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The Gender Issue
By Cha Dela Cruz
Gender is defined as the classification of a person as masculine or feminine (male or female gender). The very moment a child is born, society immediately declares what his/her attitudes, behaviour etc must be. If the child is girl, she is given dolls, dressed in skirts of bright colours and flowery designs. She is taught household chores, following the footsteps of her mother; cooking, washing, cleaning the house, ironing clothes, taking care of the baby and staying at home at all times. If the child is a boy, he is given toy guns, toy cars, dressed in pants, not allowed to cry and is not obliged to do household chores.
For such realities, we can say that it is society that declares the roles of men and women and how they should relate to each other. It dictates how men and women should act and behave and clearly defines their functions and responsibilities. All this is known as gender.
However, in most cases, a person's gender is classifies and moulded or shaped through their physical nature - according to the individual's sex. Physical nature refers to the difference between the male and female sex organs. Other differences include hair growth as distributed in different parts of the body, voice and muscular developments. This natural phenomenon explains why it is the woman who gets pregnant and the man who impregnates her. Therefore, it follows that each has different roles in child rearing and the capacity to increase the population.
On the other hand, some societal roles and responsibilities can be declared only through their sexes - mostly biological differences simply become the basis for looking at them unequally. Just because she is a woman does not mean she has no right to work, be the family leader, wear trousers, cut her hair short etc. In the same way, just because he is a man does not mean he should not be washing, cooking, sewing, ironing, growing his hair long, etc.
Men and women's roles change according to the time and place or the different situations in which they find themselves. And since society plays a major role in their lives, if inequality and exploitation prevail within society, it follows that unequal and exploitative practices will also exist between the sexes. Therefore equality, not only between gender and sex, but also between people correlates to a progressive and liberated society.
In Asian countries, especially Christian/Catholic countries, patriarchal societies prevail, in which men are considered superior and women inferior. Emphasis is placed on the Christian/Catholic traditions because the feudal system is still practiced. Spanish colonisers and other "superior" countries teach their colonies such values as obedience, respect, honesty, kindness - all in themselves good values but when taught as part of the feudal system they became only the means the exploit people. For example, in the feudal economic system, the father is the head of the family. He is the king, and his wife and children are the subordinates. It is in such a context that we find wives being very submissive to the dictates of their husbands, and women being prone to physical and sexual abuse. In Western countries religion does not affect the treatment of women in the same way. Women are treated with equal respect and have a place in society such as in government. Their voice is heard and listened to. Although this is not true of all Western countries, most Western women are more progressive and are asserting themselves more.
Asian women, however, are now starting to study their situation and organise themselves to protest against different forms of exploitation. Gender issues are becoming more and more popular among Asian women and different organisations are focussing on women's issues (eg. health, reproductive rights, rape victims, battered women etc.) Since these problems of men and women are deeply rooted within particular environment and societies, change is a long term process. To effect change is the only key towards women's empowerment and equal rights and opportunities.
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