Non Standard Issue: Perhaps

* This piece is supposed to be my last column for White & Blue. But I have relinquished my "throne" before the newsletter was published, and since there's no more space for a guest column, I have just posted it in Facebook, and now, in here. I wrote this after I have watched the episode "Biri - Love Island" in Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho. Some may have married for love, but I know that many of the girls in there long for a better way to escape poverty other than marrying rich tourists.

I often wonder how they feel. The prostitute who strips off every night to an audience whose only concern is to see her flesh, never caring that the girl onstage is barely 18 and is only doing it to save some money for her tuition. The battered wife who constantly lives in fear of her husband, but never daring to complain every time his fists connect to her jaws because she is unaware that there exists a law that protects her. The young girl who instead of being tutored in her studies is given lessons on catching the eyes of a rich foreigner, because of the mistaken belief that it is their family’s second best way to escape poverty, next to winning the lottery.

You see, I am a feminist. I read articles on women empowerment. I watch documentaries where I see those scenarios similar to the above. Sometimes, it bothers me that I could not really relate to the plights of these women. I do not wish these things to happen to myself or to anyone, but it is easy to be touched and be teary-eyed by the sad events we see in TV, but also easier for them to fade from our memory after a while. Journalist Patricia Evangelists was right when she said that we forget not because we are bad persons, but because it is harder for us to relate to other people’s struggles when we or someone we love is not the victim.

My feminism is not of the “women-are-better-than-men” mentality. I do not believe that being a feminist requires you to hate the opposite sex or be a lesbian. I also have not failed to appreciate the milestones women have fervently fought to achieve in a previously dominant patriarchal society.

But, neither am I blind to the reality that my gender has still a long way to go in terms of tearing down those man-made barriers which keep us from fully maximizing our potentials. As pointed out by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, even in those fields where many women have good careers, you can barely count those who have made it to the top executive positions. Still, they are lucky because one of the painful truths of this generation is that while many women are now in the position to achieve what they want from life, there are still those who are caught in the nightmare of helplessness, ignorance, and mistaken beliefs.

Perhaps by writing about it, a fraction of my restlessness over not being able to help would drift away. Perhaps, a soul out there, after reading my column, will catch that restlessness, and be able to do something more effective, other than just stringing words together in a paragraph. Perhaps, putting my thoughts in ink would help me not to forget. Perhaps, if I have become too self-absorbed and complacent in the future, reading this column would wake me up and remind me that I can do so much more, that we, women, can do so much more.