Women in the Philippines:

• Protected under the Constitution (Article II, Section 14) – women are
vital to nation-building, and their inclusion in societal structures and
processes is key to equality and development.

Article II, Section 14 = Women

Article II, Section 13 = Youth

• As of 2016, the Philippines ranked 7th in the world for gender equality
(highest in Asia) according to World Economic Forum.

Discrimination Today:

• In the reproductive sphere or the household, childcare is a primary task

mainly left to women in most societies.

• Pay Gap – women earn less than men. In fact, in the United States, for
each dollar ($1.00) a man makes, a woman will only earn 80 cents ($0.80)
even if they have the same qualifications and responsibilities.

• Glass Ceiling – certain attitudes and beliefs about women’s abilities

limit their positions in a company. Most likely, women will be left to do
menial jobs compared to men of the same qualifications – such
discrimination is based solely on them being women.

• Generally speaking, in most societies, women are often perceived as

the weaker sex.
Leveling Off: Gender and Sexuality

Sex – in the Biological sense, is a category for living beings specifically

related to their reproductive functions. For most living creatures, there are
two sexes – the male and the female.

TWO TYPES OF SEX

● MALE
● FEMALE
WHAT IS SEX?

Characteristic Males Females

Genitalia Penis Vagina
Chromosomes XY XX
Hormones Testosterone Progesterone and
Estrogen
Sex Cell Sperm Cell Egg Cell

• There are instances where people could have higher levels of the
opposite sex’s hormone. A man with higher progesterone and estrogen
levels is called an effeminate man, and a woman with higher testosterone
levels is called a masculine woman.

EFFEMINATE MAN - A man with higher levels of progesterone and

estrogen.

MASCULINATE WOMAN - A woman with higher levels of

testosterone.

Gender – a socially learned behavior usually associated with one’s sex.

Based on how people see themselves and their tendency to act along
either a masculine or feminine line.

TWO TYPES OF GENDER

FEMININITY - behavior that one associates with females, may not

actually be tied to a woman’s sex.

MASCULINITY - behavior that associates with males, but may not

actually be tied a man’s sex.
Gender Role Socialization – the process of learning and
internalizing culturally approved ways of thinking, feeling, and
behaving.

Types of Gender Roles Socialization:

1. External Regulation – involves various institutions (family,

society, church, State, etc.) dictating what is proper and standard based
on one’s identity.

2. Internal Regulation/ Internalized Social Control – a person

polices themself according to society’s standards and norms.

Gender Stereotypes - develop when different institutions reinforce a

biased perception of a specific gender’s role.

Types of Gender Stereotypes:

1. Sex Stereotype – a generalized view of traits that should be
possessed by men and women, specifically physical and emotional roles.

2. Sexual Stereotype – assumptions regarding a person’s sexuality

that reinforces dominant views.

Heteronormativity – the assumption that all persons are only

attracted to the sex opposite theirs.

3. Sex-Role Stereotype – the roles that men and women are

assigned based on their sex and what behaviors they must possess to
fulfill these roles.
4. Compounded Stereotype – assumptions about a specific group
belonging to a gender, and vice versa. Example: lady guard, older men,
young women, etc.

SOGIE – Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression

1. Sexual Orientation – covers three dimensions of human
sexuality. Involves who one is attracted to and how one identifies
themself about this attraction, which includes romantic and sexual
feelings.
i) Sexual attraction, behavior, and fantasies
ii) Emotional and social preference; self-identification
iii) Heterosexual and Homosexual lifestyle

2. Gender Identity – refers to one’s personal experience of gender

or social relations.

3. Gender Expression – determines how one expresses their

sexuality through the actions or manner of presenting oneself.
LGBTQIA – an initialism movement meaning:
✅Lesbians – women attracted to women
✅Gays – men attracted to men
✅Bisexuals – people who are attracted to either sex
✅Transgenders – people who are transitioning
✅Queer/Questioning – people who are not yet sure
✅Intersex- people are born with sex characteristics (including genitals,
gonads, and chromosomes patterns ) that do not fit typical binary notions of
male or female bodies; intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a
wide variety of natural bodily variations.

✅Asexual – people who have no sexual feelings

Gender Equality – the recognition of the State (government) that all
human beings are free to enjoy equal conditions and fulfill their human
potential to contribute to the State and the society.

SEXISM - is defined as the prejudice against a certain sex.

