For years, Barbara Betancourt has left her two teenage daughters at home and put on black pants and a white shirt to go to the bar. Elegant and charismatic, she is the face of an increasingly visible phenomenon in Cuba: the rise in female bartenders who break convention to benefit from the growing tourism industry, grabbing job opportunities that have come in the last five years with the opening of new private businesses. You can't be weak or have a husband who says, 'You can't do it,'" she says as she whips a silver shaker. Its location, opposite the emblematic seafront Malecon in Havana, has attracted Cuban music legends and stars throughout its history. For Cuban women, it has not been easy to enter a trade previously dominated by men, and although Cuba has female mechanics, masons and boxers, female bartenders are still struggling to gain more ground on the island.

Source: ABC News September 13, 2018 14:15 UTC