RIZAL AND FEMINISM: A Feminist Analysis on the Writings of Jose Rizal
MA. RUBY ANNE M. LIWANAG DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY PHL503D
April 15, 2013
RIZAL AND FEMINISM: A Feminist Analysis on the Writings of Jose Rizal
ABSTRACT
The researcher aims to show that Jose Rizal as a feminist encouraged women empowerment. The paper argues that Rizal aided in the liberation of the Filipino women as well as to their empowerment. The researcher analyzed Rizal’s letter to the young women of Malolos and his other writings and used various philosophical literatures to see how the Filipino woman was marginalized and how the writings of Jose Rizal were indeed a step towards the liberation of the Filipina. The paper showed that Rizal indeed invigorated the Filipina in obtaining an independence of mind and called for the “New Woman” among the Filipino women. However, though Rizal has given us many valid feminist insights, he can only be considered as a limited feminist.
INTRODUCTION
World history will tell how subjugated women are by men from then and probably until now. Cixous (1976) showed the socio-political standing of women before (that’s still happening today) in which they have no right even in speaking in public. In line with this, we can see that women of the past were thirsty for their rights, all the rights that men have taken away from them to make them a slavery puppet of the men of the past. Cixous (1976) wrote: Every woman has known the torment of getting up to speak. Her heart racing at times entirely lost for words, ground and language slipping away – that’s how daring a feat, how great a transgression it is for a woman to speak – even just open her mouth – in public. A double distress, for even if she transgresses, her words fall almost always upon the deaf male ear, which 1 hears in language only that which speaks in the masculine.”
The history of the Philippines shows the same story for the Filipino women. They are disadvantaged and underprivileged. They were passive, thus not considered as worthy of
1
Helene, Cixous. 1976. Laugh of Medusa , Signs 1, no. 4. Summer 1987. pg. 8.
education. But this is where I and most perhaps would beg to disagree; I believe that they are not innately passive and submissive, but they were then, because they were uneducated. Women for centuries were marginalized, from then until now, as women are confined at home, doing household work and child rearing. Marginalization was defined by Domingo (2010) as a social process of relegating or confining an individual or a group of individuals to a lower or outer limit or edge, as in social standing. In this paper, I aim to show that Jose Rizal as a feminist encouraged women empowerment. I shall argue that Rizal aided in the liberation of the Filipino women as well as to their empowerment. I shall analyze Rizal’s letter to the young women of Malolos and his other writings, and see how exactly the situation was in his time that may still reflect until now, in our present time. I shall use various philosophical literatures to see how the Filipino woman was marginalized and how the writings of Jose Rizal were indeed a step towards the liberation of the Filipina. Rizal invigorated the Filipina in obtaining an independence of mind. I believe that 2
Jose Rizal is calling for the “New Woman ”. The paper shall be divided into three sections. I will start section one with a description of the Filipino women during Rizal’s time and through Rizal’s eyes by using his literature. Section two will be an analysis of the Rizal’s Letter to the Young Women of Malolos, to understand the historical subjugation of the Filipina women of those times. The third section will be a literature review on selected writings such as Helene Cixous’ Laugh of the Medusa , Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex , Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, and Mary Astells’ A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of Their Minds. 2
From Helene Cixous terminology which was developed in her writing “Laugh of the Medusa”.
It will be an analysis to see the relevance of the letter to the vindication of women as well as to women empowerment in the society and Feminism in general.
