More Alike Than Different PDF

# More Alike than Different ### Women, Men and Gender as Social Construction Eleanor R. Dionisio Occasional Paper No. 3 National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women ## I. Introduction To understand the problem of gender subordination, one must first understand two key concepts: sex and...

# More Alike than Different ### Women, Men and Gender as Social Construction Eleanor R. Dionisio Occasional Paper No. 3 National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women ## I. Introduction To understand the problem of gender subordination, one must first understand two key concepts: sex and gender. In common usage, the two terms are often interchanged. Properly, each has a meaning distinct from that of the other. This distinction has important implications for the way we look at existing inequality between women and men. The following paper aims to clarify this distinction and its implications, both for the present situation and for social and personal change. The paper will first define sex and gender and explore the connections between the two. This exploration will include a discussion of how gender is manifested in contemporary Philippine society, how it is commonly explained; and how it is explained by more contemporary social theory. The paper will then discuss the implications of gender on equality between men and women. Next, it will attempt to trace the development of gender to its present Philippine context. Finally, it will briefly examine the social institutions that maintain gender. ## II. Sex and Gender: What they are, how they differ ### A. Sex: in the realm of the biological 1. **What it is** Sex is a biological term. We use it most often to refer to the act of mating between two organisms - an act which is part of the process of biological reproduction. A more technical term for this act is coitus. The concept of "sex" may also be expanded to include other behavior associated with the act of mating: animal courtship rituals, human "foreplay." While sex in this sense begins with biology, human sex differs from that of other animals in that biological factors no longer play a primary role in it. The human desire and capacity for sex are not determined, as these are in other animals, by the instinct, or the body's readiness, for reproduction. For instance, a woman's fertility cycle does not dictate when she will want sex; pre-pubescent children and post-menopausal adults may have a sex life. Many human sexual practices do not involve coitus and have nothing to do with reproduction, while civilizations from the earliest times have constantly been looking for ways to have coitus without having babies. Nor does human sex simply respond to a physical urge. It is often used to express human emotions and relationships: love, anger, subservience or domination, affirmation or the need for affirmation. Thus human sex has acquired cultural dimensions; human beings have a sexuality that is influenced, but not dictated, by biological circumstances. Sex also refers to the two categories of animals - male and female - needed for the act of mating to result in biological reproduction. This categorization is made according to reproductive function: the female produces the egg cell, or ovum; the male provides the sperm that fertilizes it. (A third category exists, the intersexed - people born with both male and female, or incomplete, genitalia - but these form a very small proportion of the human population.) It is in this second general sense of categorization that sex is often confused with gender. The rest of this section will use sex in this sense. 2. **Men and Women According to Biology** Besides the fact that males produce sperm and females egg cells, males and females differ from each other in several indisputable ways. They have a different chromosomal make-up; different internal and external genitalia (sex organs); and different quantities of various hormones. Most male and female humans also have different secondary sex characteristics, such as patterns of body hair distribution, voice pitch and muscular development. Chromosomes are the first determinants of sex. These elongated bodies of a cell nucleus contain the genes that parents pass on to their offspring. Each cell of a female ovary or male testis contains twenty-three chromosomes; one of these is the sex chromosomes. There are two types of sex chromosomes: X and Y. Female egg cells contain only the X chromosomes, while male sperm may have either. An XX combination produces a female; an XY combination, a male. Sex chromosomes present in the sperm determine whether offspring are genetically male or female. Some of the "intersexed" are genetically male or female - that is, their chromosomal make-up is either XX or XY and the confusion in their body structure is due to faulty embryonic (pre-birth) development. Others are truly "neuter" (neither male nor female), having the chromosomal make-up XO. Despite this difference in chromosomal make-up, male and female human embryos look pretty much the same during the first six weeks of their lives, down to their gonads (primary sex glands). After this period, the presence of the Y chromosome apparently triggers the production of male hormones by the male embryo's gonad (the future testis); these hormones stimulate the development of male genitalia and suppress the development of female genitalia. The female gonad (the future ovary) starts producing hormones at a later stage; these result in the development of female genitalia. Hormones are secretions of the endocrine glands, which include the pituitary, adrenal, thyroid and primary sex glands and the pancreas. The main function of hormones is to stimulate the development of primary sex characteristics, so that individuals become capable of reproduction. Hormones are also responsible for the development of secondary sex characteristics. All human beings produce both male and female hormones. During childhood and after the age of sixty, there is little difference