8

Repudiation of all physical, cultural and philosophical & religious justifications for macho-patriarchal beliefs, rules and practices

Promotion and institutionalization of genuine respect between the sexes

Promotion of equality of opportunities for all individuals regardless of sex or gender preference

Attainment of Equality view as institutionalized standard and, upon this premise, focusing on work for Holistic Harmony between the sexes.

  1. Total Human Development and Harmony Through Synergism

  2. Holistic Health Care and Medicine

  3. Deep Ecology and Harmony with Nature 

  4. Sense of History and Sense of Mission

  5. Civics and Democratic Governance

  6. Culture as Community Creativity

  7. Light-Seeking and Light-Sharing Education

  8. Gender Sensitivity, Equality & Harmony

  9. Reconstructive/Restor-ative Justice

10. Associative Economics, Social Capital and Sustainable Development

11. Synergetic Leadership and Organizations

12. Appropriate/Adaptive Technology

13. Mutual Enrichment of Families and Friendships

14. Human Dignity and Human Harmony: Human Rights and Peace

15. Aesthetics Without Boundaries: 'Art from the Heart'   

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Social Context of Need

to Liberate Women

By Dr. Noemi Alindogan-Medina

Chairperson, Social Sciences Department, Philippine Normal University; and Founding Chairperson, Lambat-Liwanag Network Council

IT HAS BEEN consistently determined that women constitute the greater majority of the world’s illiterates. Recently, it was reported that of the 666 million illiterates in Asia, 48.9 percent of them are women and 27.9 percent are men. These statistics aroused serious concern in the women sector as well as among those involved in education. The question raised was: Why are there more women illiterates than men in Third World countries?

As the Philippines is under the same category, we may likewise ask: Why is this so, when the government provides free elementary education for all children regardless of class or sex?

To start with, let us first consider the definition of literacy. We generally take this term to mean the condition of “being able to read and write.” However, merely knowing how to read and write does not matter much if it is not actually functional and relevant to a person’s life. American dictionaries actually define literacy as “the condition, or quality of being knowledgeable and educated.” With this expanded definition, how are we going to find out how knowledgeable and educated Filipino women are? What are the manifestations of such literacy?

I obtained my answer form a caption of a picture in the UNESCO magazine, The Challenge/ILY News published in 1990, which states that “achieving literacy helps people take control of their own lives, participate on a more equal basis in society and improve general living conditions.” I repeat: “Take control of their own lives, participate on a more equal basis, improve general living condition.” Let me therefore use these as criteria in making an assessment of whether or not Filipino women have truly achieved literacy.

At this point I find useful the column of Hilarion M. Henares, “Make My Day” in Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 1. I quote the relevant part:
“This is not meant to be sexist, but there is a difference between need and desire as there is between a woman and a man. A woman needs a man; a man wants a woman. A woman must dream and wait till the right man comes along; man ranges far and wide to seek, sample and select. A woman, if she is to be honorable, must have a one and only love; a man if he is to be honored, must boast of many loves. A woman wants to serve; a man tends to rule. A woman gives; a man takes. And when the time comes for tearful parting, it is usually the woman who is left holding the bag.”

Henares uses this as an analogy for comparing feminine and masculine attitudes with those government officials who have made their stand on the Philippine-United States base treaty. Even so, it depicts a glaring reality: how badly situated are the women in our country. It presents the inequalities that exist between man and woman, the powerlessness of the woman in controlling her life, and consequently, in improving her general living condition. More importantly, the commentary is an honest appraisal of how society views women, the distorted image that consistently places women in a disadvantaged position. How did this situation of Filipino women come about?

History tells us that during the pre-colonial years, the women enjoyed a high status in society. A woman could take over the functions of the datu in the absence of a male heir. Our ancestors were literate people and it was the duty of the mother to teach her children to write and to read what they had written. The women engaged in trade and industry and were highly respected by the men in the community. Then the Spaniards came.

No less than our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, observed that “recognizing the power of the women in the Philippines, the Spanish masters, particularly the clergy, blinded then, chained them, weakened their spirit, so sure were they that as long as the mother is a slave, all her children can be enslaved also.” Now the colonizers are long gone but we have unconsciously perpetuated their oppressive ways of blinding the women of their true worth in life, chaining them to traditional and subordinate roles, making them helpless and powerless in a highly patriarchal society.

If we look deeper into the effects of colonization upon the women, we can not help considering how the system works, how basic institutions like the family, the school, the church and media operate and reinforce one another to create such a situation for women. This has something to do with how people in these institutions have been made to believe what roles and functions of women should perform in society. This has something to do with how our belief system was formed and how it was transmitted from generation to generation so that at present it has affected our ways of thinking, believing and behaving.

Let me make myself clear by the lives of ordinary families, especially those in rural areas where more women than men are found to be not literate. They live according to what they believe in, according to prescribed norms learned from the school of life. And so there is the father as the head and income earner of the family even if he has no permanent job. He makes the decisions and sees to it that his wife and children obey his words. The wife meekly assumes a subordinate role and performs traditional functions at home for her husband and children. From morn till night, she does the household chores while taking care of the children at the same time. When the children are big enough to help, the mother usually asks her daughter to take over some of her work, like looking after her younger brothers and sisters, washing the dishes, cleaning the house, etc.