THE FILIPINA THROUGH RIZAL’S EYES
The three centuries of colonization of the Philippines by Spain was three centuries of subjection and suppression of the Filipino women. Spaniards have looked down among the Filipina. Jose Rizal knew about this. In Rizal’s letter, he wrote “…it is common practice on the part of the Spaniards and friars here who have returned from the Islands (Philippines) to speak of the Filipina as complaisant and ignorant, as if all should be thrown into the same class because of the missteps of a few, and as if women of weak character did not exist in their lands.” Rizal also wrote: …the returning Spaniards and friars, talkative and fond of gossip, can hardly find time enough to brag and bawl, amidst guffaws and insulting remarks, that a certain woman was thus; that she behaved thus at the convent and conducted herself thus with the Spaniards who on the occasion was her guest, and other things that set y our teeth on edge when you think of them which, in the majority of cases, were faults due to candor, excessive kindness, meekness, or perhaps ignorance and were all the work of the defamer himself. There is a Spaniard now in high office, who has set at our table and enjoyed our hospitality in his wanderings through the Philippines and who, upon his return to Spain, rushed forthwith into print and related that on one occasion in Pampanga he demanded hospitality and ate, and slept at a house and the lady of the house conducted herself in such and such a manner with him; this is how he repaid the lady for her supreme hospitality! Similar insinuations are made by the friars to the chance visitor from Spain concerning their very obedient confesandas, hand-kissers, etc., accompanied by smiles and very significant winkings of the eye. In a book published by D. Sinibaldo de Mas and in other friar sketches sins are related of which women accused themselves in the confessional and of which the friars made no secret in talking to their Spanish visitors seasoning them, at the best, with idiotic and shameless tales not worthy of credence. I cannot repeat here the shameless stories that a friar told Mas and to which Mas attributed no value whatever. Every time we hear or read anything of this kind, we ask each other: Are the Spanish women all cut after the pattern of the Holy Virgin Mary and the 3 Filipinas all reprobates?
Rizal was the first to bend the general impression that women are weak; instead, he enshrined them as creatures of strength and source of inspiration. He did state that there are 3
Nicanor Tiongson. “The Women of Malolos”. ASIAN Journal. December 29, 2005
lots of things the Filipina has to improve on. Women in his time were imprisoned by the society. This is very much apparent in his characters in the Noli Me Tangere and the El Filibusterismo. Maria Clara, one of the main female characters in the two novels of Rizal, is a picture of a defeated soul. She may have a lot of beautiful traits, seemingly beautiful traits, at least in the eyes of the superficial society of those times. Maria Clara was as described in the novel: “Ah! The daughter of the rich Capitan Tiago! Th ey say she has become very beautiful? Oh Yes! 4 Very beautiful and very kind-hearted,” the young man answers.
Maria Clara was indeed beautiful, she looks like the Virgin Mary, she is kind hearted, as she helped the leper, she is pious, as she never fail to recite her prayers. Cabalu and Pasigui (2006) wrote: “all her completeness, sadness, happiness, hope, faith, and everything are all dedicated to God.” Yet, above all these positive traits that Maria Clara has, still she is weak, and not worthy to be emulated by the Filipino women, young and old. What made her weak is her inability to speak and fight for what she believes in. She is a prisoner of the voices around her. Sisa is another character from the Noli Me Tangere. What is the role of the woman? Is it to take good care of the home and teach their children good manners and good virtues? Sisa as a mother works in order to earn and save for her family. The Noli says, “Sisa has been for several days confined in the house sewing upon some work which had been ordered for the 5
earliest possible time. In order to earn money” . Sisa as a mother, has only one wish: All that day she has been anticipating the pleasures of the evening, for she knew that her sons were coming and she intended to make them some prese nts… Full of hope, she had cooked the whitest of rice, which she herself has gleaned from the threshing floors. It was indeed a curate’s 6 meal for the poor boys.
4
Derbyshire, (Trans.) The Social Cancer , “In the Twilight”. Ib. Id. 6 Ib. Id. 5
Indeed, Sisa was a woman and a mother determined to defend and promote the definition of this term at all cost even if it means suffering and hardships. Another woman character is Salome. This woman could be read from the missing chapter of the Noli, entitled “Elias and Salome”. Worthy woman that she is, the novel describes her physical attributes thus: She is graceful because she is young, has beautiful eyes, a small nose, a diminutive mouth; because there is harmony in her f eatures, and a sweet expression animates them; but hers is not a beauty which instantly arrests attention at sight. She is like one of those little flowers in the field without color or fragrance, on which we step unwittingly, and whose beauty manifests itself 7 only when we examine them with care- unknown flowers, flowers of elusive perfume.