in the quantity of male and female hormones they produce. From puberty through sexual maturity females produce more female hormones, and males more male hormones. However, the actual quantity varies from one individual to another; some females may actually produce more male hormones than some males, and vice-versa. Similarly, secondary sex characteristics vary from person to person. For some characteristics, such as muscle development and body hair, the differences among men or among women have been found by some studies to be greater than the differences between the average male and the average female. Moreover, racial differences in secondary sex characteristics are often more significant than differences between men and women of the same race. In general women tend to have less body hair than men, but many Caucasian women have more body hair than Filipino men. Men tend to be taller and heavier-built than women, but the average Caucasian woman is probably taller than the average Southeast Asian man. Vital statistics reveal more constitutional differences between males and females. More males are conceived than females, but more also die from the moment of conception through all stages of life. Some differences between men and women are based on their chromosomal make-up. Some disorders, such as hemophilia and color-blindness, occur only in men; these are linked to a mutant gene in one X chromosome, which a healthy X chromosome inherited from the other parent (by females but obviously not by males) effectively neutralizes. Higher male susceptibility to infectious diseases, a trend supported by many studies, can be attributed to the same cause. ### B. Gender: in the realm of the social 1. **What it is** Gender refers to the differentiated social roles, behaviors, capacities, and intellectual, emotional and social characteristics attributed by a given culture to women and men - in short, all differences besides the strictly biological. There are two genders: masculine, ascribed to the male sex; and feminine, ascribed to the female. The way a society is organized according to sex is referred to by some social scientists as the "sex-gender system". Almost all cultures tend to see gender as a natural phenomenon, deriving from the biological differences between men and women. However, definitions of masculine and feminine often vary from one race and culture to another. For instance, in one Brazilian tribe, women - seen by most other cultures as the sexually passive partners - are as sexually aggressive as the men; among the Zuni Indians, women, not men, are the sexual aggressors. Latin Americans and other Asians are often surprised to note the number of women working in middle-level positions in government and business offices in the Philippines; Filipinos hardly notice. Similarly, Filipinos view construction work as "heavy" labor fit only for men; in Thailand and India, it is low-wage work viewed as suitably only for women. Within our own country, the woman of Central or Eastern Visayas, farther removed from the center of Spanish colonization and forced by an impoverished subsistence economy to leave her home and seek her living elsewhere, is generally more adventurous than the woman of Central and Southern Luzon, or Western Visayas, more prosperous regions were agriculture follow tenancy or capitalist arrangements. Gender expectations also vary in degree among different social classes within the same ethnic group. In Manila, the professional woman who walks home alone at night is more likely to invite social disapproval than the woman who works the night shift in a food processing factory. The religious teaching that woman's place is in the home also finds more adherents among the propertied classes than among the working classes who need both spouses' income. In many societies, physical strength is less essential to the definition of maleness among the propertied and professional classes than among the classes which engage in manual labor. Gender also changes through history. The women of many tribes in pre-Hispanic Philippines enjoyed a good measure of property and political rights, social status, and premarital sexual freedom. Spanish Christianity changed this situation, promoting the ideal of the chaste and docile woman subservient to the authority of father, husband and priest. Such variations in gender definitions are due to specific economic, political, and social conditions of each class, culture, or era. However, almost all gender systems in the world today share certain common elements. 2. **Men and Women According to Society** The most basic and common element in contemporary gender systems is a difference in gender roles: the assignment to women of the primary responsibility for caring for children and the home, and to men of the task of providing the income on which their families live. In most contemporary societies, this sexual division of labor exists in the form known technically as the production-reproduction distinction. Production here refers to social production, or the production of commodities: that is, goods and services for exchange rather than for immediate consumption. Participants in social production usually get a wage or fee in return for their labor or the product they produce. Production is viewed as men's sphere. Reproduction includes not just biological reproduction, but also the other tasks associated with it: chilldrearing, the maintenance of other members of the family, and the maintenance of the dwelling - activities, indispensable to survival, but assigned no economic value. This is viewed as women's sphere. In real life, many Filipino women do participate in social production: working in factories, plantations or offices; taking on income-earning work within the home; or rendering unpaid work in family fields or enterprises. Women do 40-60 percent of agricultural work in the Philippines, and constitute more than 40 percent of the work force in all sectors. But various studies have found that they, their families and their