An Analysis on the Making of Filipina's Image and Significance in Philippine

Society as Reflected In 20th Century Philippine Literature

Background of the Study (Depiction of women in Philippine literature)

The construction of women in all aspects persists to be a phenomenon. There
have been numerous attempts and ways people have been trying to depict the image of
a woman, trying to define what a woman is, what a woman should be, and what the
roles she should playing in the society. In literature, the writings of female characters
have created for women different labels, tags, and tropes. Women have been portrayed
as either pure saints or temptations, self-sacrificing and nurturing mothers, lovers, caretakers, and are often influenced by the "frequent societal stereotype of women"
(Bamarani, 2014). These portrayals depend upon the social customs regarding women
especially in the authors culture. In Helene Cixous (1976) The Laugh of Medusa, she
stated that women inhabits an unfathomable space in a masculinized society that
women have been riveted between Medusa and the abyss. The part of women in the
society has always been significantly directed and dictated, and most of the women in
the early days were receiving active discrimination deriving from the ever scrutinizing
male gaze.
Manzanan (1997) explained that in the Philippine context, before the coming of
people from the West, women were seen with equal status as that of men (as cited in
Tarrayo, 2015). According to Villariba (2006) mystical women serve as leaders of the
society. The guiding leader and priestess whom they called before as "babaylans"

inherit this role through a sacred call and mostly they are the peace makers. Salazar
claimed that they stand equally together with the datu and the panday (as cited in Sicat,
1996). However, with the coming of the Spaniards and the propagation of their Catholic
teachings that are predominantly patriarchal and teaches the submission of wife to
husband, women's role in the Philippine society evolved down into being a docile,
submissive, martyr woman who exists to assist men in their life (Manzanan, 1997). This
can be witnessed in Modesto Castros book entitled Urbana at Feliza which was
published in 1864. This perception has led to many challenges, issues, and problems
women face as they now try to break free of that mold. Nowadays, women are
empowering themselves and are more aware of the social construct that imposes their
inferiority. They have been more assertive towards their own beliefs and autonomy, and
fight for their own right to determine who they are.

Review of the Related Literature

In the paper of Mila D. Aguilar (2001), she emphasized on the difference between
male and female on a certain character trope in literature namely the trickster. The
male trickster in literature aims to advance in life through intentional deception and by
causing real dangers or by cheating on fellow men, however, the few women trickster,
Mariang Sinukuan, Sagacious Marcela, Ludovicos Choice of Wife, Talang Silangan,
and the virtuous and beautiful wife from Christian and Muslim lore, gathered and
studied by Aguilar shows a different reasons behind their trickery. She described these
women tricksters as virtuous, and uses trickery only as a response to various
challenges in order to defend themselves. Their form of self-preservation or survival are
through non-intentional deception which means no harm, but relies pure on their wits.
She cited her other paper wherein she stated that women are the not the instigators of
conflict, but their value in Philippine society is that they are the ones that help in times of
need and the ones who continue the preservation of harmony among the people.
In the article by Tarrayo (2015), he elaborated upon the depiction of women in
contemporary literature as a reflection of women in society. Using stories written by
female writers, he studied the characters written with the female writers gaze. He
studied about the different characters virtues, vices, passions, and struggles from the
short stories Dead Stars, The Small Key, Servant Girl, Maternity Leave, Magnificence,
Unfinished Story, Pieces of String, and Family Rites. He analyzed that the Filipino
women play different roles in society such as the martyr, social victim, homemaker,
mother, and fighter. He regarded womens role in stories as martyrs, as heroic, and
virtuous acts through refusing to bother their husbands by their worries and problems

and by staying silent to keep the family intact. Their martyrdom comes from the idea of
ignorance is bliss by avoidance and evasion from conflicts (Garon, 2007). Women as
social victims, in the story, are depicted through the societal treatment of women as well
as through the imposition of established conventions for women that leads some
women themselves to believe it. Women as homemakers and as mothers depict women
in the short stories by them taking on the duties and roles of housekeeping as well as
being good role models to their children. This leads to Nolascos point that women are
kept from active participation in world affairs by putting her to where she belongs-the home. (As cited in Tarrayo, 2015). However, Tarrayo (2015) also depicted women
as fighters, for the characters were courageous, protective, responsible, and with strong
personality. From his study, he deduced that the virtues of these women come mostly
from their sense of responsibility. Their struggles and issues are deeply rooted and
come in form of sacrificing for their loved ones especially the husbands and devotion to
their family.
An article written by Nobleza (2013) talked about the portrayal of men and
women in various literature and how it is based on the culture and society of the certain
literature. The different characterization of women came from different ideologies, from
the pre-colonial era, to the colonial era where it changed due to the new Western
ideologies that have been assimilated to our culture. She also mentioned that not only
the depictions of women characters have been affected by the era the country is
undergoing, but also affected the contribution of women in literature. She stated how
Philippine literature, dominated by male writers, contains stories of women with
characters based from a male point of view and that these stories have portrayed