The novel also mentions how dignified she is in her intention to honor debt even in poverty. The account says: “I should pay that debt. For the rest of it, in Mindoro as anywhere 8
else.” Finally, through Salome, Rizal glorifies the Filipino women, as she behaves even in the absence of a man in her life. The spirit of self-reliance is observed the way Salome lives and survives on her own (Cabalu and Pasigui, 2006). There are a number of women characters worthy of mentioning from the Noli Me Tangere and the El Filibusterismo as well. There is Dona Victorina, Dona Consolacion, Juli, Paulita Gomez, and others. Those characters, Rizal offers alternative views and different possibilities and impossibilities for women. Yet, one thing is for sure as far as Rizal is concernedwomen are partners of men in the quest for just, peaceful, and humane place on earth.
RIZAL’S LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF MALOLOS
During his time, Rizal wrote essays with varying themes from politics, economics, sociocultural and even philosophical perspectives. One of these essays was in letter form originally
7
Derbyshire, (Trans.) The Social Cancer , “In the Twilight”. Ib. Id.
8
9
written in Tagalog, entitled “To the Young Women of Malolos ”. At a time when the role of women was confined to rearing children, keeping the house clean, saying prayers, sewing garments for saints, here is presented a group of young women who petitioned the government with conviction and faith. The agitation for the Spanish school was a rarity in the Philippines during the period. When they succeeded in garnering the government permission to their plan, a condition was compromised that Senorita Guadalupe Reyes should be the one to teach them. The thing unheard of before in the Islands reached the faraway shores of Spain, where the Malolos women’s Bulakeno compatriot del Pilar would write Rizal from Barcelona on February 17, 1889, asking Rizal to transmit a letter in Tagalog—a noteworthy deviation from his customary Spanish writings—as a booster of the women’s morale. The singular deed of the young women of Malolos created a deep impact on women in all corners of the Philippines . For one, the Spaniards were made conscious of the previously underestimated resistance being one involving the entire society, not only from the Filipino men but also from the Filipino women. The reformists noticed this, hence the urging of del Pilar for Rizal to advise the young women to champion their cause being proper female citizens of the country. Even as Rizal had a notion of them possessing “a sweet disposition, beautiful habits, gentle manners, modesty, excessive goodness, humility or perhaps ignorance,” he 9
Nicanor Tiongson. “The Women of Malolos”. ASIAN Journal. December 29, 2005. The famous letter of Rizal was written in while he was residing in London, upon the request of M. H. del Pilar. The story behind this letter is this: On December 12, 1888, a group of twenty young women of Malolos petitioned Governor-General Weyler for permission to open a “night school” so that they might study Spanish under Teodoro Sandiko. Fr. Felipe Garcia, the Spanish parish priest, objected to the proposal. Therefore the governor-general turned down the petition. However, the young women, in defiance of the friar’s wrath, bravely continued their agitation for the school – a thing unheard of in the Philippines in those times. They finally succeeded in obtaining government approval to their project on the condition that Señora Guadalupe Reyes should be their teacher. The incident caused a great stir in the Philippines and in far-away Spain. Del Pilar, writing in Barcelona on February 17, 1889, requested Rizal to send a letter in Tagalog to the brave women of Malolos. Accordingly, Rizal, although busy in London annotating Morga’s book penned this famous letter and sent it to Del Pilar on February 22, 1889 for transmittal to Malolos.Nicanor Tiongson.
anticipated them to be “like withered plants, sowed and grown in the darkness. Though they may bloom, their flowers are without fragrance; though they bear fruit, their fruit has no juice.” Rizal added: “However, now that news arrive here of what occurred in your own town of Malolos , I realized that I was wrong and my joy was beyond bounds.” The letter has two main objectives, one is to congratulate these young women of Malolos, and second is to remind the young women of Malolos and all young women of the land (Philippines) of their duty as mother and as patriots as well. In congratulating these women, Rizal said the following words of praise: Now that you have responded to our first appeal in the interest of the welfare of the people; now that you have set an example to those who, like you, long to have their eyes opened and be delivered from servitude, new hopes are awakened in us and we now even dare to face adversity, because we have you for our allies and are confident of victory.
