Assumption 4-4 HS Class of 1977

WOMEN'S AND MEN'S ROLES, Anna Dacanay

Anna Dacanay graduated from Assumption High School in 1977 and De La Salle University in 1981. She initially worked in the Kuwait Embassy then moved to the Publications Information Center of the World Bank in Washington DC. Currently, she is an Executive Assistant at Andersen Consulting, one of the top consulting firms worldwide. Her interests are wide-ranging--from baseball to ballroom dancing--and her friends are numerous. Her awesome energy has not waned. Ditto with her infectious laughter and fully charged sense of adventure.

n spite of all the good things the women's liberation movement has done for women, I think it has gone overboard. Men don't know their place anymore while women want to be everywhere and do everything. It's as if the movement had opened Pandora's box.

Looking back to the time of my grandparents, my parents and even my time, everything was much simpler. The relationship between men and women was clearly defined--both knew their roles and place in society.

The men were either the sole providers or main breadwinners of the family while the women, for the most part, played a supportive role. Nowadays, women have lost sight of the roles they play in men's lives unless of course, they've chosen a different path altogether. Society, especially here in the United States, has downplayed the role of housewives. Some people even belittle full-time housewives. It's sad that so many have forgotten and ignored the basic tenets of a stable and happy marriage. That is, one based on traditional values. In the end, the ones who really suffer from broken homes are the children. In some cases, it becomes a vicious cycle.

***The above is an excerpt from "Women really ARE from Venus," Assumpta Newsletter, Vol. 2:1, March 1998.