they were sometimes greeted with rocks. There were also many supporters of the revolution who questioned whether women belonged in the militia. But every able-bodied person was needed to defend the country, and eventually most revolutionaries were won over.

The intensification of the counterrevolutionary attacks led in September 1960 to the formation of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs). Even larger numbers of women joined the CDRs, which were organized on a block-by-block basis. They guarded public buildings, watched for suspicious activities in the neighborhoods, and carried out other important tasks of the revolution.

On August 23, 1960, another big step was taken with the formation of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC). The FMC immediately began to organize masses of women, house by house, in the cities and the countryside, helping to build the militias and the CDRs, organizing the drive against illiteracy, setting up schools for peasant women, and establishing a network of childcare centers....  
 
Impact of literacy campaign
In 1961, the campaign to wipe out illiteracy was organized. It was a gigantic effort. A hundred thousand youth between the ages of ten and eighteen left their schools and went into the countryside as literacy brigadistas to teach people how to read and write. Over half of these brigadistas were girls and young women.

Fifty-five percent of those who learned to read and write were women. This was accomplished despite considerable resistance to including women in the campaign....

For the young women and girls who went out to teach, the experience was a wrenching break from the past. Until then, some of them had not even been allowed out of the house alone. Now they were traveling to the most remote parts of the countryside and mountains, where they shared the life of poverty of the peasants, not only teaching but also working with them in the fields....

Years later, one former literacy teacher expressed it this way: "The literacy drive was the first time in my life, and I believe the first time in our history as well, that women were given an equal role with men in bringing about a monumental change."

Along with the literacy drive came other bold educational efforts. A school was set up in Havana for 20,000 maids. As their employers left for the United States, these former maids were trained as child-care workers, bank workers, and taxi and bus drivers.

Special schools were set up for former prostitutes too, where they could live, receive an education, and learn skills which would prepare them to be integrated into the labor force.  
 
 
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