communities often view such work as supplementary and secondary to the main task of housekeeping and childrearing, even when the income they earn is greater than that of the men in their families. Similarly, many Filipino men give an occasional hand with the children or the housekeeping but the assistance is voluntary, and often viewed by the women in their families as a bonus. Common Filipino speech abounds with derogatory labels for the man who puts in too much help with the housework: he is called macho-nurin or under the saya. The production-reproduction distinction manifests itself not simply as a family-work distinction, but also in the work men and women do outside the home. What heavy industries do exist in the Philippines - those engaged in the production of capital goods, or in the extraction and processing of mineral resources - largely employ men. So do the professions which society values most: law, management, science and technology, and the prestigious fields in the medicine. Meanwhile, female labor is the rule for light industries such as garments, food processing, handicrafts and the assembly of electronic components. The jobs women get in these industries, though income-earning, are analogous to the tasks they perform within the home: sewing, preparing food, making ornaments and doing other fiddly things (mabubusising bagay) that need finger dexterity. In the professions, women are teachers and nurses, just as they are in the family. This horizontal sex segregation occurs simultaneously with a kind of vertical sex segregation, in which jobs requiring decision-making or technical skills designated as "higher level" are assigned to men rather than to women. This happens even in female-dominated professions and industries. Lower-echelon teachers are mostly women, but the proportion of men to women increases as one goes up the career ladder. Food-processing factories prefer female workers, but high-class restaurants prefer male chefs. The production-reproduction distinction also has implications for gender roles in political life. Women in the Philippines are said to rule the household, their husbands and through their husbands, the rest of Philippine society. This is the myth of Filipino matriarchy. Filipino women do enjoy more decision-making powers within the home than their sisters in more clearly patriarchal societies, such as those of South Asia and the Middle East; but their control is by no means substantial. Because men are viewed as the main providers of family income, women defer to them in the most important household and personal decisions, particularly those that affect the family's economic life: where to live, whether or not to make improvements on the house, whether or not they themselves should have children, get a job or go into business. On the other hand, while many Filipino husbands do consult their wives on personal and social decisions affecting the family, many others do not, and in any case the final decision is the husband's. Decision-making in the community and the larger society is also dominated by men, because it is they who are involved in the economic activities that society values. Moreover, their relative freedom from household responsibilities allows them the leisure to participate in social and political organizations and formal political structures. In the Philippines, the leadership of urban poor, peasant, fisherfolk and labor organizations is predominantly male. Few women run for public office, at whatever level; fewer still, the women who actually get elected into office. Women who do win elections beyond the municipal level have very similar profiles. Most come from traditional political families, having risen to power on the coattails of husbands, fathers or brothers who were politicians before them; in effect, they are extensions of male power. (While descent from political dynasties figures in the careers of both male and female politicians, the men tend to stress their own educational, professional and political achievements more than the women). Most women in provincial, regional or national politics belong to a socioeconomic class that can pass on the most onerous tasks of the reproductive sphere to working class women. President Corazon Aquino's accession to power, often cited as evidence of the high status of women in the Philippines, is actually an illustration of this phenomenon. Her landowning family had figured in Philippine politics for decades. Her husband, too, came from a prominent political family and had been billed as the next President after Marcos. In accepting the Presidential candidacy in 1985, she was thus merely stepping into her late husband's vacated shoes. Had her husband not been assassinated, she would probably have remained a "plain housewife." Her victory in the 1986 elections had less to do with the status of Filipino women than it did with her being Benigno Aquino Jr.'s widow and with the undesirability of her opponent (whose most effective argument against her was that she was a weak, vacillating, inexperienced woman). Philippine government bureaucracy has its fair share of women - more than in other countries - but as in other careers, one finds more men than women as one goes up the hierarchy. The few women who have served in various cabinets have traditionally been appointed to departments that are extensions of the female role in the family (e.g., education, social services). Gender roles also interact with sexuality, although there is no simple one-to-one correspondence between the two (e.g., male homosexuals can be masculine and female homosexuals feminine in all but their sexual preference). Sexuality cannot be reduced to productive and reproductive roles. The sexual servicing of men is an important task that women perform within the reproductive sphere. This task is valued not simply, or even primarily, for its part in biological reproduction, but for the pleasure it gives to men. Unfortunately, woman's role as provider of sexual pleasure puts her in a double bind. On the