#20: Kill the Housewife

If you say a woman is empowered, does it always have to mean that she wakes up everyday 6:00am, squeezes herself into power clothes, struts smugly along Ayala and rubs elbows with the upper crust of the professional world?

Or are they the ones who chose to spend half their significant lives in the adding initials after their names, holding books and papers and theses and markers rather than human beings, shielding themselves from their own insecurities by building a cornucopia of complicated jargon around their lives?

Do they think that women who are forced to stay in their workplaces until 11pm for a production or a deadline, who makes their homes sleeping cabins, who spends more time touching their keyboards than their estranged kids, are the successful ones?

Are they the ones so-called feminists "encourage" to have their backs turned against their emasculated husbands and love-thirsty children so they can tell the world "I chose."?

Chose what?

A feminist professor (along with other academicians) in the film academy I went to totally rejected the thesis concept of my poor little sister. Her film was based on a children's story about a mother who had rough hands because she chose to serve her family by being a housewife. Because of the endless scrubbing and chopping and wiping, she ended up with rough hands. But at the end of the day, when they are all together, her seemingly rough hands are the gentlest as they are extended to embrace and care for her husband and children. The professors argued that this story encourages the discrimination of women. Just because the "housewife" is being glorified. They're so scandalized by the concept they can't even imagine that her work is even a concept that came from a UP (there I said it) student!

"Taga-UP ka pa naman, tapos ganyan yung concept mo, about a housewife?"

Teka, teka, teka. So now, just because a woman choses to serve the family rather than the capitalists that they hate every now and then, a woman is valued less? I know feminism stands for many things but does it include a woman having to reject domestic and familial responsibilities altogether even if it IS their choice? I thought women's rights were about having the freedom to choose between a domestic or career-driven lifestyle, to not be confined to the house if they want to try their wings outside. I never thought that it meant looking down at those women who chose to stay home as they find joy in serving their family. If feminism and women's rights are all about gaining respect because they work, then there's no point giving women a choice. It defeats the very reason they fought for feminis in the first place.

Apparently, these narrow-minded professors missed this important detail in the concept: the woman is happy. To be able to follow your calling and joy should be the essence of feminism, not to harbor as much power and wealth as you can in this materialistic world even if it means you will have to be miserable and alone all your life. Sometimes, I even think that this societal pressure for women to have to be competitive in the professional world is taking women's liberation on the other end of the spectrum: to not have the choice to simply be a wife and a mother.

These guys totally missed the point. Maybe that's why I have film professors that are messed up. Don't they see the value of having a mother care for you and your household everyday? Would they prefer a strange yaya to mold their children's minds? If they honor those women who found their empowerment in climbing up the career ladder, then they should also respect those who chose to have rough hands.