Gender gender

PINOY KASI


Gender gender
By Michael Tan
Inquirer

Last updated 01:25am (Mla time) 03/09/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- March is marked by a flurry of activities around women’s issues, a takeoff from International Women’s Day on the 7th. Over the last few years, people have extended the month’s focus to “gender awareness” (sometimes said half in jest, “Oh, gender- gender na naman") to mean a focus on women’s issues and concerns.

All that is fine, but teaching in many local and international gender courses, I’ve realized that this focus on gender-as-women can also be a disadvantage, even adversely affecting the effectiveness of programs that seek to address women’s issues. Gender awareness must deal with all forms of inequities, regardless of gender.

So, for today’s column, I thought we should revisit the term, and identify some of the genders in the Philippines. (Do you want to give a preliminary guess right now? Two? Three? Four? Do I hear five?) Over the next month, I’ll do a few more columns, going into more details and why it’s so important to set the genders straight (pardon the pun).

From Sex to gender

Let’s get back to the basic terms. When you fill out an application form and see “Sex,” you’re tempted to answer something like “rarely” or “often” but dutifully fill in “M” or “F” for the two sexes to which about 98 or 99 percent of the population belongs, by virtue of chromosomes and anatomy. (The remainder, and the numbers are quite large in absolute terms, belongs to intersex categories, something I explained in an earlier column.)

Gender is different, with quite complex origins. Derived from the Latin “genus,” it meant “kind” or “type” (as in type of object). Filipinos use the term “kasarian,” which comes close to this meaning, a category that distinguishes one thing from another; thus “sari-sari” means various, but “ka-sari-an” means “of one kind.”

The term’s oldest use, attributed to the Greek philosopher Protagoras, was grammatical. In English, objects are referred to with a neutral “a” or “the” but in many other languages, it’s a bit more complicated. Spanish, for example, uses the feminine article “la” and the masculine article “el”, so while the body is male ("el cuerpo"), its different parts may be male (like the eye, "el ojo") or female (such as the head, "la cabeza").

Gender can also mean “to produce,” which goes back to the Greek “gen” (to produce). This idea of production, even of origins, is reflected in words like “gene,” “genesis” and “engender.” One translation of Leviticus 19:19 reads: “Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind,” meaning in this case “to breed.”

In the 1950s, the term mutated once more to mean socially constructed or socially defined categories, roles, statuses and identities. Gender goes beyond the biological to refer to the way societies classify people, with all kinds of expectations from the way we walk, talk and dress, to the careers or occupations we can pursue. We grow up with those expectations and adopt gender identities, conforming with, or rebelling against, society’s expectations.

Let’s use “lalaki” as an example. As a biological category, it’s fairly straightforward, with a certain physical conformation, and appendages (in Filipino, “kung may lawit”). But "lalaki" as a gender category is much more elaborate: you’re supposed to speak like Noli de Castro, walk like Joseph Estrada, and if in medical school, become a surgeon. Dare to deviate, a slight flick of the wrist without the wristband, a voice that’s slightly too high-pitched, or becoming, heavens (oops, even words like “heavens”), a dermatologist, and eyebrows are raised, questioning your “pagkalalaki.”

How many?

That’s gender. I’m exaggerating the stereotypes, but the expectations can be quite severe and strict, pounded into our heads from the day we are born up to the day we are buried.

Over the years, many of us who handled gender seminars and courses would explain that in the Philippines, we have more than two genders, and rattle them off: lalaki, babae, bakla, tibo, silahis. The problem with this list is that people then begin to think that gender refers to sexual orientation, thinking of “bakla” as “male homosexual,” “tibo” as “lesbian” and “silahis” as “bisexual,” while “lalaki” and “babae” are “heterosexual.”

All that wasn’t quite correct. Gender goes beyond both biological sex and sexual orientation. In fact, as more social scientists from non-Western societies began to do sexuality research, myself included, we pointed out the inadequacies of many terms coming from the United States and Europe.

“Bakla” isn’t a matter of sexual orientation alone. It’s used more often to refer to a man who is effeminate. So what happens to a man who walks like Noli de Castro and speaks like Joseph Estrada but “likes” other men? Now that really confuses Filipinos: Is he "lalaki"? Is he "bakla"? Maybe, many will conclude, he is "silahis."

Then you have men who are really effeminate but don’t have the slightest attraction to other men. Are they "lalaki"? Or "bakla"?

I won’t give you the answers yet. I just wanted to give examples to show how convoluted genders are, and there are many.

“Madre” is an occupational category, but sometimes, women will joke, “Madre ako ngayon,” which means she has moved into a gender category, albeit temporarily, with “madre” meaning a non-sexual person, at least activity-wise.

Then there’s “manang.” Originally meant as a term of respect, it now refers to older women who tend to be self-righteous and prudish, a takeoff from the middle-aged women who cluster around parish priests, helping to take care of the church but also ending up as a kind of council of elders keeping the priest updated on the town’s sinners.

Today, a “manang” can be a younger or older person, single or married, male or female, the gender connotations now extended to include other forms of behavior. If we could confer MS degrees ("Master’s in Sulsulan" -- loosely translated, the vicious and persistent whispering that destroys people’s reputations), the "manang" would be masters of the masters.

Hey, my feminist friends are probably muttering now, when do we get to the inequity part and gender oppression and persecution? Patience, my friends, patience. We have the whole month to do that. What I hope I cleared today is that gender is more than sexual orientation. Just looking at the “manang,” you can see “manang-hood” is an extension of the more negative aspects of local femininity, of putting up a façade of chasteness and of becoming self-appointed guardians of morality. The “manang” is often a woman, but she can be more oppressive to other women than the men are.

In future columns, we’ll look at other examples of genders: the metrosexual, the "baklita," the "matandang binata," maybe a bit more on the "manang." Learn to differentiate the "matona" from the "matrona." Learn why being a Spice Boy, as in being "Paminta," isn’t necessarily a good thing. And with elections coming around, learn to sniff out the candidates’ gender, and how that might affect governance.