People do not see anything wrong with these routines; they view them as the daughter’s training in preparation for that time when a man will someday take her in marriage. The sons, on the other hand, are not quite expected to do the household chores; and if they do they are teased or ridiculed as “bakla”, in much the same way as the father would be branded as being “under the saya” if he is seen washing the clothes for the family. Very early in life, the children are therefore socialized into the roles that tradition considers as appropriate for their sex. In the area of responsibility training, girls in the home are reared in domestic tasks and the boys in those outside the household.

Let us assume, for instance, that daughter and son are both sent to school by their parents. In cases where help would be badly needed at home, say, the mother has again given birth, it would invariably be the daughter who would be asked to absent herself from her classes. When this happens more frequently, it is probable that she would be forced to drop out from school especially when she could no longer cope with her assignments and the requirements in class or with the demands of work at home. As she grows older her desire to go back to school would wane, as she would feel embarrassed, being the oldest in her classes.

Let us consider the implications if daughters drop out of school. Society expects a woman to get married at the right age because if she does not, she becomes less desirable and people gossip about what must be wrong with her. If she can not even read and write, what are the chances of getting married to a man who has gone to school? Instead, she can be the butt of jokes and banter, of humiliation and ridicule from some naughty, haughty people. What is now her chance to change the course of life that her mother went through? What would be her children’s chances of survival or of living a happy, healthful life? So the cycle goes on. More women would grow up illiterates, more people would comprise the poorest of the poor, the weak and, therefore, the victims of the strong and the powerful.
We may say that times have changed. Even rural women do not just stay with their parents when they are old enough to work. Yes, they go to urban areas to look for jobs. Even assuming that they had finished at least an elementary education, what would be their chances of getting into domestic and service work? If they do, would they not become victims of discrimination, of unequal pay for work of equal value, underpaid, be the last to be hired and first to be fired, be sexually abused and harassed on the job? What would they know about their rights under the law? What is the possibility of their ending up victims of oppression and exploitation, of being prostituted?

It is true that Filipinos give much value to education, since we take it as a preparation for life in the future. For this reason, the son is always given the preference and the priority for college education as he is expected to be the income earner of his family. The daughter is not given as much consideration as she may just end up being a housewife if her husband decides not to let her work outside the home even if she also finished a college education. Still assuming that the daughter is also allowed to go to college, is she given the freedom to make her own choice of career or vocation, to make her own decisions as to what she may want to take up? In the first place, does she really know what she wants in life? Was she trained to make decisions for herself if she grew up in a family where the father makes decisions and exercises full control of their lives? If she knows what field of interest she wants to pursue, does she have the support of her father, especially if it will entail more expenses?

In other words, what possible opportunities for advancement are denied daughters whose lives are controlled by the father as he is ascribed with the authority to make decisions for every member of the family? How does culture typecast women and how does a highly patriarchal set up affect the daughter’s performance when she has to face the world by herself? And so we notice that women’s occupational choices are usually concentrated in fields of employment that are often an extension of their traditional and domestic roles. As a result of this sex-typing in the occupational choices, a considerable degree of the women’s potentials has not been developed and utilized for the achievement of national economic development goals.
Let us also consider a situation wherein a professional woman gets married to an equally professional man, and both of them are holding equally promising careers. Who would likely have to give up the career in favor of a harmonious married life?

Even if the wife does not, who is nonetheless expected to take full charge of the homefront? It is the wife who is expected to supervise the maid at home, to see to it that there is good food every mealtime and enough money to last until the next payday. Furthermore, it is, of course, the woman who gets pregnant, delivers the baby, and nurses the child day and night. Most probably, even if she resumes office work, she still looks after the child at night while the man sleeps undisturbed. The woman takes everything as a normal and natural course of her life. She sees nothing wrong in assuming everything that she can take, doing the household chores and at the same time performing reproductive and productive functions. The woman has actually internalized her own oppression.

Over and above all these, the woman is also expected to have the greater responsibility in keeping the marriage going, against all odds. If the husband keeps a mistress, people even blame the wife for whatever shortcomings she may have had. People expect that for a woman to be a good wife, she must serve her husband, give his needs, and follow his wishes and even his whims. She has to be careful with her behavior as she is expected to preserve his name and dignity and, therefore, to be loyal to him in thought, in words and in deeds even if he is not, to say the least, faithful to her. Sometimes problems arise but the woman is expected to bear pains and heartaches, to suffer in silence, to sacrifice everything for the sake of the children and family solidarity. There are women who even stoically take physical infliction by their husbands. But even without physical harm, the woman surely suffers emotional and mental battering while going through an intense marital conflict.

And the woman endures as she holds on to what the priest counseled her on her wedding day: Wife submit your yourself to your husband, stay together for better or for worse, in sickness and in pain, till death do you part; blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth; blessed are they who suffer in the name of love. And true enough, the woman, in the name of love, becomes blinded by the nature of her own oppression. She stays loyal to him as she keeps her pains and sorrows to herself, never divulging them to anyone, even to her parents. But as she allows herself to be a victim of the conspiracy of silence, she thus makes her oppression stronger but invisible to others. In so doing, the woman becomes not only a victim but also a perpetuator of her own oppression.

