When you read a newspaper, turn on the radio or switch on the TV set (or log on to the Internet or check your cell phone), does it ever occur to you to check for gender balance in the contents, the depiction of the characters, or the composition of the reporting staff and management?
March 8 has been celebrated as International Women’s Day since 1975, when the United Nations designated it as such in order to honor “women’s advancement” and to ensure that the “equality” that they had worked so hard for and achieved would be maintained in all aspects of life. Advancing equal rights meant that young girls could avoid child marriages and enjoy equal access to education, women could plan their families, and pregnant women would not be in danger of losing their jobs.
It’s the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day (IWD), an official holiday in many countries. There’s an interesting twist here: In China, Nepal and Madagascar, March 8 is a holiday only for women!
I was in a hotel elevator with another man, probably involved in maintenance. The elevator door opened and a bellboy stepped in, giving a side glance to the maintenance person. The elevator moved a few floors up, and when it opened, the bellboy, used a rolled newspaper that he had been holding to tap the other guy’s crotch—a bit like a monarch knighting someone except on the wrong part of the body—then stepped out.
It brought to mind again something I saw in Bangladesh in the mid-1990s. We were in a village that was struggling to crawl up to the 20th century, never mind the 21st. The village prided itself with an elementary school that drew kids from neighboring villages. Most of the living quarters there were just small huts made of thatch and mud and stone, except for the principal’s which stood on hollow blocks. Useful, one of our guides said with a laugh, for when he beat up his wife. Apparently, wife-beating was fairly common there. The hollow blocks helped mute the sounds of violence and keening, which allowed the principal to keep up his high standing in the neighborhood.
Being first, earning recognition for her accomplishments, and setting records are things Maria Lourdes “Meilou” Sereno must be so used to by now. And nothing could be bigger than her being named the Philippines’ first woman Chief Justice, and, according to the Supreme Court website, the second youngest to be so named to the post, and the second longest serving “Chief” when she steps down in 2030, after an 18-year term.
I spent a part of my childhood in a convent in one of the coldest regions of the Philippines. I attended the Mass at dawn, prayed before lunch, and attended vespers in the afternoon. During those times when I wasn’t praying in the chapel, I was picking wild sunflowers, reaching for oranges that grew only in that area, and munching on pieces of passion fruit always accessible to a 2-year-old.
Two weeks from now the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy at UP will be holding another extramural workshop, an event that has been drawing a growing number of participants looking for continuing education. Last summer the focus was on myths in the social sciences (e.g., the Kalantiaw Code). This October it will be on [...]
SOME TIME last month I was in the car with my 5-year-old son, with his Tito Mark (a friend, not a relative) at the wheel. Suddenly out of the blue, my son proclaimed in a tone of papal infallibility: “Tito Mark is bading.” (For now, I’m going to translate “bading” as gay but the term [...]
