Femininity 7: In The Community

My grandmother playing with an iPad

When I was a teenager, I saw my mom as a housewife in charge of house cleaning, cooking, tending to our needs, and my dad's needs when he was around. This was the feminine role I grew up with. It was interesting to see my mom turned into a female politician in our town one day and we will touch on her story of how that happened.

In the photo above,  seeing my grandmother who was a dressmaker all her life playing with iPad in one of the pictures posted by my cousin in Facebook was also very interesting.

When my father was in the Philippines resting and had no work contract abroad, my mom normally worked as a municipal health counsellor and a teacher. 

She was an accounting student who worked as a maid to the owner of the college where she studied and with the additional support of my dad she graduated the course. There was a shortage of teachers, so our relative who was the principal of the school asked her if she liked to take on the job. She accepted the offer. She became a high school teacher of the nearby school teaching the Filipino language. 

One day, there was a need for candidates to run for public office. The total population of the town where we lived was about 15,000 at that time. It was a small town and not many people graduated college, so my mom was nominated as a candidate for counsellor.  

From having no experience of politics, I was introduced to the world of politics, the Philippine way.

In this blog, I would like to share my experience in seeing my mom - as a feminine, taking on the role of a female politician, getting into politics, and what I have noticed happening around me with regards to other women trying to earn a living in our small town.

My sister and I helped her in her campaign. We distributed flyers and shook peoples's hands. At home, there were always a lot of visitors from my mom's political party ticket plus ordinary people from the community asking her for help. I spent most of my time making coffee for everyone.

During that time, my dad who was usually working abroad, helped print my mom''s flyers for distribution to the public who were voters. I watched her spoke in the community. Most of the candidates were men and I remembered her as the only woman candidate giving her talks even in the remote part of our town - called barrios. 

Her feminine role started from the family and was branching out to the community. This was interesting to watch.

After the tally of votes, she emerged as the winner. She was voted as the first counsellor. 

My experience of myself and my mom changed from a family oriented existence to a public oriented existence - seeing her performing a (feminine and also partly masculine) role in the community which also impacted my life. She was mostly doing her job as a counsellor - in the community, and when she was at home, other people would come and ask her for help - either medical or  financial.

She continued giving talks to crowds after she won the election. I went with her sometimes to attend small events, but sometimes they have big community events where most of the people in the community gather. They usually have music, dancing and food. The event was held in a big hall outside the municipal building. Usually people were invited to dance and partake of the food given during those occasions. 

While walking with my mom to buy something at the market, people greeted my mom and they greeted me too. I felt there were a lot of people who knew her and me and my family after she won the election.

When I went with my mom in her monthly community visits, I noticed that there were a lot of poor people in our town. I was not aware of this before. My life revolved inside the house, outside,  playing with my friends nearby or going to my grandmother's house which was walking distance from where we lived. What I enjoyed most was walking to the beach which was 2 minutes away and taking a dip in the slightly warm water during hot weather then walking back to our house or my grandmother's house to get a 'shower'. 

During walks with my mom, I noticed housewives who lived near us whose main source of income were cooking food items to sell in the school, in the market, or having a store of their own where they sell toys and food. They survived doing those jobs.

Recently, I went to Wikipedia to look at the main income of our town and It turned out the town's main income comes from cooked food. At the economy section, I found out the foods I grew up with

• Kalamay-hati: A type of coconut jam made from coconut cream and sugar or molasses
• Maja blanca: A type of coconut pudding
• Suman: A dessert/snack made of sticky rice and coconut steamed in leaves.
• Puto: A steamed rice cake.
• Bagoong: A traditional fish paste made using fresh local/sustainable ingredients.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenavista,_Marinduque

Somehow, this small town managed to survive with the help of the housewives who cooked and sold the food to earn some income to support their husband's income (who did mostly physical labor kind of work). 

The college graduates (who included my mom) and those with more money, ended up working in the municipality or doing business in neighboring towns, cities or even working abroad.

Continued...

Femininity 6: School, Dance, Music & Movement

Picture of Males and Females Dancing a Filipino Folk Dance

Femininity

Part 1 Copied

http://junejourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/08/femininity-part-1.html

Part 2 My Mom, Grandmother and Great Grandmother

http://junejourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/08/femininity-part-2.html

Part 3 Cooking

http://junejourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/08/femininity-part-3-cooking.html

4 Nurture

http://junejourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/08/femininity-part-4-nurture.html

5 Feminine Mystique

http://junejourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/08/femininity-part-5-filipina-mystique.html

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When I bring my childhood memories back here, what stands out was my experience of dancing in school during convocations or class presentations. My eyes light up whenever I get selected to dance as part of a group or alone with a male partner. The school dance performance became the platform where I was able to move my body with my partner in tune to the music and express my interpretation of a certain event in time. 