Rizal, in the same letter, reminded the Filipina of their real duty as mothers in rearing and bringing up a child. It is imperative that the thirst for learning be developed in her while still young so that she may be able to inculcate the same values to her children when she becomes a mother. However, Rizal reasons that the most Filipina is insufficient in terms of this thirst for learning and knowledge in rearing up a child, thus she becomes inefficient in molding her child as a contributory citizen of the country (Domingo, 2010). Rizal Said: Youth is a flower-bed that is to bear rich fruit and must accumulate wealth for its descendants. What offspring will be that of a woman whose kindness of character is expressed by mumbled prayers; who knows nothing by heart but awits [hymns], novenas, and the alleged miracles; whose amusement consists in playing panguingue [a card game] or in the frequent confession of the same sins? What sons will she have but acolytes, priest's servants, or cockfighters? … They say that prudence is sanctity. But, what sanctity have they shown us? To pray and kneel a lot, kiss the hand of the priests, throw money away on churches, and believe all the friar sees fit to tell us; gossip, callous rubbing of noses. . . .
Further, Rizal explicitly stated the possible influence of a woman to a man as her coworker in writing history of life and destiny. Rizal in the letter said:
Let us be reasonable and open our eyes, especially you women, because you are the first to influence the consciousness of man. Remember that a good mother does not resemble the mother that the friar has created; she must bring up her child to be the image of the true God … The people cannot expect honor nor prosperity so long as they will educate their children in a wrong way, so long as the woman who guides the child in his steps is slavish and ignorant. No good water comes from a turbid, bitter spring; no savory fruit comes from acrid seed.
In like manner, with strong tone of conviction, Rizal crossed the line and strongly said: “People must listen to reason and not only to those who wear cassock- meaning the friars. Finally Rizal gave the Spartan woman as a truly example of a woman, who live and survive not for herself alone, but for the good of all, even if it means death for her own children and banishment of her own dreams. Rizal analogized: When a mother handed the shield to her son as he was marching to battle, she said nothing to him but this: "Return with it, or on it," which mean, come back victorious or dead, because it was customary with the routed warrior to throw away his shield, while the dead warrior was carried home on his shield. A mother received word that her son had been killed in battle and the army routed. She did not say a word, but expressed her thankfulness that her son had been saved from disgrace. However, when her son returned alive, the mother put on mourning. One of the mothers who went out to meet the warriors returning from battle was told by one that her three sons had fallen. I do not ask you that, said the mother, but whether we have been victorious or not. We have been victorious -- answered the warrior. If that is so, then let us thank God, and she went to the temple.
The Spartan mother was the ideal that the Filipino mother should model their self into. Domingo (2010) said that the Spartan mother was the root of their people’s nationalism, for it was her who enthralled upon her children the preference for dying for the country with honor than for continuing to live with dishonor. She further said: To die defending the country’s independence was to die with honor, while to live and go on with one’s daily life seeing one’s country in jeopardy or in slavery was to live with dishonor. For a mother to imprint this awareness to her children was the most important role she could perform- a role that Filipino mothers were unable to fulfil.
I would say, unable to fulfil yet. Though the letter of congratulations became much more famous than the actual letter of petition that sparkled the controversy, the important act of the young women of Malolos, through the help of letter of Jose Rizal, was considered as worthy to land on a page of history (Cabalu and Pasigui, 2006).