one hand, she is expected to be desirable to men; on the other, she must be sexually available to only one man, to whom she is both sexual and reproductive property. (This proceeds partly from the need for men to be sure that their wives' children are also their own - an important consideration in inheritance. If a woman has sexual relations with any other man, or if her desirability invites sexual aggression from any other man, society condemns her as evil, the occasion for if not the agent of sin. Filipino culture sees wifehood - the binding of a woman in sexual and reproductive service to one socially-acknowledged male partner - as the highest feminine achievement, but has only contempt for the woman who services many men, and pity for the one who services none at all. Such women are considered unnatural, "unfeminine" and somehow less worthy of respect. Sexual virility is as much a part of our culture's definition of masculinity as sexual attractiveness is of femininity. This, too, has its links with reproduction: in Asian tradition, for instance, the more offspring a man has sired, the more virile he is considered (thus the Filipino male's suspicion of contraceptives, especially those affecting his own ability to beget children). But a man's sexual activity is not service, either sexual or reproductive: it is considered to be directed at his own pleasure rather than at his partner's. Moreover, masculinity is also measured by one's ability to seduce many women. Thus, while society condemns promiscuity in women, it implicitly encourages this in men. ### 3. Gender Ideology Gender roles are justified by gender stereotypes about the different personality traits, skills and capacities that men and women have. Men are said to be physically stronger than women, thus more fit to take on work outside of the home. Women, on the other hand, are perceived as fit only for household work that does not require great physical exertion. Women are supposed to be better equipped for minute, detailed manual work, because their fingers are smaller and therefore nimbler than men's. Men are said to be brave, aggressive, independent, good at controlling their emotions. The center of their lives is their work; relationships are secondary. Their decisions are supposed to be based on reason, hence solid and unshakeable. All this makes them better-equipped, in the eyes of society, to head families, business enterprises, social and political organizations, communities, nations and armies. Women, on the other hand, are perceived as timorous, passive, emotionally dependent, demonstrative, loving, patient, self-sacrificing and peaceful by nature. Relationships - especially within the family - take precedence over everything else. Women as mothers and wives are predestined roles. They can also be good peacemakers. However, they are not to be trusted with major decisions, since they operate not by reason but by intuition or worse, whim; women are as fickle as the weather. Stereotypes about women's and men's sexuality also justify their different gender roles within sexual relationships. Men are supposed to be more sexually aggressive than women. Their sexual urges cannot brook delay and occur independent of loving relationships - thus even strangers are potential sexual partners. Women are supposed to be less easily roused, less interested in coitus than in the loving feelings that accompany it, hence they ought to find it hard to engage in the sex act with strangers. Men are by nature polygamous, women by nature monogamous: the "double standard of morality' is simply the social expression of these inherent tendencies. All these gender stereotypes seem to be validated by a cursory observation of men's and women's behavior. Exceptions are numerous and tolerated within a certain degree, but men and women who deviate markedly from the norm are viewed as unnatural, and encounter much social disapproval. Gender roles and stereotypes find a coherent explanation in gender ideology. The basis of most gender ideology is biological determinism, the thesis that the biological differences between men and women dictate a difference in social roles as well. The logic goes: because women are the ones physically equipped to bear and nurse children, nature intends that their lives should revolve around the care of children and the family. Biological determinism takes this logic one step further: the difference in men's and women's bodies results in a difference in their psychological make-up. By virtue of bearing and breastfeeding children, women are said to establish a special relationship with them. Some psychologists and philosophers even use the structure of the male and female external genitalia, and of coitus to graphically illustrate their view of the psychological differences between men and women. A woman's vagina, they point out, is hidden from view, turned inwards. She need not be an active or willing partner for coitus to take place. In terms of reproductive efficiency, the best position she can take during coitus is supine; she is the receptacle of man's seed. This, they argue, points to the essential nature of the feminine psyche: inward-looking, subjective, reflective, passive, and subject to man. On the other hand, a man's penis and testicles are exposed, jutting out of his body. He is the active sexual partner: his penis must be hard and erect for coitus to take place; he penetrates the woman, and gives her his seed. Thus man is essentially outward-oriented, active, aggressive, woman's benefactor and rightful superior in society as in bed. The same argument is used to explain gender stereotypes about sexuality - and to excuse male promiscuity. The logic goes: because a man's penis is located outside his body, his inner being need not be involved in sexual intercourse; thus he can engage in it even with persons he does not know or care about. The vagina, on the other hand, is located inside a woman's body - thus, it is argued, a woman's inner being must be involved in any sexual relationship, and