Toys and Political Correctness

Gun free Christmas? I'm for the idea of promoting peace and if that includes refraining from giving and handing out toy guns and whatever WAR toys for Christmas then, I'm all for it. But then again, some toy guns are so quirky looking (especially toy water guns) that sometimes I wonder if its all too much PC and not enough trust on the part of parents to teach children (and in turn for children to learn by themselves) about the values that matter. :-) I still won't and have never handed out authentic looking toy guns and grenades but I'm not averse to the idea of buying superhero paraphernalia (including Darna!, a local female superhero) or even "Totally Spy" toys for my little girl who, alongside other children of her generation are being given entirely new ideas about power, especially in terms of notions generally associated with gender so...I'm still all for POWER PUFF GIRLS, even if in the end, I'm against the "violence," or even the TOTALITARIANISM that "espionage" represents in everyday societal life!

Heck, its only child's play and education, that is growing up to learn about compassion and respecting human rights will hopefully be enough to ensure my kid is well adjusted. Besides, one of the more important lessons about changing the world that I have learned to embrace (especially after studying/practising law) is that making too MANY RULES and imposing LOTS of RULES (law!) is the singularly surest way to FUCK up childhood, not to mention, any person (of any age) LOL!

Yes, kids need structure, a modicum of rules and parents need to be able to discipline too. But so far, I think a worthy experiement, if not a serious project for progressives of our age is to grapple with parenting and make these changes at the most tangible level, that is at home. The best way to appreciate  the value of human freedom is for our children to experience it, and not to suffer in a lack of it.

Brave words, I know. besides my kid is 6. Wait till she turns into a teenager, right? This is why despite my issues with religion, I still pray. A lot. :-) I know I'll be needing all the help I can get. It does take a village to raise a child.

Symbols and Their Meanings: Law and Feminism

My new friend from China told us that nowadays, the images of the once great Chairman Mao are revered, at best as some sort of religious icon, almost like a goodluck totem to whom people may pray for good fortune say being kept safe from traffic accidents!

Over time and given different contexts, symbols acquire and are given many different meanings by many different cultures. In the age of globalization and the ever present "media," the possibility for having and assigning similar (or even identical) meanings to symbols is perhaps more likely, spanning otherwise unfathomable cultural gaps and distances.

On the other hand, media theorists like Marshall Macluhan were actually more concerned with how "mass media" (his generation's electronic media) not only conveyed meaning through "signs" but how media itself influenced (at times tended to dictate) ways of thinking.

When Macluhan said "We shape the tools and then our tools shape us," he was pointing out how media (any media and in fact he discussed the development of language both spoken and written at length), in time has limited our means not only to express ourselves, but also our means of understanding things.

Of course when I think about ways of learning and knowing and LIMITS, I think of law school (where I teach) but also because law school (from where I come from and possibly in most other places), has a very distinct culture of reifying the TEXT, whether it be legal text (laws) or narratives of law's application (jurisprudence).

TEXT afterall, is the BOX, law primarily belongs in. A culture of documents, documentation, texts and decisions, it is difficult to think about law anywhere else but primarily in its "textual" expression and articulation.

The hardest thing to do when teaching a subject on Feminism is grappling with how best to help students unlearn a lot of what they were taught early on in lawschool not only to recognize but to master as well: LEGAL FORM and LEGAL METHOD.

Feminists like Carol Smart have opined that perhaps law is impervious to the feminist challenge. That is to say, in engaging law, feminists have not been all that successful in making lasting changes through law. Mary Jane Mossman, another feminist legal theorist suggested looking into not just the substance and texts of laws, but to actually also challenge legal method.

In so saying, law's primary and most basic symbols may be "words," that is "text," BUT definitely, the legal system (of laws and institutions) is a much more complicated set of symbols, and symbolisms and even symbol creation. In short, analyzing legal method and legal reasoning is breaking down no less than "meaning making" in law.

Yet, even in wanting to change law, challenge legal systems, and transform social relationships, it hasn't been easy for feminists to get around a consensus about the uses and role of law in feminist advocacy and strategizing.

The good thing that I think has come out of all the post-modern theorizing by feminists though is to show us that it's no longer sufficient to take "law" for granted as a given, nor its value and uses, as fixed at any one given time or place.