FEMINISM AND THE FILIPINO WOMEN 10
In her book the Second Sex , Simone De Beauvoir’s primary thesis is that men fundamentally oppress women by characterizing them, on every level, as the Other , defined exclusively in opposition to men. Man occupies the role of the self, or subject; woman is the object, the other. He is essential, absolute, and transcendent. She is inessential, incomplete, and mutilated. He extends out into the world to impose his will on it, whereas woman is doomed to immanence, or 11
inwardness. He creates, acts, invents; she waits for him to save her . The world has indeed marginalized the women species. Philippine history will tell us how Filipinos were marginalized during the Spanish period; now think of this, there is still marginalization among those who were already marginalized. The women of the Philippines then, are doubly marginalized, not only because they were Filipinos, but moreover because they were women. They are not just the Other, but the others who doesn’t seem to exist. The Filipino voices then, are voice that are heard but are not listened to, but the women are the voices that are hardly even heard at all. The Filipino women were denied of their humanity. It is the case then, until it was changed. The Philippine history was not only a history fighting of men for their rights, but women who have the capacity to do the same, and Jose Rizal saw this. Rizal was a feminist. It is his thesis that women can make or break a nation. If they are irrational because of the indoctrination of the church and the state which promoted false consciousness, then they can only create an irrational society. If however, they are rational, 10 11
De Beauvior, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Vinatge Books, 2011 (Originally published, 1949). De Beauvior, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Vinatge Books, 2011 (Originally published, 1949).
then they create a rational society. This thesis is presented implicitly in the two novels and explicitly in his “Letter to the Young Women of Malolos”. Similar to what Jose Rizal is saying in the letter, Mary Wollstonecraft said almost the same thing in her book, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, that women were ill-prepared for their duties as social beings and imprisoned in a web of false expectations that would inevitably make them miserable. She wanted women to be transformed into rational and independent beings whose sense of worth came, not from their appearance, but from their inner perception of self-command and knowledge. Women had to be educated; their minds and bodies had to be trained. This would make them good companions, wives, mothers and citizens. Above all it would make them fully human, that is, beings ruled by reason and characterised by self-command. It urges women to extend their interests to encompass politics and the concerns of the whole of humanity. Wollstonecraft has the same view with Rizal on women as mothers. She stresses that: To be a good mother a woman must have the sense, and independence of mind… unless the understanding of woman be enlarged, and her character rendered more firm by being allowed to govern her own conduct, she will never have sufficient sense and command of temper to 12 manage her child properly .
Rizal in letter even said that if the Filipina will not change her mode of being, let her rear no more children, let her merely give birth to them. Rizal believes that a woman who does not have an independence of mind has no capacity to fulfill the full responsibility of motherhood. He further said, “She must cease to be the mistress of the home, otherwise she will
12
Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1983. A Vindication of the Rights of Women. In A Mary Wollnstonecraft’s Reader. Edit ed by Solomon and Berggren. New York City: The New American Library, Inc. Pg. 347-348.
13
unconsciously betray husband, child, native land, and all” . Mary Astells, an English woman of 14
the seventeenth century who wrote numerous works such as A Serious Proposal to the Ladies , wrote to the women of England who were marginalized at that time, “How can you be content 15
to be in the world like tulips in a garden, to make fine snow, and be good for nothing.” She also said: Seeing it is ignorance, either habitual or actual, which is the cause of all Sin, how are they like to escape this, who are bred up in that ? That therefore women are unprofitable to most, and a plague and dishonour to some Men is not much to be regretted on account of the Men, because 'tis the product of their own folly, in denying them the benefits of an ingenuous and liberal 16 Education .
What Mary Astells is saying is very much applicable to the Filipina women of the nineteenth century. If it is false consciousness that is enslaving the Filipina, then education is the answer. But during the time of Rizal, it is not available to them and the government seems to be not willing to grant it to them. Now what were they supposed to do? Rizal answered this indirectly through the letter, similar to what most feminist philosophers have said: That women should move, she should act. There is no other person or group of person who will fight for them but only the women themselves too. This is what I thought when I read the first introductory statement of Cixous (1976): I shall speak about women’s writ ing: about what it will do. Woman must write herself: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies – for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Woman must put herself into the text – as into the world and into history – by her own movement.
