Eversince, I am a pro-woman. But that doesn’t mean that I am a man hater. It is just that women are more vulnerable to oppressions and exploitations in this sexist and unequal society.
Before I start this, I don’t want to be claimed as a feminist. Never would I declare myself as one. As what I have said, I am a pro-woman. Though there are many strands of feminism, they don’t have the goal to really free women. Feminism is just used by wealthy and powerful oppressors to tie women’s hands into reformism, anarchism, or revisionism. It is not only about having women rise over men as what most feminists assert. For me, the class of women in the society should still be given with high priority. Not all women are peasants experiencing the same exploitations in the field; and so as proletarians, bourgeoisies, capitalists, landlords, politicians, etc. What women need, most especially those women who belong in the marginalized sector in the society, is to liberate their minds and include them in the production, regardless of the sexist thinking that these or those are the only things they can or cannot do.
As a woman who came from the middle class, the exploitations that I experienced and continuously experiencing may be shallow but significant to talk about. When I was young, I often hear from my parents’ mouth the words “…kasi babae ka(...because you are a girl).” I was always asked to help my mother in doing the household chores while my two brothers if not lying on their beds, were helping my father in masculine chores. In playing time, they could even go home at night. My mother told me the reason why, I am a girl and they are boys. I might be raped outside by a mad man because I am a girl. When I was in high school, I had my first boyfriend. I started to carry shoulder bag during those years. I went out with him and got annoyed when he insisted to carry my bag knowing the fact that it is not so heavy. Well for me, I didn’t really find it sweet. I had the feeling of being belittled of my own capability to carry that simple bag.
When I was about to enter college, I consulted my brothers about the best course for me. Indeed, education was just my second option before and my first choice was kinda a masculine type of course. My brothers advised me to choose education course because that is the best course for me. What they meant was the best course for a woman like me. During that time I didn’t know whether I have to be upset or what. Indeed, I also love education course so what they told me didn’t matter to me anyway. In the latter part of my college years, I even realized the best course I really like—being a writer. Well, I only segued.
Part of my college years were also some things which I will never forget as a woman. I have witnessed the environment where most of the guys look at girls as their sex symbol. They don’t really look for real love but for sex, just to satisfy their sexual libido. Many of them are even "machoshits." They feel so proud of themselves when they have the capability to get as much women as they want to. They keep on bragging about it with some other men.I totally abhor it. For me, they should not have any space on this earth.
In the latter part of my college years, I had also boyfriends but there was one guy whom I will never ever forget. He is my ex-bf whom I lost my virginity with. Maybe that was the reason why it became so hard for me to forget him off before. Because of him, playing with so many guys in my palm became so easy for me. I learned to play with their games; I learned to dance with their steps. But then, I realized everything in me turned out to be wrong. The changes in me were so rapid that I no longer saw myself anymore as me.
Being a former member of GABRIELA-Youth in my previous university and a chair of GABRIELA in our city, I strongly believe in its motto—“Ang babae ay hindi pang kama o kusina lamang, sila ay may malaking bahagi sa paglaya ng lipunan (Women are not only for bed or kitchen, they also have a part in freeing the society.)” I had the urge to break the conception that women are just for sex symbol, that women are helpless and weak, that women cannot decide for themselves, that women cannot live without men, and that women can only do less in the society—those conceptions that were moulded in our country’s culture.
