Fellow Havana Times blogger and friend Yenisel Rodriguez has just published a provocative piece criticizing the ways in which feminism, gender studies and research on masculinity issues have been developing in Cuba and the world. I would like to share my points of agreement and disagreement with his thesis here.
Read MoreWatching Cuban filmmaker Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s legendary Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) with my son, I somewhat cynically mused that the author of the novella on which the film was based, Edmundo Desnoes, could have said much more on the subject – hell, he could have written a whole saga and even a soap opera.
Read MoreSlanting eyes, swarthy complexion, large breasts, wide hips, long hair down to her shapely behind – this is a more or less accurate description of the woman from Santiago de Cuba who has been living in my building for some months now. She didn’t move in by herself – the whole affair smells of a relationship with a foreigner.
Read MoreIt’s true: nearly all of us Cubans are music lovers. It’s as though we carried a sense of harmony in our blood. We unconsciously tap our feet if we hear a drum and clap, snap our fingers or tap any nearby object rhythmically to follow the beat of any music we hear.
Read MoreVengefulness and a craving for power are increasingly common among the champions of feminism, such that the struggle for female emancipation begins to engender its own demons: the establishment of reverse prejudices about the masculine and men.
Read MoreSomething very personal – a breakup – is what moves me to write this post. Who has not once been in love? Sometimes, we don’t realize what we feel for someone until our relationship unexpectedly comes to an end.
Read More“I’ve given more to the State than the State is giving me at the moment. I’ve worked all of my life. I’m now 83,” another interviewee says. The documentary draws our attention to a social reality we co-exist with but do not know in depth.
Read MoreDuring a recent excursion to The Pan de Guajaibón, western Cuba’s highest peak (701 meters), I learned how to get to one of Cuba’s most spectacular views, how pig thieves destroy rural livelihood, and which type of tree rat you keep as a pet and which you eat. (8 photos)
Read MoreOn the last Saturday of March, an official government announcement took the habitual listeners of Havana’s Radio Reloj radio program by surprise. It was a petition by authorities asking the public the help clear up a crime that had taken place in Old Havana two days before.
Read MoreAlthough I don’t watch a lot of television, I think that the most familiar aspect of Indian culture promoted here are the products of Bollywood. These Indian films repeat the same formula over and over again: sentimental songs, an ultra-standardized type of beauty and every kind of figurative cliché in a dazzling visual vertigo.
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