Constructing the New Man: Manliness in Gender-Neutral Society

How Society Construct the Man

“All men are created equal” and that applies to women too.

We are in a transition into a post-modern era (and post-feminist world) where the value of gender equality and gender neutrality has been affecting our culture and our society. It may takes time to level the effect but its effect is being observed at the present.

For myself, I cannot fully understand what feminism is all about unless I understand what masculinity (the identity that society constructs me) is all about. Self is the one which emerges not just from the individual, but with how others see the person, and how the person responds to and develops his or her own responses to this. Part of myself was being constructed by how others see me and how I viewed and affected by society in which I belong.

As a child, on my early phases of socialization, it was beyond my knowledge to question and notice the inequality of gender, and I belong to masculine specie (the separation of sexes) that should display manliness behaviors and have to be opposite to behaviors displayed by girls or women. I should exhibit manly behavior as defined by my father, Tito’s, kuya’s and other male role model or idols around the community or actors in local TV and cinema.

During my elementary school days, you were taught that mothers are “Ilaw ng Tahanan” and fathers are “Haligi ng Tahanan” and Home economics was for girls while Practical Arts like wood working was for boys.

The Catholic church doesn’t tell you how to be a man but how to be Christian. And Jesus is not an image of masculinity but of holiness. Teachers also don’t teach us how to be a man, but teaches us the usage of language, how to read and write. Our parents teach us how our gender is different from our brothers or sisters by the clothes and its color that we wear, our toys, our school bags and other things that the society traditionally identify as male or female things and objects.

The difference in gender was being defined by our Patriarchal society and inequality in gender was only being defined when these differences in gender, that is being constructed by our society, acts as the main cause of inequality. Considering that masculine behavior is constructed to be authoritarian, superior, dominant, analytical, divisive etc and feminine behavior should be nurturing, passive, submissive, sex object, private and etc…

If Patriarchal culture has became the authority and only represents the superiority of class or one sex or gender, then only one class or gender will emerge. Henrik Jensen said that “Culture is made up of two legs: one leg is duty and one is rights.” If the duty of culture is to create all man equal, then that equality should be applied to women too, which is also their rights.

Masculinity defined: What is Manliness

The development of new man or “the enlightened man,” as others called it, of tomorrow is not specifically for men alone but for men and women together. If there’s nothing special about being a boy or a girl, because girls can do everything boys can do, then what is the characteristic of manliness that can’t be a characteristic of being a woman.

In the development of identity, boys learned from seeing role models around them—their grandfathers, their fathers, or their idols in the movie or TV. What if sons don’t spend much time with their fathers or with other men in their family who are role models and spend much time outside their family.

Is masculinity in our culture being defined more by Fernando Poe Jr., Robin Padilla, Derek Ramsey, Dingdong Dantes or Hollywood actors? Or other male figures in Computer games and sports heroes.

According to Dr. Harvey Mansfield, Professor, Philosopher and Writer, every human being has characteristics of being a Thumos (the need to depend yourself) and Eros (the need to improve yourself – love, yearning, opening) . Manliness is more of being a Thumos, and women can have that manliness (e.g. Margaret Thatcher) but more men than women have it.

Before the Romans, there was the Greeks and manliness was being defined by Homer and exaggeratedly by Achilles –that displayed a lot of being a Thumos. Roman culture was very manly—very imperialistic, dominating, and assertive. Then Christianity went back in the other direction, bringing with it a combination of anti-manliness and a denial of human pride. Manliness is very proud and very desirous of honor, whereas Christianity teaches humility. It has a lot of femininity in it. It’s full of women saints and, of course, the worship of Mary. But it also brought with it a transformation of manliness into something more Christian—the gentleman or the chivalrous knight who was devoted to a woman, who fought battles in order to please or at least impress a lady.

According to Dr. Harvey Mansfield, there are ordinary manliness and its opposite, philosophical manliness. Ordinary manliness is a little bit complacent, whereas philosophical manliness is challenging or being willing to question all of your precious, darling ideas—everything that’s precious to you, all of your possessions, wondering whether they are really valuable or not. It takes a certain courage to stand up to your own previous opinions or positions and perhaps also the public opinion of society at the time.

