Break the cycle! Arise and struggle!
By Kat Ulrike
By Kat Ulrike
"The new woman, the new Filipina, is first and foremost a militant. The new Filipina is one who can stay whole nights with striking workers, learning from them the social realities which her bourgeois education has kept from her. She is a woman who has discovered the exalting realm of responsibility, a woman fully engaged in the making of history. No longer is she a woman-for-marriage, but more and more a woman-for-action."
- Lorena "Laurie" Barros
Throughout the years, the Filipina had tried to uplift her integrity as coequal of man. Excelling in every sphere, the Filipina tries to prove her best that with the interest she took, may it be in the field of art, culture, education, anything what a woman has to express and contribute for the well-being of humanity and its own society.
However, despite these various contributions it is the same being who is being stunted by the surroundings supposed to acknowledge and grow the contributions every Filipina had given: westeners and even fellow Filipinos used to think mainly about them as prostitutes, if not mere helpers, that they are limited to their kitchens, treated as eye candies by mass media, of being desensitized and depoliticized by the system and its illusions of grandeur like no other being just in pursuit of keeping the rotten status quo.
That somehow must be opposed consistently no matter how sweet the messages being given while trying to hid the inconvenient. As what Laurie Barros stated, the Filipina has to discover the reality, and like men, has to engage in the making of history even further than what is being sought nowadays, that includes breaking all the barriers what made her oppressed and stunted. And no matter how mass media had presented much about them, they can't just get content in mere beauty alone, that even Angel Locsin, who is an artist featured on FHM wants something more than beauty alone and instead a someone capable of showing her strength and willingness to expose and oppose the ills of society such as poverty and miseducation; knowing that how come she chose to mingle with the common people like those from Payatas dumpsite, of cooperating with organizations like GABRIELA instead of enjoying grandeur like any other artist?
Again, she demands something beyond physical beauty alone as she unleashes her inner power.
Once, this writer had sought pictures of those trying to emulate Chicanas from the west with all their beauty alongside fondness for hiphop music, but despite emulating, how about their struggle to go beyond the kitchen, the home, the ramp and the market? The Chicana whom they emulate can't just simply limit themselves as eye candies, but instead willing to offer their knowledge, lives for something that goes beyond the stereotype, so that it may usher a meaningful change both for themselves, their fellows, and the community.
Once, this writer had sought pictures of those trying to emulate Chicanas from the west with all their beauty alongside fondness for hiphop music, but despite emulating, how about their struggle to go beyond the kitchen, the home, the ramp and the market? The Chicana whom they emulate can't just simply limit themselves as eye candies, but instead willing to offer their knowledge, lives for something that goes beyond the stereotype, so that it may usher a meaningful change both for themselves, their fellows, and the community.
And so should be the Filipina. Like its own legendaries such as Maganda who as the co-equal of Malakas in the creation of the world, the valiant Urduja of Tawalisi whose strength and wit brought attention of traders and men seeking her hand, to the courageous, self-sacrificing heroes like Gabriela Silang, Melchora Aquino, and Lorena Barros whose MAKIBAKA and other suceeding organizations struggle for the emancipation and empowerment of Filipino women and the nation itself.
And like these examples, one must realize their aspirations, fully especially in a modern-day period a nation tries to get in touch, of breaking the shackles of bondage coming from both past and present prejudices and unleash their potentials as coequals of men, building together a society based from their ideas, such as just, peaceful and prosperous.
Hope that today and in everyday, the Filipina, alongside women around the world rise up and join hand in hand with others in a never ending struggle against the world that is deemed decadent and repressive, of getting beyond the parameters in pursuit of attaining higher goals such as standing in the right side of history.
That's all for now,
Thank you.
Hope that today and in everyday, the Filipina, alongside women around the world rise up and join hand in hand with others in a never ending struggle against the world that is deemed decadent and repressive, of getting beyond the parameters in pursuit of attaining higher goals such as standing in the right side of history.
That's all for now,
Thank you.