13
This is the fifth of Jose Rizal’s “points to ponder on” which he gave to the young women of Malolos through the letter. 14 The complete title of the work is A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (Part I and II) For the Advancement of their Interest by A Lover of her Sex by Mary Astells. The book was originally published in 1696, printed by T.W. for. Wilkin at the King’s Head in St. Paul Church -Yard. 15 Mary Astells. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. Part I. Patricia Springborg, ed. Peterborough, ON, Canada: Broadview Press, 2002. 16 Mary Astells. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. Part I. Patricia Springborg, ed. Peterborough, ON, Canada: Broadview Press, 2002.
I believe that Helene Cixous was not just talking about writing. I believe she is talking about all efforts that a woman can do to liberate herself. Cixous also said: It is time to liberate the New Woman from the Old by coming to know her – by loving her for getting by, for getting beyond the Old without delay, by going out ahead of what the New Woman will be, as an arrow quits the bow with a movement that gathers and separates the 17 vibrations musically, in order to be more than herself.”
Similar to this statement of Cixous, Rizal demanded the women to move for their liberation from traditional “Old Woman” to the “New Woman” – “New Woman” which has the freedom in doing anything without the restrictions and hindrances of men like the quitting arrow which got it freedom after been fired by the bow. Rizal believes that the petition of the young women of Malolos is a step towards this movement. Rizal wrote in the letter, “Ho wever, when the news of what happened in Malolos reached us, I saw my error, and great was my rejoicing.” The event showed the merely liking of a quitting arrow in which the women movement pursues a goal to separate themselves from the traditional, enslave “Old Woman” and this gave Rizal great hope for the nation. A simple act of the Filipino women means a small step towards a great goal. Cixous stated that women should be liberated from the chain of past – “The future must no longer be determined by the past. I do not deny that the effects of the past are still with us. But I refuse to strengthen them by repeating them, to confer upon them irremovability the 18
equivalent of destiny, to confuse the biological and the cultural. Anticipation is imperative” – through accepting the facts that everybody, even a non-popular woman, can make a difference for the liberation our society. A woman should break that discrimination through mocking the
17
Laugh of Medusa , p 6. nd This is the 2 statement that be found in the book Laugh of Medusa by Helene Cixous.
18
standard which is only set by the men of our society. Cixous’ Laugh of Medusa mentioned many points that could help those women which were victims of abuse, inequality and oppression. Many points here from the past are applicable to the situation of the Filipina if Rizal’s time, and is still applicable for our current situation because the nature of the environment. I believe that those principal points of Cixous calls for even the unknown women to be more liberated to fight for their own equality against the men of our society, which is the same thing that Jose Rizal was calling for, as Mary Astells have said: “Women need not take up with mean things, since (if 19
they are not wanting to themselves) they are capable of the BEST.”
Again Rizal, talking to the women of Malolos, whom he did not now, except one, whom he knows only by name, said: ...now that you have set an example to those who, like you, long to have their eyes opened and be delivered from servitude, new hopes are awakened in us and we now even dare to face adversity, because we have you for our allies and are confident of victory. No longer does the Filipina stand with her head bowed nor does she spend her time on her knees, because she is quickened by hope in the future; no longer will the mother contribute to keeping her daughter in darkness and bring her up in contempt and moral annihilation. And no longer will the science of all sciences consist in blind submission to any unjust order, or in extreme complacency, nor will a courteous smile be deemed the only weapon against insult or humble tears the ineffable panacea for all tribulations.
Rizal advised the women to elevate their consciousness by listening more to themselves rather than the friars so that they could liberate themselves and their children from false consciousness. Rizal, who doesn’t even know anyone personally among twenty young women who wrote the petition, believes that even a non-popular woman, can make a difference for their liberation and of our society. Rizal has faith in the Filipino women that they would be able to break that discrimination through mocking the standard which is only set by the men, both Filipinos and Spaniards of their society. Rizal was so sure that if the women of the Philippines 19
Mary Astells. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. Part I. Patricia Springborg, ed. Peterborough, ON, Canada: Broadview Press, 2002.
would liberate themselves from false consciousness through education, and endeavour to educate their children as well then what he asked from Padre Florentino in the El Filibusterismo will be answered: Where are the youths who will dedicate their innocence, their idealism, their enthusiasm to the good of their country? Where are they who will give generously of their blood to wash away so much shame, crime and abomination? Pure and immaculate must the victim be for the sacrifice be acceptable. Where are you, young men and women, who are to embody in yourself the life force that has been drained from o ur veins, the pure ideals that have grown stained in our minds, the fiery enthusiasm that has been quenched in our hearts?... We wait for you, O youth! Come, 20 for we await you!