As much as law still "legitimizes" claims, ours is also a context where the one single institution upon which "the law" is founded (THE STATE),is ever changing and undergoing dynamic shifts in terms of its essential characteristics and in more ways than one, is also being challenged in its legitimacy, in its mandates and in its power-holding.

In current contexts where a lot of states are asserting legitimacy not by good governance or (some claim of) democratic and popular support, but by virtue of sheer military and police power, "fiat of law" (that is, state sanction) also assumes less of an ideal aspiration than it would normally would under different circumstances.

In the end, in aspiring for human rights, and women's claims, doesn't end with just reworking law or even dealing with the state, but rather ultimately, it is enagaging the very notions of "state and law." For this, there is no formula and at best, feminist analysis and ideology offers a valuable standpoint for challenging the many foundations of power relations, foremost among them, sex/gender, in their varied contexts and sites. It is for this reason that even an over emphasis on "legal strategies" within feminism, deserves the movement's collective reflection. What does LEGALLY founded feminist strategizing and emphasis symbolize for the feminist agenda? To be sure there is no single answer for the many levels of feminist engagements across cultural boundaries. Eitherway, the question remains an important one to ask for feminists everywhere.

NFP, Informed Choice and Women's Rights: Dreaming about a Filipino Women's Vote

Natural Family Planning is safe and if done properly, can be effective. But the method isn't for everyone, just as the pill is not the choice of all women (although the National Health Demographic Survey of 2003 still reflects it is THE most popular modern method). Condom use in the age of HIV AIDS and STDs should be more common but in the Philippines, condom use is one of the lowest in the world.

This week, at the National Population Congress, the Department of Health and POPCOM dropped what is actually a bombshell: They launched a movement to promote NFP and are devoting more efforts to NFP to the exclusion of other methods, instead of giving Filipinos the benefit of making their own informed choices.

In proposing to focus all of its programs and efforts (and as a result most of their budget!) into "Natural Family Planning," the Department of Health and the Population Commission says they mean to address:

"-Women's fear of side effects and other health reasons
-Husband’s objection
-Culture, tradition, and religious beliefs
-Availability, accessibility, and affordability of FP services"

At this day and age of having firmly established the morality of women's human rights, our government's myopic (not to mention downright callous) response to women's lack of access to information, health services and subordinate status (in the context of marriage) is nothing short of a SELL OUT.

"Women's fear of side effects," bespeaks of the powerlesness borne out of ignorance, as well as the sorry state of reliable public information on women's health! In fact, just months ago, in coming to terms with Sex Education Guidelines developed by the Department of Education, the ensuing debate on "abstinence" and "contraception," sidetracked the all important issue of the State duty to provide quality education and information. This includes matters on sexual health. Health is a human right. Not addressing women's entitlement and right to information on sexual health matters violates that right.

Likewise, the problem of "husband's objection" by Filipino women unable to make decisions about their health and lives bespeaks of a glaring problem of inequality. Seventy-three years after gaining full "citizenship" rights (suffrage), women are still second class citizens when it comes to making decisions regarding their sexuality and sexual health.

While there is nothing wrong with scientific Natural Family Planning if it is a woman's free and INFORMED choice, why tout it as a solution for what is clearly a problem faced by women lacking in the capacity to be treated as equals in their marriage?

On the otherhand, using the age-old excuse of "culture and religious beliefs," the policy and program smacks of one-sidedness and a conservative traditional Catholic bias. After all, it is only the Catholic hierarchy which has a stated position against ALL forms of modern family planning methods.

In fact, by providing all Filipinos proper information about all methods, Catholic individuals (as well as Muslims, Christians and the secularists) are better off making their decisions freely and in accordance to their conscience, not force.

The final basis is perhaps the greatest cop out of all. Instead of addressing the LACK, this government is actually asking Filipinos to GRIN and BEAR the lack of health services.The message seems to be, "THERE ISN'T GOING TO BE ANY SO DEAL WITH IT." Given this administration's track record on "(mis)managing government funds," this in fact comes as no surprise but is also akin to putting salt on an already gaping wound!