It was a reenactment of an event using movement and music which was taught to us - by our choreographer. It was not really me directing the dance. I was a willing and able participant.

The dances I participated in were mostly Filipino Folk dances. One specific dance that was easy and fun to do was one with an accompanying music called 'Magtanim Ay Di Biro' - translated, 'Planting Rice Is Not Easy'. This music and dance routine depicted the life of rice farmers who worked from very early morning to sundown, planting rice. They were being paid by the land owners to cultivate and plant rice in their land. They divide the money from the sale of the rice between themselves with the land owners sometimes paying the workers money or in kind (rice) or both.

Picture of children about to dance as part of a school presentation 

YOUTUBE VIDEO:

At a young age, I did not know that the dance I was doing was about the difficult life of farmers. All I know was that when I was in that dancing costume with my classmates and co-dancers, I was in a jolly mood. Somehow while wearing the costume, I imagined stepping into a new world that was all about 'f-u-n'. 

The costume was made and bought for me to use in the presentation by my grandmother or my mom. In my mind, the new multi-colored costume, the music, plus the audience watching us perform, all come together to create a new feminine experience of  'myself'.  This feminine experience was enhanced by having a boy as my partner. They do not wear skirts. They wear pants. Their dance movement is what we normally call 'male dance moves'. As a female, I was asked to hold my skirt a certain way and create flowing movements left and right while the males move to show how rice is being planted in an up and down fashion. We can see through the dance movement, the feminine and masculine roles of each gender in the community. 

In general (there are exceptions), the girls depicted the role of the women (cleaning the rice and possibly cooking it) and the boys depicted the role of the men (planting rice and possibly getting paid for their labor).

Real people planting rice under the heat of the sun 

Planting rice was real hard work. This was far different from having a costume and dancing with the 'Magtanim Ay Di Biro' music.

I realized that dancing with those flowing movements using my whole body allowed me to form an idea that those body movements were my feminine expression. I was not fully aware that those movements were taught to us by our choreographer - even if that was the case.  So it was me acting out the ideas the choreographer had on how feminine expression should be expressed in a particular dance given the parameters handed down from generation to generation.

The audience were the  people (as parents and teachers) who  were giving everyone feedback regarding whether or not this was worth the time and effort - in the form of an applause.

No one was assessing the significance of this in our cultural perception of ourselves and how the gender roles are learned in school with the parents and teachers playing significant roles in shaping our social construct on gender and movement.

Continued...

Femininity Part 2 My Mother, Grandmother and Great Grandmother

Femininity

Part 1

Copied

http://junejourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/08/femininity-part-1.html

Part 2 My Mom, Grandmother and Great Grandmother

http://junejourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/08/femininity-part-2.html

Part 3 Cooking

http://junejourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/08/femininity-part-3-cooking.html

Part 4 Nurture

http://junejourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/08/femininity-part-4-nurture.html

Part 5 Feminine Mystique

http://junejourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/08/femininity-part-5-filipina-mystique.html

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I realized my femininity is a set of roles I copied from my mom and other females around me when i was growing up which our community validated as feminine roles. 

One of the roles I learned from watching my mom is putting make-up on my face.

When my mom went to a community event, she would put on a color coordinated dress/clothes or if it is slacks, she would wear them with a colorful shirt. She will go to the mirror, put on some lipstick. Then, she smacks her lips together so the red color will stick to her lips. She puts on foundation which has a light tan shade. The next thing she puts on is some blush-on and a blue gray shade of eye shadow. 

She had many different kinds of shoes so she usually picks one that will match her clothes. She puts it on and picks up her bag which is also color coordinated with her clothes.

My mom (wearing black) on the right

What I had a strong memory of was that she liked to buy new clothes or bags, shoes, and necklace  for her or for us to wear during family or community events. 

My grandmother also did the same 'feminine' add-ons. 

While my mom beautified herself when she attended community gatherings and meetings related to her role as a town counsellor, my grandmother beautified herself before she went to church almost everyday by putting on a red lipstick.

 What I remembered about her was that she liked putting small red peppers on her hair or sometimes she puts Jasmine flowers (Philippine variety) or Ylang-ylang on her hair. I used to smell the flowers on her hair and enjoy its aroma. 

She used a natural shampoo made from the bark of a tree and she would rinse it off with lime flavored water. Her hair's aroma had a hint of lime. I used to enjoy smelling her hair when she came out of the bathroom after she had a Philippine shower which was not really how we wash ourselves in the shower here in the US. 

She used a container in the past, puts the water there with some lime juice and then rinse her hair and body with the flavored water using a small container to scoop the water out of the bigger container on to her body and hair.

Continued...