“Ordinary manliness is being satisfied with yourself and knowing yourself to be superior, or at least satisfactory, as you are. You’re not apologizing; you’re not yearning for something better - you are what you are. A manly man is very judgmental. He looks down on those who don’t have this obviously good characteristic.”

Manliness, for males, can be seen and express in sports and the attention we give to sports. Men love extreme sports — taking crazy risks, the desire for adventure, competition and other physical activity. Dr. Mansfield said that “Those are not necessarily responsible forms of manliness, but they are expressions of it when nothing else is expected, when it isn’t expected of you”.

Manliness, for those who practice Buddhism, is having the characteristic to control strength—strength that isn’t used for acts of violence but for acts of nobility. Manliness has strength to convinced men or women that they are not weak or by making them strong.

Manliness, for Christians, is valuing other people more beside yourself. "When you value other people more than you value even yourself, you move toward meekness, because now all your strength serves the good of others".

From the traditionalist, masculine—which Henrik calls the “father”—is not simply about men as individuals but is an essential aspect of culture. He sees it as the vertical dimension, which includes everything that human beings have looked up to, from God on high to ideals and excellence as well as the father’s traditional moral authority.

In the field of politics and fight for equality and freedom, manliness is defined and exemplified by such people like Jose Rizal, Benigno Aquino Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela where they gave voice and strength to the powerless. They serve an inspiration, they gave hope and fight for freedom and never surrender in getting it. They have the quality to defeat a foe not by their aggression or physical strength but their courage to fight what is right and having the humility that they are not that superior or powerful as being displayed by other man. If Dr. Harvey Mansfield defines manliness as confidence in the face of risk then the men above were not only confidence during their struggle but defined it through their action.

(Maybe, women can define best what manliness is.)

Deconstructing the Man: Men Becoming Like Women

Before, our society is being stratified by sex or gender, now gender matters as little as possible. Gender doesn’t mean anything for employment, politics, or sharing work and family. Gender has nothing to do with who cooks or takes care of children. Men and women are equally able to do these things.

With the emergence of feminist ideas and a call for gender equality, traditional men and women roles are switching and both roles are being played by both sexes. Women can be the family’s financial provider and the men are playing the traditional role of women as housewives.

There is one town in Batangas, known locally as “Italy” because of houses in that area are architecturally designed like residential house in Italy. The Italian model house was a product by working abroad (OFW) by a women or mothers while their husbands take care of their family and their home - a switching of traditional role.

It also breaks the rule that men should be in public and women in private. The limited space for women before has become a space where women can express their freedom and identity – of not just being a wife in a man’s world.

When you’re in the mall, you can see male pushing baby’s carriage, holding bottled milk, changing diapers, or carrying their baby, just what mother’s traditional and society’s image of nurturing.

Being a Nurse is not only for woman’s job. Nursing is one college course with the highest enrollment and it was being shared equally by male students. In Business outsourcing employment, Call Center Agents (somehow likened to a job of telephone operator, a job for women) was also being populated by males. Information technology breaks gender barriers.

In politics, male legislators can debate publicly with women, contrasting that arguments with woman should be kept in a domestic place that is private. Before, arguing with women in public place can be considered unmanly when viewed from a masculine point of view.

In early childhood education in Sweden, little boys are given dolls to play with and girls are given toy tractors. It’s all part of the Anti-Sexism Awareness Training that begins in kindergarten. In the United states, the same educational experiment on gender deconstruction ends up on using of dolls as machine guns by boys and cradling the tractors in a blanket by girls.

Man’s changing roles and image and doing what is not traditionally questions what its like to be a man in postmodern culture.

Media and Metrosexual Man: Transition into a Neutral Gender Society

In our media, there’s a television show titled, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” that reconstruct a man that can impress and win the heart of a woman. The man is being groomed by five gays on his new personality – new looks, how to dress, how to prepare sumptuous meal and a makeover of his abode. The make over is more of a feminine touch transforming a man into somehow like a - Metrosexual man.