These are the realities that the woman goes through in her personal life in the confines of the home. Sadly enough, the time and effort she spends at home are not given economic valuation. Sometimes, even the husband does not give her enough recognition and appreciation for all the things she has done for him -- how could he have managed a career along with fatherhood and homemaking by himself? Yes, times have changed as the woman has explored more productive fields where her talents and skills, potentials and capabilities are given economic valuation and at the same time, contribute to the development and realization of national goals. Her accomplishments have also given her a sense of worth and restored her sense of identity. She has become more fulfilled as a woman. The career woman, however, has to double her efforts in proving her worth and capabilities as even in offices, factories and companies, gender biases continue to exist. Male superior officers and even co-workers still hold on to their perception that she has more limitations, that she can not be depended upon fully to carry out a big task because half of her mind is at home, that she is sensitive and irrational, that she is weak – and all because she is woman.

Why is this so? Perhaps nothing much has changed in the system. Perhaps we have not really accomplished much in making people literate in the real sense of the word. True, literacy is formally obtained in schools but we cannot deny the fact that even the schools have unconsciously reinforced gender biases that children learn from their parents and the mass culture is which they live.

In school, textbooks are the most significant and continuing instrument of cultural transmission . If, however, we examine the books being used in our schools, especially in the elementary grades where roles and functions of people are being identified, we can find stories and pictures portraying plenty of gender biases. We may not be aware of this but as we go over the books used in class, let us find answers to the following questions: How are Filipino women portrayed in textbooks? Do such roles reinforce or help change the traditional portrayal of women as passive and exclusively meant for the home? Do the textbook images adequately reflect the reality of increased women’s participation in national life?

History is indeed unfair to women, for even in history books, women are marginalized if not neglected. If we try to account for women’s contribution to nation building and their participation in the struggle for freedom and democracy, we would end up frustrated and disappointed. The coverage of women is not commensurate with their number and actual contributions. It appears that researches and documentation were only focused on male achievements thus relegating the women to the background. We may even be tempted to ask: Where were the women during those troubled times? No wonder, it is called history for they only tell about the story of men, his story, not of women’s. Was it really possible, even feasible, for men to achieve that much without the encouragement, without support and assistance, without cooperation and participation of women in their midst? I wonder.

Teachers, most of whom are women should also examine themselves if they have unconsciously contributed to women’s state of life. In their teaching processes, they may have been unfair to female students by giving them the greater share of responsibilities and assignments in the classroom. Or the teachers’ attitude or response to certain situations manifests leniency towards the male’s unruly behavior but not towards female students who are less disorderly. It may be that more leeway in behavior, more freedom of expression and more attention are given to boys than to girls, especially in the development of their leadership skills. These are gender biases that may have affected the students’ self-esteem and self worth.

Generally speaking, how do schools and colleges treat women in the manner intellectual knowledge is taught, studied and researched? How sensitive are we in assessing and correcting knowledge, texts, research and courses that are stereotypic and biased against women? What must we do if the books and courses focus heavily on men’s actions, organizations, theories, ideas, perceptions and concepts? Are all of us aware of the implications and the consequences of these projections to our status as equal citizens of this country?

The mass communication media also contribute much in chaining the soul of the Filipino women. Notice how they portray women in movies and television as well as in tabloids, all in the name of profit, huge profit for the producers and companies. Women are being portrayed as sex object; as mistresses, prostitutes, adulteresses, seductresses, live-in partners, victims of rape and crimes, etc. which call for the actress to show some private parts of her body. The movie, say, is sensationalized and commercialized, as even the titles like “Patikim ng Pinya,” “Cristina Moran--Ang Babaing Walang Pahinga,” “Basa sa Dagat” and many more than one cares to remember. So-called dramatic movies portray women as wives who are enduring, self-sacrificing, submissive, passive, indecisive, weak, and dependent as if they are without minds and without hearts of their own. Still other movies portray women as housemaids or ordinary wage laborers in factories and fields who usually become victims of exploitation, oppression and abuse.

All these and more have projected the image that women are inferior to men, as if they are playthings or children of the lesser gods. These kinds of exposure in the mass media have spawned the perpetuation of women’s subordinate and marginalized situation in society thus making it doubly difficult for women to compete and assert equal chances in improving their general living conditions.

As we now give importance, even a high premium, to the value of literacy, let us also give value to the women in our country. To disregard them, their talents and skills, their potentials and capabilities no doubt adversely affect the national growth and progress, for they comprise more than half of the country’s population. We can start by putting things in their proper perspective. Give back to the women the power taken away from them. Make them see their worth and dignity as human beings equal to men. Free them from oppressive and dehumanizing chains of traditions imposed on them by the colonizers and thoughtlessly perpetuated. Give them back their rightful place in society. No longer make them slaves so that their children will also cease to be slaves. Give the women equal chance to achieve literacy, and they strengthen the moral fiber of the nation.

Educate the women and you educate the nation.

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