RIZAL AS A FEMINIST
Central to the letter is the call to bravely assert collective autonomy and rational judgment, and use rational judgment and good will. Rizal advises them to follow what is reasonable and just, and carry out the prime duties of teaching honor to their children, loving one’s fellow citizens and the native land. In that way, rid of ignorance and abject fear, one asserts one’s dignity, courage, responsibility and honor. Tyranny and servitude are thereby prevented by the prudent cultivation of “the light of reason which God has mercifully endowed 21
us .” Sandwiched between the precepts specifically addressed to the maternal role of women and the maxim of neighborly love is Rizal’s biting comments on avaricious friars and malicious Spaniards who mock native women who have shown hospitality and deference. It is this traduced and vilified honor of Filipina women that Rizal cannot let go, not because he aspires to be the model defender of women, a proto-feminist vanguard-party spokesman, but because he identifies the honor of Filipinas with the substance of the nascent patria, including that of the Malay race (Zaide 1984, 157). 20
Jose Rizal. El Fibusterismo. Trans. By Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin. 2004. Ed. By Raul Locsin. The Bookmark, Inc. Jose Rizal. Letter to the Young Women of Malolos. 1889.
21
Rizal’s concern is not so much with female virtue as with the maternal function/role and its incalculable effects. His stress on individual reason and autonomous will, equality and respect for each other, was needed to remove women from the influence of the religious orders; he invokes God’s gift of natural reason to ward off the despotic authority of the friars and correct servile habits. Rizal then concentrates on the function of the mother as progenitor and educator/nurturer: “What offspring will be that of a woman whose kindness of character is expressed by mumbled prayers… It is the mothers who are responsible for the present servitude of our compatriots, owing to the unlimited trustfulness of their loving hearts, to their 22
ardent desire to elevate their sons .” Deploying throughout organic metaphors of growth and fruition, Rizal emphasizes the mother’s crucial role in shaping the infant: “The mother who can only teach her child how to kneel and kiss hands must not expect sons with blood other than 23
24
that of vile slaves .” Because mothers are “the first to influence the consciousness of man ,” Rizal exhorts them to “awaken and prepare the will of our children towards all that is honorable, judged by proper standards, to all that is sincere and firm of purpose, clear judgment, clear procedure; honesty in act and deed, love for the fellowmen and respect for 25
God .” That is a desideratum because the whole community cannot expect honor and 26
prosperity “so long as the woman who guides the child in his steps is slavish and ignorant .” Despite their strength and good judgment, however, the Filipina mother has become a slave, hoodwinked and tied, rendered pussilanimous. In a sudden leap, Rizal ventures a generalization: “The cause of the backwardness of Asia lies in the fact that there the woman are 22
Jose Rizal. Letter to the Young Women of Malolos. 1889. Ib. Id. 24 Ib. Id. 25 Ib. Id. 26 Ib. Id. 23
ignorant, are slaves; while Europe and America are powerful because there the women are free 27
and well-educated and endowed with lucid intellect and a strong will .” This explains his subsequent invocation of Spartan women as the models to imitate, notwithstanding his knowledge that their position is underwritten by an iniquitous slave system prevailing in classical antiquity. A suspicion disturbs the epistolary self-assurance. Rizal feels that the Malolos women will not listen to him because of his youth, so he submits seven instructions for their evaluation, repeating what he has already stated about the need for dignity, knowledge, independence and altruism. His fifth and sixth advice, however, sounds an alarming note of a fear of betrayal, together with hostility to the superstitious machinations of a “grossly mercenary” priesthood. The fifth proposition seems a warning: “If the Filipina will not change her mode of being, let her rear no more children, let her merely give birth to them. She must cease to be the mistress of the home, otherwise she will unconsciously betray husband, child, native land, and all.” Apprehensively, however, Rizal withdraws his animus and insists on everyone’s equality in enjoying the divine gifts of intelligence and rational judgment. Rizal’s final words may be interpreted as a cautionary reminder for those cast out of the aboriginal garden: “May your desire to educate yourself be crowned with success; may you in the garden of learning gather not bitter, but choice fruit, looking well before you eat because on the surface of the globe all is 28
deceit, and the enemy sows seeds in your seedling plot” . Didactic teleology here blends moral
27
Ib. Id. Jose Rizal. Letter to the Young Women of Malolos. 1889.