Metrosexual man as being defined in Wikipedia, is the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that’s where all the best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade. In the Eighties he was only to be found inside fashion magazines such as GQ, in television advertisements for Levis jeans or in gay bars. In the Nineties, he’s everywhere and he’s going shopping.

Culture Creates Pictures of Who We Are Supposed to Be

Culture creates pictures of who we’re supposed to be, and sometimes there are strange sub-messages. Strange in a way that what is used be not ordinary before becomes ordinarily and culturally being accepted now by our society. How is it to be a masculine in a creeping gender less society? If signs that women are getting their equality and voices be heard, the image of traditional men should be represented and repackage in a transition as a new man.

David Beckham, the football star player, is the one who exemplified a new man compared to traditional manliness being defined by Achilles, the Samurai’s, the cowboys, the knights and "Rambo". David Beckham, being called the metrosexual poster boy, was always on the cover of the magazines for men and women, wearing a designer’s clothes, with make-up, groomed hair and these are all being cooperatively done with a feminist touch by men with queer eyes. Male models are being depicted in print and advertising media in the same way and these images, signs and symbols are being perceived by our society and it is becoming our culture. Add to that the Filipinos habit and culture of “malling” , one example of socialization that construct everyday reality.

In one our local reality TV show, there’s a male participant that wears head band on his hair, and this influenced youths fashion, especially on males, straight or not, wearing hair bands that is especially wear by girls.

Tights or leggings that come originally and wear by ballerina, and popularly fashioned by women is also now being wear by males - that is in mountaineering. And it looks good on picture on your “Facebook.” Wearing tights has become a fashion statement for “mountaineers,” I wear one in black color. It is more comfortable wearing tights (underneath a short) in trekking mountains, it is easily dried, it protects your lower skin from insect bites and heat and scratches from the wild plants. Functionality of things knows no gender.

Color also breaks the gender differences. You can see males wearing pink shirts or pastel colors that are ordinarily matched and worn by females. I’ve seen a pink car being driven by a male. I’ve seen nails of a man being polished by lavender. There’s also a Politician that always wear a floral design shirt and it’s a good “gimmick” for packaging his image and name recall for political purposes. From these, we can’t judge that these men are not straight on their masculinity.

Man’s culture on fashion and how they dress is changing. Taste is being dictated by advertisement coming from both genders. Vanity also, is not only for women. My nephew, in his teens, applies some face powder on his face to prevent an oily skin from showing.Males have products like cream to wash their faces, hair spray and wear long hair in dread locks. We are on a transition into a gender-neutral society.

“We don’t know what the future of masculinity looks like, some sociologist and scholars think that we’re entering an era of real fragmentation where guys are going to be the ones who are struggling with a sense of personal identity and where there will be a sense of ambivalence about what it means to be masculine”.

In real world, the rule of equality is still outbalanced by superiority, dominance and aggression- the characteristics of being manly and of being a Patriarchal society. And we can say that there’s a lot of catching up before we can finally blur the line between opposite genders.

Man (Male and Female) in a Gender Less Society

Can men or boys be confused in a gender less society as women are confused between home and work when they entered the public sphere of the “man’s world.”

Social science writer Elizabeth Debold states that, women in order to succeed at work, have to be single-minded. They have to be able to shut off distractions and concentrate on their job. In order to be successful at home, on the other hand, and especially as a mother, they have to be open to interruption all the time from their children, who think they’re entitled to one hundred percent of their time just by being born. It’s much more spread out and distracted. They really have to like being distracted in order to be successful.

That’s one thing that we cannot separate with women, their nurturing and motherly qualities. Men should spend more time with their family or son’s or daughter in order to understand or how to feel, how to care and nurture – men should balance their time on being public and private individuals.

For me as a male, being manly is not to take charge or to dominate but always to be responsible; to be responsible in your actions, with your family, and society. Responsibility is not for male alone but for each individual.

