A young Cuban mother, residing in the city of Matanzas, sparked a wide debate on TikTok after posting a video in which she denounces the attacks women in Cuba face for trying to look their best despite the challenging economic conditions in the country.
The user, identified as @briana_matancera, questioned in her video: “Does that mean that because the country is falling apart, women also have to fall apart along with it?” The content, recorded on her platform and with a reflective tone, has garnered hundreds of comments and reactions in just a few hours.
In her testimony, she points out that she is often criticized on social media for having well-groomed nails, access to the internet, or styled eyebrows, while many people consider these “luxuries” to be incompatible with the reality that many Cubans denounce in their daily lives.
"Why does the Cuban woman not have the right to show off? Just because she lives in Cuba, can't she paint her nails or style her hair?" she raised in her message.
Divided reactions
The post sparked a wave of comments, mostly supportive, where many users, both Cuban and foreign, endorsed women's right to take care of their appearance as a way to maintain self-esteem and preserve personal dignity.
Messages like "It's the only thing they have left", "Self-love shouldn't depend on the country you live in", or "You don't have to give explanations", were frequently repeated among the responses.
However, there were also criticisms. Some users argued that in contexts of scarcity, spending money on aesthetics may seem contradictory to the ongoing complaints about the lack of food and basic resources on the island.
Comments such as “If you don’t have money for food, how can you afford nails?” or “That’s not a right, it’s inconsistency”, reflected the perception that, in other countries, spending on cosmetics is seen as a luxury that is postponed in favor of basic needs.
Despite the criticisms, the young woman from Matanzas clarified that her intention was not to provoke controversy, but to open a space for reflection. She responded that her point was not aimed at justifying excesses, but rather to question why Cuban women who try to look good are stigmatized. “I suppose that those who do it are because they have to eat at home. That is my question,” she wrote.
The debate on priorities in times of crisis
This type of controversy is not new. In recent years, with the worsening of the economic crisis in Cuba, social media has become a platform for discussion where social criticism, the need for emotional resilience, and cultural tensions regarding what is deemed acceptable intersect.
For many Cuban women, personal care is also a way to emotionally resist the precariousness of their situation, a tool for self-esteem in the face of daily adversities.
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