women in lesser light than that of men. These portrayals of women in lesser light have
also been done by several women authors, however she mentioned a story where there
is an emphasis on womens strength of character and how it is derived from her
maternal instinct.
In the analysis of Antonio (n.d), four female characters from selected Philippine
literature were examined and these characters fall into Carl Jung's Archetypal Theory
namely the Virgin, Mother, Witch, and Queen, and was able to twist the archetypes'
definition to their total opposite by using other categories formulated by Marjorie
Evasco, a Filipina feminist scholar. The research also tackled different feministic views
on the characters' issues. From the short story The Virgin by Polotan-Tuvera, the
character studied was Miss Mijares who remains a maiden at the age of 34. Aside from
having "no beauty", she was busy attending to her ailing mother and sending her niece
to school to even think about herself. She was a strong and domineering career-woman
and when she met a certain carpenter, she was able to confront her own misery and her
own desires and sexual longingness. In the end she was able to submit herself to this
desire. Despite this, she still falls under the category of the Virgin Archetype as Antonio
cited in his work that the character's state of mind and attitude is given an emphasis in
the virgin archetype rather than the character's physical or sexual status (Layard, 1997)
These virgins are those who own their sexuality and have full control and dominion over
it. Citing Pratt (1981), virgin, in Jungian sense, means "complete unto oneself" and does
not require the opposite sex to make her whole. With these definitions and Miss Mijares'
quality of being a strong and independent woman, she falls into the Virgin Archetype.
However, Miss Mijares also fall under the category of Nias Inocentes (Evasco, 1992).

or those women who are unaware of their own victimization by the unwritten codes of
society especially that of women's, which apparently is from a subculture that has other
system of values of its own. This subculture sometimes contradicts or complements with
the general male-dominated culture. This the concept of "cultural duality" by Garvin in
1987 (as cited in Antonio, n.d) is the reason behind the character's internal conflict.
The Mother Archetype, the one that gives nurturance, used the character of
Teresa from the 1969 novella Mila's Mother by Espina-Moore. This mother, in contrast to
the archetype of being the nurturer, is domineering and controlling over her daughter.
This attitude started out when Teresa climbed and struggled onto her current high status
when her engagement with someone from high status failed due to her poverty. She
instead married an American, and when her daughter with him coincidentally wed with
her ex-fiance's son, she became manipulative and caused her American husband to
leave her. This angered Teresa and this anger was diverted towards her own daughter,
as a result, her daughter was never able to empathize with her and became much
closer to her father. By her actions, Teresa falls under the Bitch: the Angry and Bitter
Woman (Evasco, 2005) who "bitches at life and others" (Kintanar, 1992) and by taking
another perspective, these women are seen have become a result of what they have
been through. There is also an emphasis on the lack of solidarity among women.
The third archetype would be the Witch where it is applied to the character of
Minggay from the Edilberto Tiempo's The Witch. Minggay, an old woman past her prime,
was seen by her townsfolk as a powerful and dangerous woman whom they always
held responsible for bad events happening around their area. The author's depiction of
her is the same as the depiction of witches from the world. However, citing Carpentier

(1988), there also exists the category of White Witch, or a good and helpful witches who
are all about compassion and healing, in contrast to the Shadow Witch. Mentioning
Greek witches from mythology, Circe and Medea who fall under the category of both
Shadow and White Witches, there is a comparison on how these two witches and
Minggay is viewed positively, which is on how they were able to help the men they
encountered. The context of witches was also discussed; how they were persecuted by
the society, most especially at the advent of Christianity. Feministic ideals have been
mentioned to discover the reasons behind the persecution and most of the reasons are
because the nature of witches being woman-centered challenges the patriarchy.
The last archetype which is the Queen whom Antonio (n.d) characterized as "the
figure that deals with social problems and issues and is behind all practices or systems
of shared authority in the family (...)". Using Leoncio Deriada's Mariana from the story
Dog Eaters, he twisted the archetype to her being a Shadow Queen who makes
unattainable demands. The character together with her husband who has no permanent
job lives a poor life leaves Mariana having not much choice when her morality was
being challenged. Despite of having her own standards and morality, she was forced to
compromise due the confining situation she is in. She aborted her child whom her
husband forced her to have. Her actions become irresponsible as she makes unhealthy
sacrifices, but by making these sacrifices, she was able to fight for her right to decide,
even when the society sees it as "immoral" for it is the only solution she can make by
being enclosed in the patriarchal structure. Mariana also falls under the category of
Evasco's Mater Dolorosa: Woman as a Martyr, or a woman who suffers a silent distress

