He crossed the line – yet again
Even before Rodrigo Duterte became President, it was already clear that there were few lines he was not willing to cross when it came to women.
He has repeatedly made crude comments about rape, from joking that he regretted not being “first” in line in the rape-slay of an Australian missionary nun in 1989, to telling soldiers imposing martial law in Mindanao that they were allowed to molest women up to three times.
He insults and mocks women in power in an attempt to silence them and put them in their place, among them Vice President Leni Robredo, Sen. Leila de Lima, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, former chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard, and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
He belittles women’s strength by saying they cannot survive in traditionally male-dominated fields like law enforcement. He even made lewd directives to soldiers to shoot female guerrilla fighters in their private parts to render them “useless.”
To say, therefore, that Mr. Duterte has no respect for women isn’t just imaginary feminist overreach.
To be honest, he was not even at his worst when he recently kissed on the lips an overseas Filipina worker during a meeting with the Filipino community in Seoul. He has been out of line for so long that the boundaries have been rewritten and distorted.
But the image — the lady, put on the spot, being gripped by Mr. Duterte as he pulled her in for a liplock, in front of the presidential seal and the Philippine flag — was still singularly, spectacularly startling.
“Don’t take it seriously, it was all for fun,” he said afterwards. As if that hasn’t been the official line for forever: that his vile jokes were just his unique brand of humor.
Too bad his pernicious comedy has to be at the expense of women.
The truth? He cannot, will not, look at women as his equal. That they are but vessels of his desire for adulation and objects for his taking.
It’s exactly the sort of toxic masculinity that props up this patriarchal society, in which women are constantly demeaned by being sexualized, objectified and made to feel less than a man.
The worst part is that Mr. Duterte doesn’t seem to care about the chilling effect of his behavior and how it would resonate with his citizens. We saw it in the howling audience, who collectively hooted and goaded the kiss in exquisite mindless rapture.
Never mind that this conduct feeds into the vicious cycle of misogyny victimizing our women, so long as he distracts attention away from the headlines with his ham-handed theatrics.
Lest we forget those headlines: Our continued inaction in the face of China’s militarization in the West Philippine Sea, the International Criminal Court’s probe into his alleged crimes against humanity, the growing unrest over rising prices under his tax reform program, etc.
The people who defend the kiss, meanwhile, say it was consensual, that she was clearly giddy and excited to meet the President.
But can there be genuine informed “consent” if the power relations between them are skewed to one side’s advantage — an OFW being solicited for favors onstage by the President of the Philippines in exchange for a book on religion? Did they not see the protracted back-and-forth before Mr. Duterte finally kissed her?
Did they even see how her arms were braced in front of her chest, a clear nonverbal cue she was hesitant?
For most of us, that kiss was just a sample of the kind of demeaning behavior we constantly have to endure or stomach.
It’s behavior that most of us would probably, thankfully, never get to experience from the President himself, but that which all of us have come to anticipate from all sides: from strangers on the streets who whistle and catcall, to superiors who pull rank to prove they can dominate us.
Unfortunately for other women, misogyny isn’t just a distressing inconvenience but an existential threat.
“You know, sometimes, these feminists are a bit OA (overacting),” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque once said when confronted with the President’s behavior. “Come on. Just laugh.”
But I think about the fresh wave of antiwomen sentiments, the internalized misogyny, unleashed by this latest stunt.
How can one even laugh?
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Krixia Subingsubing, 22, is a reporter in the Metro section of this paper.
