The Shifting Gender Stereotype of Dominican Males

Throughout this unit the class has discussed how women are merely tools used for sex in Diaz' Dominican culture. However,  Diaz may have been attempting in This is How You Lose Her to show that men in Dominican culture, such as Rafa and Yunior, could feel love and thus counter the stereotype of male Dominicans as sex fiends, and thus lead to an improved Dominican culture of gender.
Rafa throughout This is How You Lose Her and Drown stays pretty stagnant as far as character development is concerned. He is constantly on the prowl for more women, a disobedient brat to his mother, and a bully to Yunior. However, when Rafa is diagnosed with leukemia he spends more and more time with one of his exes Tammy Franco. Even though he battered her throughout their relationship, following the diagnosis they would sit in her car semi-regularly and just sit there: "it didn't even look like they were talking. After fifteen, twenty minutes, he'd climb out and she'd drive away and that would be that" (95). Given Rafa's harsh reputation thus far, seeing him apparently "trading brainwaves" with an ex seems weird. Granted, this could mean nothing more than friendship, or it could be romantic feelings. Either way, it's major progress for Rafa to have such a connection to a woman without pursuing sex from her and thus some variation of love (either the friendship type of love or the romantic type of love) existed in Rafa in his final years, counteracting the stereotype Diaz portrays of Dominican males seeking only sex and never love from women.
By the end of This is How You Lose Her, Yunior has seemingly fallen in love multiple times as well. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, he fell in love with Oscar's sister Lola and tried really hard to make them work out to no success. In This is How You Lose Her, Yunior falls for many more girls and ladies including Veronica (Flaca), Miss Lora, and the ex from "A Cheater's Guide To Love." With Miss Lora, Yunior clearly feels guilty about cheating on his girlfriend, Paloma, every time he finishes hooking up with his older mistress. Even after sex, she asked him if he was okay and his reply was "I don't know... I have a girlfriend" (162). Clearly Yunior felt at war with himself about his cheating and thus showed signs that he was not like the other stereotypical Dominican males Diaz portrays. This theme continues into his account of getting over his ex in his older age over the course of several years, a strong attachment that again does not fit the gendered stereotype of male Dominicans.
Rafa and Yunior while fitting the gender roles of the Dominican Republic for most of the stories diverge from the norms as well as they approach death or older age respectively. This may demonstrate that with maturity comes more propriety in the treatment of females or it may suggest that times are or should be changing for Dominican gender roles as Diaz seems to suggest.