Plight

We have started our discussions on the works done by the women. The female characters in the stories by Aida Rivera-Ford & Kerima Polotan were miles different from the female characters in the stories of Joaquin, Arguilla, Arcellana and Gonzalez. They were different in that they were not as empowered by either their social status, wealth or beauty.

Tinang, in Love in the Cornhusks, is beset by feelings of regret for an unfulfilled promise, a relationship that never got past the stage of expectation. A love letter that came really late is the story’s source of irony: it is the bearer of lofty ‘what-could-have-been’s. But of course, like a character in a Greek tragedy, Tinang doesn’t notice that, which makes the reader pity her more (or at least, I did). In the end she stops her wishful reminiscing and snaps back to cruel reality—of what-is and what-will-always-be. Then life sweeps her once more towards the mundane chores of a Bagobo’s wife. She is unhappy in her marriage. It seems not to be her choice, maybe because women like her, in the kind of society and time she lives in, are given very few choices. More often, they succumb to the conventional roles they are all “fated” to have (at least in the story’s context).

On the other hand, Ms. Mijares in The Virgin may seem luckier than Tinang since she holds a position of authority and earns and decent living. She is respected (or feared) by people for her power to give them their own decent jobs. Sadly, she is oppressed by the conventional obligations that society imposes on daughters (and youngest siblings), and most especially by the prevailing “old maid” cultural stereotype.

What I find most tragic about these characters is that the only viable solution to their condition is found in men. Men are the only conceivable salvation and respite from the invisible but powerful ideological pressures imposed by the patriarchal system. Tinang might have married the Bagobo out of convenience, to save face, against her will. Ms. Mijares perceives her virginity (never been touched by a man ever before) as a liability and therefore chooses—no, surrenders to the man in the end, not because she loves him. She just has to.

I don’t find it ironic that it is the women who would have these kinds of characters in their stories. If anything, they were merely being honest about the plight of the Filipina, especially in these writers’ milieu. I do hope that things are considerably different right now. I hope that its not just me who thinks women have a lot more choices now, that women aren’t just passive victims of the usual circumstance.

The stories can tell that, and I can’t wait to get to the contemporary writings by women.