Note: This is the first article in a series about gender and equality. The second one is called What’s the Problem with Feminism? In it, I look at the feminist movement and question some of its strategies for implementing greater equality in society.
M eeting Pablo Escobar’s brother turned out to be one of the more disappointing moments of my life. In Medellin, Colombia, you can go to the Escobar house. In fact, there’s a whole tourism industry that’s sprouted up around Escobar and the old cartel. Much of this tourism is promoted and encouraged by the Escobar family themselves, as it’s ostensibly the only way they have to make much money these days.
When you meet him, Roberto Escobar is a short, hunched-over old man. He’s nearly blind and deaf from a letter bomb that blew up in his face years ago. His eye sockets sink into his skull leaving two golf-ball-sized craters in his face. His gaze is lifeless. It passes through you when he speaks to you, as though you were some sort of hologram.
There’s an emptiness when he speaks. His Spanish tumbles out of his mouth in a monotonous slur, sometimes indecipherable. Occasionally, when he speaks to you he reaches out and puts his hand on you in the way a politician might. Except the way he does it, there’s no emotion to it, no charisma. It’s as if he’s making sure you’re still there — that…