she cannot easily engage in sexual intercourse with someone she does not love. There is also a chemical explanation: male and female hormones, according to this theory, are responsible for male-female personality differences. Religion takes all these explanations and cloaks them in sacred authority. In most dominant religions, God, or the chief God, is male. Men were often the first creatures, women an afterthought; and whereas men's primary task in the sacred scheme of things is co-creation; women's is procreation. ### 4. Gender Ideology Demystified In reality, none of the arguments for an essential difference in men's and women's psyches has been proven beyond doubt. There is nothing women can do for children that properly-trained male adults cannot do, except bear them and breastfeed them; and the advent of the baby bottle has made a parent's sex irrelevant even in the task of infant-feeding. Some fathers are better parents to their children than the mothers are. The biological connection between mother and child need not produce intimacy, as we know from the numbers of children abandoned or abused by their natural mothers. As for the structure of men's and women's bodies, this can be used to draw the most contradictory conclusions about their predestined social roles. One might contend, for instance, that because it is women who carry children for nine months and risk their lives in childbirth, the rest of the childrearing work ought to be men's job; or that, because a man's testicles and flaccid penis are fragile and exposed, men ought to lead less active lives than women, whose clitoris and vagina are naturally protected; or that a woman's act of enclosing a man's penis during coitus is symbolic of her destiny of encompassing man; or that, since men must be active and willing participants in sexual intercourse in order for it to succeed, it is they who must be emotionally involved with their sexual partners - not women, who need not be aroused in order to participate in sexual intercourse. We know, of course, that none of these arguments has any basis in reality. They merely serve to illustrate how contrived any analogies between gender and body structure must be. (In fact, this inversion of gender logic is used by some trainors in an exercise to help women challenge gender ideology). The biochemical explanation of male-female personality differences is less easy to dismiss. Experiments on animal behaviour have shown a positive correlation between levels of aggression and the amount of the male hormone testosterone present in the body. Studies of the female menstrual cycle have also related changes with pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS), a common condition in which women become sensitive, irritable and easily upset just before the onset of menstruation. But the extent to which hormones control male-female personality differences is difficult to determine, because of the intrusion of other factors affecting human behavior: social learning, for instance; or the pain, inconvenience and taboos surrounding menstruation. The most that can be said of hormones is that they may indicate differential tendencies in male-female behavior, but are not its sole, or even main, determinants. As for the religious arguments for male supremacy or for the "complementariness" of male-female roles: human society has always been prone to create its gods in its own image and likeness. Most religions simply reflect and rationalize the existing social order. They cannot be used to infer natural laws. ### 5. Culture, Not Nature Where then does gender come from? Why do so many men and women seem, superficially at least, to correspond with society's definitions of masculine and feminine behavior? One emerging answer is that gender is a cultural construction - a product of a given society's adaptation to the material conditions in which it finds itself. This hypothesis seems to be borne out by the wide variations in definitions of masculine and feminine found across cultures, social classes, and historical periods. Gender differentiation, according to this explanation, originates from the different functions assigned to men and women by society, which in turn are based on their sex differences. For instance, because women bore and nursed children, many cultures probably found it more convenient to charge them as well with other childrearing tasks and the maintenance of the dwellings. This division of labor led to the development of different skills and qualities in men and women - differences later enshrined as "natural" or "God-given." The individual male or female within each culture acquired gender through socialization. Identification with the parent of the same sex, close association with others of the same sex, rewards or restrictions by the family or peer group or community on behavior considered gender - appropriate or inappropriate, all contribute quite early in life to the shaping of an individual's self-image, personality, and valued social roles. These are reinforced by the institutions of mass socialization: education, religion, art and mass media. Socialization is far less foolproof than biology. A completely developed male or female cannot be anything but male or female; but no one individual can be described as totally masculine or feminine. In any society, deviations from dominant definitions of masculine and feminine are too numerous to be explained by faulty biology. The theory that socialization is the key factor in establishing individual gender identity seems to be validated by studies made of intersexuals - intersexed individuals (not to be confused with homosexuals) in Britain and the United States. These studies found that persons with incomplete genitalia, or even genetically neuter persons, could be just as "masculine" or "feminine" in their behavior and orientation as people with all their genitals and chromosomes intact. More surprisingly, some intersexuals, raised as males or females because of the appearance of their genitals and later