When health services and quality information (at the very least) can no longer be reasonably expected from a State,what is the use of paying taxes? Or what is the use of having a State? Really. What is the use of prolonging this administration's hold to power?

As we watch the administration's minions waste more and more precious national time, energy and money on its cha-cha (charter change) obsession, its time to think about the decision we can make in the 2007 elections. In 2007, women's right to vote will be celebrating a 74th anniversary. Wouldn't it be something if that VOTE actually meant something again by then? Well of course that is, IF we have elections at all at the rate Congress is going!

The irony of course is that up against the antics of the administration in its attempt to prevent a 2007 election, and fiddle with the Constitution's patrimony principles, most social movements for change, that includes most feminists again find themselves in actual agreement with the Catholic hierarchy most vocal against this cha-cha charade.

The same Speaker of the House the CBCP has been lambasting for the cha-cha initiative is the same Congressman who provided over 50 million pesos to fund the DOH program contracting the Couples for Christ to campaign on exclusive Natural Family Planning (NFP). In 2005, Congressman Lagman ordered the DOH to submit copies of the so-called program in the budget hearings. Looking them over, it was clear the materials didn't just tackle NFP but misinformed about modern methods.

I guess what I really want to ask is whether we can do this (be ANTI-CHACHA) without having to ride on the coat tails of these mighty Bishops? My dream of a women's VOTE is actually simple. It rests on a notion of the legitimacy of women's rights claiming founded on human rights and dignity, NOT CHURCH (Bishop's) sanction.

Lessons Not Yet Learned

Just when you thought Nicole got some measure of justice when at least one of her rapists was given a GUILTY verdict, leave it to a Catholic Archbishop to cast the blame back on the rape victim.

"Women, most especially, should be taught that womanhood is precious and noble so it is not right for them to be flaunting it around," Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Lingayen-Dagupan said Tuesday. They should not make themselves appear cheap and practically inviting to be violated by men," he said the day after a Makati judge sentenced Lance Corporal Daniel Smith to up to 40 years in prison after finding him guilty "beyond reasonable doubt" of raping an intoxicated Filipino woman identified in the media only as "Nicole."Read more here

For having been friends with a US Marine, for having been out drinking and partying, Nicole (as other women like her) have been constantly blamed for "asking for it." That is, getting raped.

How is it that when men drink and party, getting raped is not at all an "expected" danger or consequence, but for women, it always is? To be sure, women, the way our society apparently sanctions irresponsible and malevolent male behavior (raping women whom they perceive as available), should always be on guard. On the other hand, what are we saying about men (and boys)?

Nicole's case is the best example of how rape is most often considered "normal," and "to be expected" as standard male behavior. Continuing to blame her now despite the court's vindication (even if only partial) of her claims, demonstrates how in law, as in this sexist society, the legitimacy of women's claims still rests upon archaic notions of womanhood founded on the mythical hymen.

I do not even understand what Archbishop Cruz meant when he said "the incident should also teach men to understand that the moment they violate women, whether consensual or not, the consequence of the act is big." Consensual or not? When is violation ever consensual? (The Revised Penal Code which is based on the Kodigo Penal and the Siete Partidas no doubt, makes similar distinctions, i.e. "consented abduction")

The point apparently being made is that all SEX (outside the sanctioned Church dictates) is dirty. (Which would explain why consent is not material?)

Yet in talking about rape, "lack of consent" is material. It is what makes rape, rape! Come to think about it, that refusal to acknowledge and recognize a woman's witholding of her consent, is what does every single rapist in.

Nicole's convicted rapist was no different. He claimed she gave her consent - that it was consensual (that is, barely conscious and in her drunken stupor, she supposedly did).

When consent is not an option, all sex is dirty, and men are "normal" to act out their "desire to rape," a woman who gives even a hint of her sexuality (or is perceived to be such by any man), is going to be raped and literally asked for it.

Just like a rapist, a high and mighty moralist of conservative Catholicism apparently does not recognize that a woman can actually make her own decision about sex.

In fact the glaring lesson to be learned in Nicole’s case is that it is precisely because a woman is able/capable to decide about sexual matters that she would know when it is something SHE DOES NOT WANT and precisely WITHOUT HER CONSENT.