If men can be confused whether they’re meant to be manly and take charge and be responsible—and even to continue with the usual small courtesies that a gentleman is supposed to offer women, I think men should always be gentleman at women and women should be ladies to men. Playing it equal is not taking charge or to dominate but to take and hear the other sides point of view. Playing it equal doesn’t mean that I will not open the door for ladies or not offer my manly strength for them when needed, it is courtesy and respect for the opposite sex or any individual. It will always be in man’s nature to impress a girl by his “masculinity”, a word that will always identify males.

The gender-neutral society has to let the two genders be themselves to some extent. There needs to be respect for both gender or sex, even with all of his/her faults. We cannot separate man of having his own manly version or a mixture of both feminine and masculine inclination, and of female having manliness and feminist behavior - it is in our nature to both express in masculine and feminist behavior because it is biologically and psychologically within each individual.

We must retain our respect for identity and diversity and not to discriminate or not to separate by each differences. Society can be everything, as it is being shaped by individuals composing it. Like an ecosystem that is being composed of different species, where gender matters less, society can maintain and preserve its diversity in a harmonious way.

“When men transcend not only personal egoic structures but a lot of rigid modern and postmodern ways of thinking, what emerges is a kind of noncompetitive care and communion that expresses the best part of our humanity”

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Jebel

Sources:
Wikipedia
Resources from the MMS 111 module
Answers.com
Enlighten Next Magazine :Constructing the New Man
Whatever Happened to the Vikings, Elizabeth Debold
Beyond the Rambo Mentality, Carter Phipps and Tom Huston
In Defense of Manliness, Interview with Dr. Harvey Mansfield by Ross
Robertson
Constructing the New Man, Carter Phipps

What it Means to be a Man, Andrew Cohen & Ken Wilber in dialogue

King, Warrior, Magician, Lover – archetypes of the mature Masculine
By Eivind Figenschau Skjellum

Women’s Image: In the Name of the Father

Biographical Perspective

As a child, individual’s differences, biological and physical, means you are either girl or a boy, ate or kuya, Nanay or Tatay, Ale or Mama or Lola or Lolo. Gender was not a word then, and even the word sex or sexuality was beyond child’s understanding.

The roles that associated with male and female are socially presented at home and in school. Law enforcers (police officers) and carpenters are male. Being a school teacher is not entirely for female because my Lolo and my Titas were teachers but the profession is dominated by female because most of my Ma'ams are female. Most mothers, like my Nanay, are “plain housewives” that practiced societies traditions of women's established roles — like cooking and preparing meals, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, and keeping our home clean.

As we grow up, we learn more through socialization and added more male roles like tubero, kartero, barbero, kargador and basurero (what do you call the female counterpart of these), and few female roles like manicurista, labandera, and tindera. But working mothers are not new to me. When I was a child, I always accompanied my Lola selling clothes and dresses to our cousin’s place, an agricultural barrio, where female helps in farming and other related agricultural activity.

Man as Public, Woman as Domestic

My Lola was more active in her social life, she had a religious group and was always being invited to lead a prayer for “Padasal” in the barrio. During the late 70’s, my Lola was also active in organizing events for their Women’s Circle, a group being organized by our Kapitan de Barangay, a woman. I think the Women’s Circle was a project of Imelda Marcos, the First lady at that time.

On a patriarchal or masculine view that man should be in public and women should be domestic, which reinforces more social division and gender inequality, then women should have all the rights to protest and be heard. Being domestic is being personal, and what is personal is also political. Being political involves the whole society. As the feminist movement insistence that, “What goes on behind the closed doors of the domestic sphere has everything to do with what goes on outside it.”

In our neighborhood, women becoming a public figure or having a freedom from being domestic was not depended on challenging or protesting male societal dominance or the influence of our female Kapitan de Barangay or the image of the First Lady as an empowered and powerful woman - maybe an effect by the second wave feminist movement in the US. But maybe, it’s all because of Imelda, our First Lady then. Then, we have to thank her for that.

