Women in the Philippines

The role of women in the Philippines is explained based on the context of Filipino culture, standards, and mindsets. The Philippines is described to be a nation of strong women, who directly and indirectly run the family unit, businesses, government agencies and haciendas.

Although they generally define themselves in the milieu of a male-dominated post-colonial society, Filipino women live in a culture that is focused on the community, with the family as the main unit of society, but not always as this is a stereotype. It is in this framework of Philippine hierarchical structure, class differences, religious justifications, and living in a globally developing nation wherein Filipino women are respected well by men. Compared to other parts of Southeast Asia, women in Philippine society have always enjoyed a greater share of equality.

History

Pre-European contact

Some pre-colonial social structures of the Philippines gave equal importance to maternal and paternal lineage. This bilateral kinship system accorded Philippine women enormous power within a clan. They were entitled to property, engage in a trade and could exercise their right to divorce her husband. They could also become village chiefs in the absence of a male heir. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, Filipino women could also achieve status as medicine women or high-priestesses and astrologers.

Three Filipino Women

Three Filipino Women: Novellas is a book authored by award-winning Filipino literary writer, F. Sionil José. The book is a compilation of three novellas, each narrating a segment in the life and experiences of three women in the Philippines, providing the reader a journey to the "mentality and geography of the Philippines" and to the use of English as a language that the characters are "trying to make their own", reflective of how a Filipino speak in Philippine English, characterized by being "heavy on the reflexive" (similar to the speaking style used by Ferdinand Marcos) and with its own form of "phrasing" and "edge of formality".

Description

One of the male narrators in the novellas was an educated man trying to "come to terms with post-colonial corruption, sexuality and women" tells the stories about three Filipino women who lived in three periods in Philippine history: one who lived during the late 1960s, another who lived in the 1970s, and the other lived in the early 1980s, all of whom experienced the politics and "their passions" during their own respective eras. The three novellas in the collection include Obsession, Platinum, and Cadena de Amor (literally "Chain of Love"). Three female characters were portrayed in each novella: one of a prostitute named Ermi (the "expensive call-girl") in Obsession, the other of a student political activist named Malu in Platinum, and another is of a politician named Narita in Cadena de Amor.