and powerlessness in a society with men dictating her choices, but wrestling back her
power by denying her wounds.
Fitzsimmons (2008) wrote about how the Philippines is full of paradoxes and
sharp contrasts, and the role of women is where this depiction is most palpable. While
Fitzsimmons mentioned about how Filipino women has gained more leverage than
other Asian women in elevating their status in society, cultural bias and gender
stereotyping are still barriers hindering them. Delia Aguilar (1989) wrote about how the
Philippines has been influenced by occidental and oriental views, about how the
predominating influence of the man over the women is characteristically oriental. She
also wrote about how when the Philippines was under the US rule the career roles of
women were mostly limited to teacher, nun, or spinster, and that being a nun or spinster
were the most prized because of how Catholicism conferred to virginity.
Basing from the previously mentioned studies, it is evident that women's role
change over time depending on the context of the time period. In summary, women's
function are said to be the responsible ones, centered in human relations and in
keeping the harmony among the family. From colonial era folktales up to the 1900s,
women are the virtuous, the martyrs, the mothers, whose issues regarding their roles
can always be traced back to patriarchy. Most of the dilemmas of these women are
about how their inherent feminine traits such as being motherly, responsible, caring, are
what led them to be stereotyped as subservient and inferior, and how these traits are
defeated by the patriarchy. These studies have shown that their role in the society will
always be rooted and linked to the damages done to the status of women by the
succeeding time periods of colonization and in the end it has always been said that

these women are trying to go against these society-imposed roles by being the fighter,
by being different, by wanting to revolutionize. If this is to be studied, their roles are still
confined in their struggles, and only the causes of their problems or the reason why
their problems exist are discussed extensively.

Statement of the Problem

In order to break the stereotypes and limits in womens roles in the society,
knowing and analyzing what propels these women characters in their wrestling back for
their own power is crucial. It is important to know and analyze the motivations of these
characters and what influences these motivations in the context of the literature itself,
such as the author, because by doing so, there will be more and proper portrayal of
women, wherein their roles will not be restricted into patriarchal issues alone, and that
the plight of women characters can explore deeper concerns and issues. It is important
that in the end, their own plights and quests will not stand defeated by the patriarchy
and male plights. Because in order for the image of women to be free of the negative
perceptions and impositions, their traits, motivations, and thinking should be
acknowledged, and acknowledged as something that is not less significant than that of
men. This study aims to answer the following questions:
1. What are the motivations and the factors that influence the motivations of these
women from the short stories to fight the impositions upon them?
2. How do these factors play in the making of the societal image (concerns,
experiences, and significance) of women?

Framework of the Study

According to Gardiner (1980) "the concept of female identity provides a key to
understanding the special qualities of contemporary writing by women. (p. 348) She
stated that the initial identity theory constituted by male theorists that assumes a male
paradigm for human experience does not encompass the female identity. Identity theory
differs between men's and women's personality because for every aspect or variable of
identity--such as primary identity, gender identity, infantile identification, social role, the
identity crisis, and self-concept, female experience varies from male. She also
elaborated on how boys have more options to choose and experiences to undergo in
the society than the girls who has whose experiences are confined in limited
experiences and rigid prescribed roles.
She proposes the theory of female identity in the literary community where in she
formulated it as: "female identity is a process" and that "the hero is her author's
daughter" (p. 349). She explained the first statement describes the diversity in women's
writings, "particularly its defiance of conventional generic boundaries and of
conventional characterization" (p. 349). This stresses women's identities as flexible and
fluid, because of its processual nature, and is not in disjunct fragments. She stated that
female authors who center on a female heroes uses her text to continue the process of
her self-definition and emphatically identifies with her character, it is a way or process of
how the female seeks to define herself. Her second statement is based on how the
identity formation of female depends on the mother-daughter bond. These female
authors express their own experience in identity process through their characters while

creating the hero herself "thus the author may define herself through the text while
creating her female hero" and is "earning to be a mother, that is, learning to experience
oneself as one's own cared-for child and as one's own caring mother while
simultaneously learning to experience one's creation as other, as separate from the self"
(p. 357). she summarized this formulation applied to literature as "contemporary
women's literature promises that a sense of full, valued, and congruent female identity
may form in the continuing process of give and take that re-creates both self and other
in a supportive community of women." (p. 361)
Upon this theory, it proves that how the female characters are portrayed in fiction
and literature will always be reflective of the image of women in the society, most
especially in their different perspectives and experiences, for in the end she also
mentioned that readers, despite their difference from the characters, "are forced to
recognize that we are or could be like them in similar circumstances." (p. 358)

Methodology
For this study we will be using the research method of Content Analysis which is
the analysis of literary pieces by interpreting and coding textual material. On obtaining
data, we will be using the Philippine literary pieces mentioned in our Review of Related
Literature, we would then begin gathering data, key points, personality, traits,
experiences, and motivations that portrayed the female characters from the stories, and
the factors that contributed to the writing of these personality, traits, experiences, and
motivations of the female characters from the literary pieces in the review of related
literature such as; who is the author and their gender, the time period the literary piece
was written, or its context. There will be a distinguishing and personality break down of
the female characters which will help us in identifying what drives them in fighting
against their societal impositions, and then we will analyze the external factors that
contributed in the portrayal of these women and their societal struggles/roles. Once we

are able to identify these, it will answer the first statement of the problem. From these
gathered data we will then deduce how these factors play in making and in limiting the
societal image of women including womens various concerns, the different experiences
women undergo, and their significance in societythrough these analyzed literary
datas reflection of the reality as mentioned in the framework of the studyand answer
the second statement of the problem.

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