It has been natural in our neighborhood to see women who drinks liquor (outside their home, in the streets) or drinking liquor with men. During the “drinking session”, women sing and dance as if they were celebrating their freedom. Or maybe it was a challenge then to be free from the imposition of curfew hours during the martial law era. Maybe, women then were learning to live in a man’s world , as traditional saying goes.

Women's Identity is Constructed in Relation to History

And Religion and Culture Construct differences in Gender.

Before the coming of the Spaniards, native unmarried Filipino women, in their stage of puberty, were encouraged by their cultural orientation at the time to participate freely in sexual activities. Early Filipino tribal men had five or more wives, practicing polygamy, a marital ethnic norm of the archipelago at the time. Adornments in male sex organs were also being used in sexual activity.

When Spanish came to the Philippines, the Roman Catholic Church influenced the legal, political and religious views on sexuality and altered ancient culture. Premarital sex and masturbation, according to Catholic Church, were immoral behavior. With the influence of religion, Filipino male should choose to marry virgin women and that woman should maintain their virginity until marriage. Catholic Church patterned the image of Filipina to Virgin Mary.The story of creation, from the book of Genesis, stated that Eve comes from Adam’s flesh. And it was Eve who tempted Adam to taste the “apple of sin.” Premarital sex and having many wives was not a sin or immoral before the coming of the Spaniards.

From Barbara W. Andaya’s book review of “Holy Confrontations, Religion Gender and Sexuality in the Philippines”, published by Manila Institute of Womens Studies, states that: "the battery of tools used by the Church in the re-education process of the Filipino people were promoted through Christian plays, songs, catechisms, sermons, biblical adaptations; priests also made good use of the confessional and compulsory church attendance to identify and condemn unacceptable behavior, forcing compliance by punishments and the threat of hellfire. Possibly the most effective tool was the censorship which Filipinos imposed on themselves, a new culture of guilt that was mostly strikingly manifested in self-flagellation or the culture of guilt on women as they go to church wearing veil in their heads, bowing and looking low."

The Church taught the Filipino people to love God. Church being the instrument or voice of the Lord has the authority to know what is right or wrong and what is evil and good. The Catholic Church promoted the Christian ideas such as "wife's fidelity to her husband", premarital virginity, and the notion of a women’s role as a nurturing mother. Women’s fixed role as mother was determined by their natural and biological capacity to bear children – a Christian view that life is a gift to give life. These ideas and teachings of the church were being passed to mothers, then to their daughters, then to daughter's daughter and so on. Christian women were trained or molded in the same way as an image of the Virgin Mary and being prepared for household work as a good and faithful mother and wife.

During the 17th and 18th century, while France was debating on theological nature of women, equal opportunity, right of suffrages and having the same potential for rational thoughts as men, Catholic church in the Philippines was busy in restructuring the image of Filipina women from ancient freedom of sexual practices to Maria Clara as being illustrated in Jose Rizal’s novel. Maria Clara was not only a creation of Dr. Rizal’s novel but was born and molded by history, religion and culture: as passive, domestic cooks, sex object, confined in a limited space and as subordinate and into the keeping of men.

But great history was always written by great men, that’s what the history says. History is always written by the victors, or the conquerors and colonizers – the superior male. Spanish comes with bible and swords in hand, American comes with chocolates and guns, both came from a traditional Patriarchal society where history is determined by great wars and great men. Great war in history always started with male’s great ego of owning or possessing things, or acquiring objects he doesn’t own, and to accumulate wealth, property and power. Man is always trying to conquer or control and always wanted to be more powerful than other man. There are a number of conquerors in our history and literature (take for example the story of the Fall of Troy) where woman is the object of possession. (Computer games for male are designed in a way how male love to possess and conquer, how to acquire power and to be in control.)

It is said that women in (post)colonial cultures have been termed ‘the twice colonized’, both by the imperial and the male social order. As such, women and the colonized are seen as sharing an experience of oppression and subjugation that has constructed their very beings.