found to belong genetically to the opposite sex, were eventually able to acquire the opposite gender as well. This may be the most convincing proof yet gender is not inherent, but culturally acquired. ## III. Gender Subordination Gender has implications for equality between women and men in society. In earlier days these implications were accepted as a matter of course: women were perceived as "naturally" inferior to men, and that was the end of the discussion. By contrast, modern-day apologists of gender, hard put to defend a male-female dichotomy in the harsh light of egalitarian ideologies, deny these implications, claiming that gender differences do not make for inequality at all. Their favorite slogan is that women and men are "equal but different" - or, put another way, that males and females have "complementary" roles in human society. According to this lien of apology, society gives just as much importance to feminine roles, qualities and skills as it does to the masculine - and therefore no one need complain; indeed, to try to eradicate the differences would destroy the very fabric of society. A well-known sociologist of the early 20th century even went so far as to claim that the specialization of labor between the sexes is a mark of advanced civilization. A more complicated line of gender apologetics, prevalent among Filipino males (and some females), is that these differences actually make for female superiority - that Filipino society is a matriarchy in which Filipino women have the best of the situation. (Curiously, the men who argue for this position seem to have little inclination to change a system that ostensibly operates to their disadvantage). In reality, gender limits the potential of both men and women. This limitation means more than mere gender discrimination: the gender system supports and interacts with other social systems which keep the majority of people, women and men, from achieving full and dignified lives. However, in most gender systems, including that in dominant (lowland Christian) Philippine society, women suffer more problems and limitations than men; they are, in Simone de Beauvoir's words, "the second sex." "Gender subordination" is the phrase which describes the secondary position of women vis-a-vis men in society. "Male dominance," on the other hand, describes the position of men. ### A. Gender Subordination and the Economic System The production-reproduction divide is the sexual division of labor that prevails within the capitalist system. In this division, males as heads of households are the "breadwinners" and women, the "homemakers," responsible for housework and the daily reproduction of laborers, husbands and children. It is often the case, however, that wages of breadwinners are insufficient so that women have to do paid work as well. But women's responsibility for the home defined her work outside it. Women's homemaker role, together with a gender ideology of sex attributes, meant that women were assigned to low level, low skilled, low productivity and low paid work. (The papers on the sexual division of labor and the family-household explore this issue at greater length.) ### B. Gender Subordination and the Political System Male dominance in grassroots and formal politics has already been pointed out. Precisely because the gender system prescribes different roles for men and women, women have problems and concerns which men do not experience, and therefore do not voice or act upon: for instance, problems relating to child care, social services, economic independence, and equal access to social institutions. For instance, the economic value of household work and child care is given too little recognition and support by the community and the state. Public policies are made largely on the assumption that male interests are broad interests, and that female interests (if at all acknowledged) are side issues. As pointed out earlier, the few elite women who make it to positions of influence in the formal political system do not adequately represent the interests of the majority of women. They are shielded from any unpleasant aspects of the sex-gender system by the power of their social class and by their ability to purchase the services of working class women. Grassroots organizations, accessible to working class men, are not as accessible to working class women because of gender biases, women's learned passivity, and the burden of household work which hinders their active participation. Even the most politically progressive people's organizations are often guilty of the same male focus and the same dismissal of women's issues that characterize the political establishment. But gender subordination in the political system means more than the exclusion of women and their concerns from political life. The state, used by particular groups in society to perpetuate themselves in power, in turn uses gender to support its objectives or thwart those of other groups. For instance, the Marcos administration in the early 1970's employed the image of the charming, attractive and hospitable Filipino woman to promote one of the pillars of its economic program - Philippine tourism - and, not incidentally, the myth of a people happy with a benevolent dictatorship. The military, the most male-dominated institution in our society, has been known to use the rape and sexual torture of female, dissenters as a warning to groups seeking social change. ### C. Gender Subordination and Sexuality Rape is an extreme illustration of the subordination of women's sexuality. Women are not just men's sexual and reproductive property, they are also legitimate targets of sexual aggression. While society officially condemns rape, its victims are perceived as being in some way to blame for it: because their dress and manner "asked for it;" because they were engaged in gender-inappropriate activities, such as travelling at night or agitating for political change; or simply because they were young, or beautiful, or women. In many cultures, rape is excused as