Roots
Postscript to Mother’s Day
By Marifi Jara
To be a woman is to have interests and duties, raying out in all directions from the central mother-core, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. The pattern of our lives is essentially circular. We must be open to all points on the compass; husband, children, friends, home, community; stretched out, exposed, sensitive like a spider’s web to each breeze that blows.
ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH
From “Gift from the Sea”, 1955
I WANTED to write this piece two weeks ago in time for last Sunday’s Mother’s Day celebration, but I decided to put it aside and make way first for an election-related article.
And it proved to be a worthy and fortunate postponement because on election day last May 14, I bumped into four of my women neighbors and after casting my vote, I caught them in a pretty interesting photograph that befits what I planned on writing about this week.
WOMEN’S VOTE—Four women, all mothers, of different ages take
time out from their family, business concerns, and household
chores and hang around the Sanitas Elementary School
in San Fabian after casting their votes in the afternoon of May 14.It was good to see them (from left: Michelle, Atchie Aury, Emy and Auntie Virginia) – who I know all have their hands full with their children, grandchildren, small-scale businesses and home management duties – exercising their right and responsibility to suffrage. Women in history had to fight and suffer for that privilege to vote.
Talk of motherhood is intrinsically tied to womanhood.
Here in the Philippines, there is a sense of schizophrenia when it comes to women – we are largely a matriarchal society and yet machismo is at the same time prevalent; and while there are a good number of women leaders in the business sector, academe as well as in the political arena, there are also thousands of Filipinas who remain marginalized, sad to say, mainly within their own family unit.
But by and large, women are not oppressed here, socially and legally.
There are a good number of legislations relevant to women, including the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995 (R.A. 7877), Anti-Rape Law of 1997 (R.A. 8353) and Rape Victim Assistance and Protection Act of 1998 (R.A. 8505), and the Anti-Violence against Women and Their Children Act of 2004 (R.A. 9262).
Filipinas, who according to data from the 2000 National Statistics Office census comprise half of the total population as well as the voting population, are a formidable force in Philippine society.
Pangasinan, the province with the biggest population, the proportion of voters was even slightly higher for females at 50.46% compared with males at 49.54%.
Our country is among a very few nations that have or have had a woman at the helm of government. Not that I am saying that Mrs. Cory Aquino and the incumbent, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, especially Arroyo, are two of my female heroes – no, not exactly. But for and despite all their strengths and weaknesses as political leaders, I salute them as women and as mothers. What I am trying to point out here is that having women presidents speaks of the Filipino society as being fundamentally unprejudiced towards the female gender.
Pangasinan is not behind in women power. The last election had a significant list of female candidates, including for governorship, several congressional seats, mayoralty and all the way down to the municipal councilor level. We have yet to see who among them officially won, but having put up a fight is in itself a good reflection of the status of women in the province.
Maternal instincts, I believe, must play a significant role in the leadership style of women. Their intuitive nature to create, bear, nurture and transform are strengths rather than weaknesses and they should bring that to the fore.
Motherhood is a special gift, a potential unique to women. Giving birth is the one true thing that distinguishes women from other genders. And so despite the rather commercial origin and character of the Mother’s Day idea, I acquiesce to its observance. And though rather late, I raise a toast to them.
(My column this week is in tribute to my resilient 93-year old lola, my beautiful 1965 Ms. San Fabian mom, and to my angels, Dan and Sam, who would have been 7 and 3 by now had they not gone ahead to play at the happy hunting grounds — because love for mothers and a mother’s love go beyond this time and space.)
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/roots/)
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