The image of our Filipino women is also a reflection of Philippines being twice colonized (or thrice). Filipina, when entering into marriage, carry the name of the male, the patriarchal tradition of having or carrying the name (surname) of your husband (which is pass on to the sons and daughters). We can say that women are twice being colonized, not by colonizing country but by Patriarchal tradition of male society, by carrying the name of their husband (if they marry) and their father - twice carrying the name of two man (and completely removing the name of the mother). Compared that to male where they carry both their parent's last name - and yes, we can call that inequality.

But there are movements to balance the inequality, the movement in feminism can be one.

GABRIELA, a feminist group representing second wave (?) feminist movement in the Philippines, incorporates the importance of History in their song titled “MARIA,” a challenge to cultural construction of women as passive, as sex objects or domestic cooks. The song identifies heroines such as Lorena Barros, Gabriela Silang, and Tandang Sora to develop feminist consciousness among Filipina. The Lyrics of the song Maria:

Maria

I. Mula ng isilang ka, Maria

Dinanas mo na

Ang mga pang-aaping

‘Di mo makaya

II. Ika’y nalilito,

Ika’y nagtatanong

Bakit ba ganito ang papel

ng mga Maria

III. Maria. Ika’y hindi pangkusina

Hindi pangkama

Ika’y di bagay tingnan

Sa pagnanasa

Ika’y hindi laruan

Pag nagasawa’y iiwan

Ika’y babaeng may karapatan

IV. Maria, Maria iyong pag-aralan

Maria, ang iyong kasaysayan

V. Si Lorena, Gabriela at Tandang Sora

Naaalala niyo pa ba sila

Sila ang huwaran

Nang bagong Pilipina

Sila ay ikaw at ikaw ay sila

VI. Maria, Maria iyong ipaglaban

Maria, Maria ang iyong karapatan

Lessons Learned from FPJ Movies: As Compared to Male Gaze

Male peer groups during puberty period teach you how to look at men’s magazine. It tells you that you are not a boy but a male and your body is different from the female. Then you look at girls and women differently and look at women on the pages of the men’s magazine and silver screen with visual pleasure.

But FPJ (Fernando Poe Jr.) movies don’t teach you how to look at women as being suggested in other male magazine and silver screen. If other filmmakers are using camera as an extension of “male gaze”, I can say that he did not. Not only FPJ movies help you understand and relate your sexual identity and male gender roles, it also shows you that woman is to be protected and rescued from the “goons” and villains that don’t respect women. But also, women or leading ladies in FPJ movies are not leading ladies but a supporting casts to show that FPJ can fight and defeat a number of goons, by fist or by gun. Woman is cast as wife and mother, to somehow show that FPJ is a responsible husband and good provider for the family –a good shepherd… or more of a sheep but can be a lion when provoked and hurt, especially his loved ones. Woman in FPJ movies is not a creation of the masculine gaze, as compared to John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, but a creation to support and project the masculinity of man.

Laura Mulvey and her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” which was published in 1975, states that in film, women are typically the objects, rather than the possessors, of gaze because the control of the camera (and thus the gaze) comes from factors such as the assumption of heterosexual men as the default target audience for most film genres.

FPJ movies in representing women rarely shows provocative shots that scan the contour of the women’s body, pouting lips as in magazine ads, curling figure of women with their hands on their neck or face – visual messages hinting, or suggesting, a provocation to touch, or suggesting visual language of desire. FPJ’s visual language doesn’t suggest that women should self-consciously watches themselves because they will be looked at from a male viewpoint. And male, coming from the feminist view, has a voyeuristic way of looking at women.

But it was just me, coming from the viewpoint of a child watching an FPJ movie.

Voices and Choices: Are Women Traditionally Conservative

Studying filmaking teach me how to watch different films. From FPJ movies and other action oriented film to artistic film as they say. In an artistic film, it is only normal to show nude body of a woman, or a sexual intercourse between male and female and not call it pornography. But there is a big difference between art film and pornography film. Art film tells a story, and each film elements are arrange not to satisfy sexual desire of one sexual group or males, which is the main target of visual content of pornography, eliciting male lasciviousness.