28
realism with satire, impugning the “fathers” and appealing to a future regime of stalwart 29
mothers as the supreme tribunal of national vindication . Considering Rizal’s intelligence and his exposure to the predicament of women as a sex separate from men, his interest in them was not the usual male interest in the female species. He saw them not as sex objects but as creatures in need of liberation. Rizal’s feminism was in the form of liberal feminism. This kind of feminism explains the subjection of women as a function of the rules, whether formal as in the legal system, or informal as mores and tradition. The rules are discriminatory to women. On account of their sex, women are less equal to men at home, in the workplace and in the society in general. To make them equal, all discriminatory rules must be repealed and sexism must be removed from the existing culture. Rizal may have his share of discrepancies and gaps in his relationship with women from his sweetheart Josephine Bracken to other beloved women to his sisters, but it cannot be denied that Rizal had an impassioned involvement in the battle for the Filipino women’s rights. It cannot be denied that the “Message to the Young Women of Malolos” is a significant contribution by Rizal to the history of women and the feminist movement. For Rizal, the women’s fight belonged to the Filipinos’ greater revolution for social justice and transformation. However in conclusion, though Rizal has given us many valid feminist insights, he can only be considered as a limited feminist. He ignores sexism altogether. For example, he makes it appear in his letter that women’s destination in lif e is motherhood and parenting is for women only. In fact, he blames the women of the Philippines for the enslavement of the Philippines. They are to blame, because they allowed themselves to be conveyor belt of
29
Albina Pecson Fernandez. 1990. Rizal on Women and Children in the Struggle for Nationhood.
colonialism and the many problems that it has spawned. Should not the men be blamed instead? After all, they have been in control of women and children for ages.
REFERENCES An Extrinsic Approach Anal ysis on Jose Rizal’s To The Young Women of Malolos. January 18, 2011.
http://jesyle.blogspot.com/2011/01/extrinsic-approach-analysis-on-jose.html (accessed February 12, 2012). Astells, Mary. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. London, 1696. Cixous, Helene. "The Laugh of the Medusa." Signs 1, no. 4, , 1976: 875-893. De Beauvior, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Vinatge Books, 2011 (Originally published, 1949). Domingo, Rosallia. "Rizal's Letter to the Malolos Young Women: Vindication of Filipino Women's Rights During His Time." Pilosopia, 2010: 115-123. Fernandez, Albina Pecson. "Rizal on Women and Children in the Struggle for Nationhood." Review of Women's Studies, Vol 1, No 2, 1991: 10-33.
Fernandez, Albina Peczon. "If Women Are the Best Men in the Philippines, Why Are They Invisible in History?" Review of Women's Studies, Vol 6, No 1 , 1996: 123-140. Jose, Rizal. "Noli Me Tangere." The Social Cancer. Trans by Derbyshire. 2002 1884. Rizal, Jose. El Filibusterismo. Trans. by Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin. Makati City: The Bookmark, Inc., 2004. Wollstonecraft, Mary. "A Vindication of the Rights of Women." In A Mary Wolstonecraft Reader , by Edited by Barbara Solomon and Paula Berggren. New York: The New American Library, Inc., 1983. Yoder, Robert L. To the Young Women of Malolos by Jose Rizal. n.d. http://joserizal.info/Writings/Other/malolos_english.htm (accessed February 15, 2012).
