|
Philippines THE ROLE AND STATUS OF THE FILIPINA
Women have always enjoyed greater equality in Philippine
society than was common in other parts of Southeast Asia. Since
pre-Spanish times, Filipinos have traced kinship bilaterally. A
woman's rights to legal equality and to inherit family property
have not been questioned. Education and literacy levels in 1990
were higher for women than for men. President Aquino often is
given as an example of what women can accomplish in Philippine
society. The appearance of women in important positions, however,
is not new or even unusual in the Philippines. Filipino women,
usually called Filipinas, have been senators, cabinet officers,
Supreme Court justices, administrators, and heads of major
business enterprises. Furthermore, in the early 1990s women were
found in more than a proportionate share of many professions
although they predominated in domestic service (91 percent),
professional and technical positions (59.4 percent), and sales
(57.9 percent). Women also were often preferred in assembly-type
factory work. The availability of the types of employment in
which women predominated probably explains why about two-thirds
of the rural to urban migrants were female. Although domestic
service is a low-prestige occupation, the other types of
employment compare favorably with opportunities open to the
average man.
This favorable occupational distribution does not mean that
women were without economic problems. Although women were
eligible for high positions, these were more often obtained by
men. In 1990 women represented 64 percent of graduate students
but held only 159 of 982 career top executive positions in the
civil service. In the private sector, only about 15 percent of
top-level positions were held by women.
According to many observers, because men relegated household
tasks to women, employed women carried a double burden. This
burden was moderated somewhat by the availability of relatives
and servants who functioned as helpers and child caretakers, but
the use of servants and relatives has sometimes been denounced as
the equivalent of exploiting some women to free others.
Since the Spanish colonial period, the woman has been the
family treasurer, which, at least to some degree, gave her the
power of the purse. Nevertheless, the Spanish also established a
tradition of subordinating women, which is manifested in women's
generally submissive attitudes and in a double standard of sexual
conduct. The woman's role as family treasurer, along with a
woman's maintenance of a generally submissive demeanor, has
changed little, but the double standard of sexual morality is
being challenged. Male dominance also has been challenged, to
some extent, in the 1987 constitution. The constitution contains
an equal rights clause--although it lacks specific provisions
that might make that clause effective.
As of the early 1990s, divorce was prohibited in the
Philippines. Under some circumstances, legal separation was
permitted, but no legal remarriage was possible. The family code
of 1988 was somewhat more liberal. Reflective of Roman Catholic
Church law, the code allowed annulment for psychological
incapacity to be a marital partner, as well as for repeated
physical violence against a mate or pressure to change religious
or political affiliation. Divorce obtained abroad by an alien
mate was recognized. Although the restrictive divorce laws might
be viewed as an infringement on women's liberty to get out of a
bad marriage, indications were that many Filipinas viewed them as
a protection against abandonment and loss of support by wayward
husbands.
Data as of June 1991
|