It is only right for Feminist group to struggle, not only for equal rights as men, or their voices to be heard, and have the freedom of choice (reproductive rights) but also to combat the way how there are being represented in the mass media, especially in visual media. But, there’s always two contradictory sides regarding the subject on women’s conservatism. Take for example the contradictory views on abortion. Is abortion a choice of liberated women and anti-abortion reinforces the traditional sexual conservatism of women? Are women traditionally sexually conservative? Or, are Filipino women traditionally sexually conservative? Let’s go back to our ancient women before the Spanish and it contradicts the meaning of conservatism. Maybe we can view that conservatism is just the cloth that the Catholic Church is trying to cover our ancient tradition.

From the Image of the Church to Image of Mass Media

Our film censors are so conservative in terms of showing vital and private parts of the human body - one of the changes and influences brought by the Catholic Church. Our society has been balancing on being conservative enough in saying that private should not be presented in public. Or what’s private or personal between husband and wife should stay in domestic place - a Patriarchal statement coming from the Catholic Church. But the image of women is changing because of effects of feminist movements and other movements calling for gender equality . It is changing, from the old image molded and restructured by the church to modern women as being represented in today's mass media.

But are we advertising women as sex in today's mass media? Women are the sex (which is different in meaning from its counterpart which is masculine) which is constantly questioned, explained and defined. Visual advertising now used all parts of the women’s body to sell a product. A shot of a nice and beautiful polished nail of a women, hand on her cheek, can take away the concentration and focus of male driving in EDSA

Take for example the effect of visual desire (male gaze?) of Debra Winger’s nude (breast) shot in the film “The Sheltering Sky”. The image can be different from the same nude half body shot of Rosanna Roces in “Selya” (a film by Carlos Siguion-Reyna). Or the sexual activity between Nicolas Cage and his partner, Elizabeth Sue in the film “Leaving Las Vegas” is different between the shot of Daniel Fernando and Anna Marie Guitierez in the film “Scorpio Nights”. Scorpio Nights is building its story on sexual desire itself while “Leaving Las Vegas” is building its visual story on not desiring to live or just to live.

Comparing local cinema to Hollywood, in particular, the effect of Rosanna Roces on the screen is different than Debra Winger maybe because Rosanna is being package and molded by the media as a sexy actress and Debra is more on drama film. Most of her films are sexy films or erotic as some press people described. When she appears on the screen, male audiences are expecting that she will show her nude body and or she will be having a sexual intercourse with male. I don’t know if the film “Selya” is trying to repackage the image of Rosanna from a sexy actress to dramatic actress. But the result of ticket sale shows that audiences prefer Rosanna as a sexy actress or sex object at that time. And considering the time and effort of the press people and movie producers to project and package Rosanna as a sexy actress, one film is not enough to erase the old image, it will take time (as in making a tradition) as the Catholic Church have done in restructuring the image of ancient Filipina to a Maria Clara

Lualhati Bautista’s writing, like “Dekada 70”, as a voice within a woman is one example of second wave (or third) feminist movement here in the Philippines. I’ve watchedthe film adaptation of “Dekada 70” and registered in my mind Amanda Bartolomes’ dialogue, “You’re just my wife,” repeating what her husband just said and her husband’s dialogue, “Well honey, it’s a man’s world.”

(Dekada 70 is a story of a mother to all five boys in raising her family during the time of Martial Law. A family within a society during Martial law or military law and being ruled by a dictator - suggesting what the husband says in the movie that it’s a man’s world. But the story ended where there’s a change in political climate, the 1986 EDSA Revolution and the emergence of a new leader, a woman.)

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Sources:

Wikipedia

Female Desires, Rosalind Coward

Social Construction of Gender

Feminist Theory, Wikipedia

Post Colonial Masculinities, Derek Stanovsky

Gender, Answers.com

Notes On Male Gaze, David Chandler