talaga naman

meanwhile a woman whose bubble has yet to burst: GMA.

imagine! discussing and deciding on charter change at 2:00 in the morning, on a weekday. when no sane Filipino is awake, unless they're call center agents who are in fact living vicariously in another country.

and really, the panggagago is so obvious i've been meaning to scream.

the majority has decided to amend certain sections of the rules of the house, so that they can in the process railroad the constituent assembly towards charter change. the majority currently wants to read a resolution that they say has been signed by a majority, and which talks about the implementation of con ass.

the clincher? they are talking about implementation BEFORE the conass resolution itself is even discussed and approved.

earlier, they also railroaded the vote on what seems to be a harmless thing: changing the constitution will now only require the same process as any bill that congress wishes to pass from the budget for their pork barrels to just getting pills sold over the counter.

kumusta naman? charter change is equal to contraception in our drug stores?

GMA's boys in congress are obviously set on convening the constituent assembly ALREADY, as in right now, this very minute. ganda.

thank god for the partylist representatives, and yes, the opposition. while i know that the opposition is made up of very distinct -- and probably indestructible -- interests, their function within the halls of congress is undoubtedly clear. particularly in the face of a president like GMA who is, sabi nga ni Sir Bien, kapit-tuko.

meanwhile, GMA banks on the rest of us who just don't give a shit -- or are tired of giving a shit. or maybe who just don't know any better. or most probably, just busy trying to survive our lives seemingly independent of the nation.

yes, going back to the streets. where bubbles become irrelevant.

and now a cheap thrill: miriam defensor-santiago just got her bubble pricked.

thank you for dropping her from that list of candidates for chief justice, whoever/whatever you are who has the power to do so.

come on now, let's take GMA on.

The Big P and Sisterhood

Patriarchy, yes.

(Or perhaps even C-apitalism?)

Not a word I particularly like to use either, as it easily becomes this all-encompassing abstraction on which we can blame all our misery as women. As though we took no part in oppressing each other, or ourselves.

I was, and continue to be, wary of stereotypes, and lumping all of these women into one stereotype and criticizing them knowing that, really, I have no idea what’s going on inside their heads, in their lives. I guess this comes from my hearing people criticize the stereotype that I fall into, and all that time, my wanting to defend myself and say, “That’s not what it’s like at all.” I guess it is a reaction to the snobbishness and the smugness I see too much of around me.

I do realize a drawback to this wariness—and it is that it often paralyzes me, makes me unable to make any sort of criticism at all. And so I realize now that one has to begin somewhere, and I will have to agree that “making those stereotypes, and seeing ourselves within and beyond them,” is a pretty powerful place to start.

I wonder, though, what she has to say, Ms. Cosmo chick. And amidst all this criticism, I wonder how it is possible to find affinity with her, how sisterhood is possible.

popping our own bubbles

What ultimately scares me about theorizing on the existence of that Bubble (with a capital letter B), within which we all inevitably fall as women, is that it brings us back to a capital letter P-atriarchy.

That bigger Bubble makes victims of all of us, and puts the blame of our divisiveness on an all-encompassing power that has made us wary and critical of each other. To have that bigger Bubble to fall back on, is to be dependent on Patriarchy and its view of us as a collective of women.

I would like to think that we are here talking like this precisely because we have burst that bigger Bubble.

Because we now have the capacity to speak to each other and be critical of what we do as women, regardless of what the men think. Because we can now have as premise the assertion that there is no sisterhood among us all Pinays, that we are not required to find affinity with each other just because of our biological make-up. When in the onset, feminism was about coming together with ALL women across race, class and religion, we meanwhile grew up in a Pinoy society that points to anything but unity. And it has become every Pinay for herself in the face of each other; not all of us against that one Patriarchy, or that one big Bubble.

I would like to think that as we delved into the difference between "us" academic chicks and "them" cosmo chicks, or "us" loyal and romantic wives/girlfriends/mothers and "them" career women, that we were aware of the fact that we were asserting stereotypes and choosing one over the other. That we were making those stereotypes, and seeing ourselves within and beyond them, is good enough for me. That we know of women who will continue to be oppressed because they don't have the material conditions to be anything else is powerful enough as it is.

I would rather see many bubbles created by different/differing Pinays, then believe in that one big bubble created by that man who purportedly oppresses us with his mere gaze.

We after all, can already look back. And win a staring contest -- with a man, or woman. And then prick their bubbles as we go along.

Them and Us ( or Too Many Questions)

Do these women really have the kind of choice they appear to have? Do they make this choice fully aware of what its implications are? Perhaps they themselves are victims of the condition that they help create. Perhaps there is actually a bigger bubble within which they create their own bubbles, the Bubble they have no control over, the Bubble that makes women look with disdain and contempt upon other women. And really the “choice” that they have made is just a coping mechanism, the same way that the choice that WE have made may also be just our own way of surviving with some dignity in this Bubble that so indignifies us. Can we really fault these women for all the insecurities they breed in those of us who do NOT choose fashion and makeup and magazines? Or is there something bigger at work here that makes pawns of us all? Is it possible that we the “educated” ones are actually making matters worse for all of us women by antagonizing Ms. Cosmo? Are we antagonizing Ms. Cosmo? And is there even such a thing as “all of us women”?