The black box of womanhood

When I had my first period, I had not known it was menstruation until I spoke about it to people outside of the family. The family found out and congratulated me — as if my first period were a rite of passage — while I grappled with the struggles of menstruation on my own. Discreetly (and for a time, erroneously), I learned how to put on and dispose of sanitary napkins. In the all-girls’ school I attended, asking for spare pads was done almost telepathically, and passing out spare pads was done furtively, under the desks and armchairs.

It was at the all-girls’ school that I saw my peers laughing at the other girls who had body hair. Conscious of my own body hair, I acquired razors for shaving. I still remember the rough, irritated skin, and the flecks of blood that arose from my first attempts; I persisted, then switched to waxing, then had my body hair lasered, all painful in their own ways — thinking that pain was the price I had to pay for being a girl.

A couple of months after my first period, my paternal grandmother told me I should become adept at doing the laundry. She recounted a time when boys would snatch underwear from the clothesline, and insisted that there was nothing more shameful than for boys to see soiled underwear drying outdoors. I thought that boys ought to be ashamed of stealing and doing whatever it was they wanted to do with undergarments, but I did not say this aloud. Instead, I mastered the skill of soaping, scrubbing, conditioning, and drying my clothes until anyone who decided to nab them would have no spots or scents to make fun of.

It was also during this time when my father pressed me to be more well-versed at keeping house. He was especially pushy at getting me to do things around the kitchen; I never could cook — I was the same as my mother, as my father liked to remind me — but I could wash the dishes, so it became my responsibility. I was not too consistent at it; I envied those who had housekeepers or mother figures to do all the chores, so I could focus on my studying.

Later, I pondered why my father would not just do things around the kitchen himself. That led to a steady stream of realizations, tying together my father’s expectations to the machismo that dominated his mind and directed his actions. My family turned a blind eye to my father’s behavior, so I sought solace in the company of others; it was from others that I learned to dress in the latest fashions — peers were unforgiving of stylistic choices that were “so last season.” Soon, I would be lauded and consulted by my peers for my fashion sense, and this would help me acclimate to the world outside my family.

With my flair for fashion, it was only a matter of time before I was introduced to makeup — which I had abhorred for a while. When I was younger, my mother had championed simplicity to the point of denigrating other women for wearing makeup. However, as I became more immersed in other social groups — expanding from just academic circles to co-curricular and extra-curricular ones, particularly in the arena of performance — I needed to practice the art of makeup. Going into university, applying makeup became customary for me — and with popular culture featuring all sorts of makeup and skincare products for all sorts of people, it became common for others, too.

Still, it was not normal to my parents. None of the things I learned in university — like the terms feminism and domestic violence — were acceptable to them. These days, living with other people who are considerably less misogynistic, I find myself performing the characteristics and behaviors ascribed to an emancipated woman. I deal with my monthly visits in secret labor. I shave my legs before going out for important events. I do the laundry. I wash the dishes. I wear clothes in my familiar feminine taste. I apply makeup to belong, and I remove makeup to belong. Even as I escape from the heavy hand of machismo, I act in my designated character as a woman.

I look back on my mother, who fled from my father, only to be stuck as a housewife in an alien land. I look back on my peers who grew up pitted against each other, trying not to be the laughingstock girl. I look back on my paternal grandmother, who was raised to please men and reared my father to impose the same ideas on other women. And then I think about the wins of women — fighting for suffrage, striving for education, vying for positions of power even in a world that sets the trap of gender inequality — and I note the course of history: The real role of a woman is to resist… not men, or menstruation, or body hair, or laundry, or dirty dishes, or fashion, or makeup, but the asymmetrical structures and systems that prevent women from freely interacting with these.

In an equal world, I would still have my menstruation, though I would not have to be quiet about it. I would still shave, if I wished to, but no one would be there to coerce me into doing so. I would still do the laundry and wash the dishes, while men do the same. I would still wear my clothes, but men can try my style, too, and I theirs. I would wear makeup whenever I want to, and so can anyone else. In an equal world, womanhood is not a trap. It is freedom.

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Angela Maree Encomienda, 20, is a sociology and development management student at Ateneo de Manila University. She is the founding chairperson of The Initiative PH, a youth-led development organization, and founding president of Kalipunang Sosyolohiya at Antropolohiya, her home organization.

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