WHAT IS RATIONALITY? - The logic of being based on or in

accordance with reason or logic.

Culture – the system of symbols that allow people to give meaning to

experience. It is malleable and adaptable – meaning, culture can change.

WHAT GOES WRONG? - When culture and rationalities result to

discrimination or microaggression.
Microaggression – hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and
insults .can cause potentially harmful or unpleasant psychological impacts
on the target person/group.

Women’s Ways of Knowing

● The role of universal caregiving has been given to women.
● Girls learn by copying their mothers; boys learn through
disassociation.
● Women learn through empathy; men learn through separation.

Women’s Ways of Knowing:

1. Women and Silence
● Silence indicates an absence of thought or reflection.
● Women who live in silence are often disconnected from their families
and communities due to their situation, which creates a lack of
space for constructive thought.
● Women who learn through silence cannot understand abstract
ideas. They do not enjoy introspection.

2. Received Knowledge: Listening to the Voice of Others –

● developed by absorbing knowledge (like a sponge).
● Women who learn through receiving knowledge listen to friends
and authorities (community leaders and their husbands) and
understand what is being said enough for them to repeat words.
● They can do the right thing by following the rules of authority
figures. Still, they cannot comprehend paradoxes (if two or more of
her authority figures have contradicting information, she cannot
distinguish which is correct).
3. Subjective Knowledge: The Inner Voice and the Quest for Self –
● women learn to trust their “inner voice and infallible gut.”
● Through this, women who know have awakened to the previous
abuses they have suffered.
● They realized that following rules would not make them happy.
They depend on themselves and their experience to attain truth
(use of intuition).

4. Procedural Knowledge: Voice of Reason and Separate and

Connected Knowing –
● women who learn through the process and learn well from formal
systems of knowledge, enough for them to excel.
● They learn to defend their beliefs and rationalize their thoughts, and
they focus on the method more and less on the problem.

5. Constructed Knowledge: Integrating the Voices –

● women need to reflect on and accept themselves.
● Women must learn to value their methods of knowing and their
own constructed knowledge. They must turn inward.

Language – a primary symbol for communication and how humans

understand and participate in the world.

• Language defines men and women differently as seen in common

pronouns (his, her, her, etc.) associated with these genders.

Sexist Language – a tool that reinforces unequal gender relations

through sex-role stereotypes, microaggressions, and sexual harassment.
Example: “women cannot be engineers,” “men cannot take care of
children.”
Invisibilization of Women – rooted in the assumption that men are
dominant and the norm of the fullness of humanity, and women do not
exist.

● The generic use of masculine pronouns or a masculine general.

Example: “mankind” assumes that men represent all people on the planet.

● The assumption that men instead of both genders perform

certain functions or jobs.
Example: “The farmers and their wives tilled the land.” This assumes that
men can have jobs as farmers, and women who do the same jobs are still
called wives.
● The use of male job titles or terms ending in ‘man’ refers to
functions that may be given to both genders.
Example: “chairman,” “congressman”

Trivialization of Women
● Bringing attention to the gender of a person, if and only if that person
is a woman.
Example: “lady guard,” “working wives”

● The perception that women are immature.

Example: “baby,” “darling”

● The objectification, or likening to objects, of women.

Example: “honey,” “sugar,” “tart”
Violations of Gender-fair Language

Fostering unequal gender relations

Example: The use of "man and wife" assumes that men are still men and
women's identities subsumed and shifted into beings in relation to their
husbands

Gender polarization of words in use if adjectives

Example: Both men and women did the same activity but were described
differently.

Hidden Assumptions
Example: The statement "the father is babysitting his children" assumes
that the father is not a caregiver, and that any attempt he has at parenting
is temporary as the mother is the main caregiver

Identities and Naming Things – naming things to give them

power.
For example, sexual harassment was never seen as an issue until it was
named. The same thing goes with “date rape,” before calling it such, it is
just referred to as “rape.”
Towards a Gender-fair Language

GABRIELA (General Assembly Binding Women for Reforms, Integrity,

Equality, Leadership, and Action) Women's Party national president and
party-list representative Liza Maza called for a ban of sexist language in all
official communication and documents in the House of Representatives.
The creation of a comprehensive gender-fair language policy and the
evaluation of the effectiveness of gender-fair language in institutions are
indicators for a gender fair institution. These actions are small steps one
can take in ensuring that institutions are indeed gender-fair