an excess of male lust which must find release. In reality, rape and its milder cousin, sexual harassment, are expressions of male control over female sexuality. These acts can also be instruments of political control - in military rape, for instance, or in the sexual harassment of women workers and trade unionists.. A more subtle and perhaps more commonplace manifestation of female subordination in sexual relationships is the double standard of morality that condones male promiscuity while demanding female chastity. This double standard, is often excused by women themselves as a natural law - but many other women experience it as a painful form of personal injustice. ## D. Gender Subordination and Personhood The gender system encourages the development of different personality traits for women and men. This stunts the personal growth of both sexes, but because the traits developed by men are those on which society places greater value, women are subordinate in this area as well. 1. **Women: Dutiful and Dependent** Since men are breadwinners and political mediators, in myth if not in fact, women perceive men as essential to their own material survival. This perception generates an inordinate attachment to relationships with men. From childhood women are encouraged to think of a permanent and exclusive intimacy with a man, rather than creative and meaningful work, as their primary goal in life. Much of their adolescent and adult activity is geared towards this goal. For many single women, a job is a temporary phase, a period of waiting for the real job of marriage and a family. A large part of many women's self-image is shaped by their ability to attract men, as well as by the type of men they attract. And because good men are a limited item, many women learn to see each other as competitors. Once a woman has committed herself to a relationship with a man, keeping him becomes a preoccupation, even at great personal cost. This is reflected in the stereotype of the long-suffering wife or girlfriend in radio and television dramas, who bears with her lover's irresponsibility, infidelity, emotional cruelty, and even physical abuse because having him is better than having no man at all. Filipino news tabloids carry many stories of women who kill themselves after being abandoned by a lover or husband, who is probably not worth the trouble. A woman's commitment to a man ideally goes hand-in-hand with commitment to the family they create together. Filipino girls are trained at a very young age to be responsible for the home and their younger siblings. As wives and mothers they often subsume their own personal needs to the needs of the family. Though this is not by itself unhealthy, constant denial or neglect of one's own needs and aspirations can lead to mental and even physical stress. The double burden of wok that many women carry, and the multiple roles they perform, pose additional hazards to physical and mental health. At the same time, the bondage to household work prevents women from developing their full potential for contributing to the development of society. Women's tendency to defer to men even in decisions involving the household or their personal lives has already been mentioned. Though Filipino women are quite assertive compared to women of other Oriental cultures, assertiveness is not a prized feminine trait. And compared to men of the same social class, they are less ready to speak out or do anything to call attention to themselves. This is most noticeable in meetings or gatherings at which both women and men are present; women tend to leave, the speaking and the decisions to the men. A woman who holds her own with men might occasionally gain respect, but she also risks becoming the object of hostility and unkind gossip, most of all from fellow women. The lack of bonding between women, the absence of a sense of common cause, is perhaps the greatest obstacle to their liberation from gender subordination. Competition for men is only one reason for this. Women's isolation within the home is another. The isolation is not so much physical as it is social: the home is the center of women's lives; anything outside of it is not quite as important, and any way is men's concern. A major reason for women's inability to see themselves as a social sector, and their problems as social problems, is gender ideology. This not only teaches women to accept their situation as natural, it also convinces them that they would not want to have it any other way. Some anthropologists speak of a "patriarchal bargain" in which women voluntarily subordinate themselves to men for the sake of protection and security. There is, after all, a certain seductive comfort in not having to make decisions for oneself. 2. **Men: Dependent Too** Men are raised to think of their lives in terms of self-fulfillment rather than relationships. Self-fulfilment is achieved through creative work or through the pursuit of pleasure. While a relationship with a woman is important to the Filipino male, and also a source of his self-image, he is better able to retain his autonomy from the relationship. This emphasis on self-fulfillment, however, has its unhealthy consequences. Unlike their sisters, most Filipino boys do not have to worry about household chores or the care of siblings. This seems to be one reason Filipino men are often less responsible and caring than Filipino women. The emphasis on developing emotional control also makes, men less able than women to express affection, weakness or fear. Mental stress can result from this suppression. Another source of mental stress is the inability to meet unrealistic social expectations: for instance, the myth of the good breadwinner, a tough act in a high-unemployment situation. Men are better-prepared than women for decision-making and participation in public life; leadership and a public role are, after all, part of the definition of masculinity. But the extent of men's public role is made possible by the unacknowledged support of women's work in the household