Matriarchy is not what feminists think it is
Western feminists, for over half a century, have argued that gender itself has been the fundamental agent of women's oppression. The solution often claimed, is to establish a matriarchy. But very few understand what a matriarchy really is.
Where society was based on forms of meritocracy -- often on the power to make financial profit -- artificial barriers that might exist in less fluid societies could be broken down by women excelling and so they could rise in the culture.
Two Groups
For thousands of years and probably since the evolution of our species, humans lived in societies that were divided into two groups. These are the 'Men' or 'Away' group who were nominally the hunters but more importantly the protectors, and the 'Not-Men' or 'Home' group, made up of women, children, elderly men and those males who either did not wish to or were not allowed to join the 'Away' group.
This behaviour is innate and is seen in many other species. In lions, for example, females t
So is Philippines matriarchal or patriarchal?
It’s a matriarchy in the sense that anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday defines it. While Christianity has made inroads into this, certainly in the provinces it still very much is.
The social influence is masculine. Therefore, Philippines is patriarchal. Virginity is still valued in the Philippines. Virginity is a paternal law of men to prove that men own women like broken of hymen and bleeding. The social influence of feminine is sex, pregnancy and being a motherhood but majority of Filipino men believe that they control women through sex and Filipino men are sex dominant instead of women being sex superior because women gave life to all humanity and provide sexual knowledge. It became a sin and it now taught that women must keep their virginity to their first husband. There are many things to mention but I run of English. I’m not expert in spoken English. Haha. Sorry.
Hello and thank you for commenting.
In the first place, I should have to say that this article was written before my most recent visit to the Philippines. In that, I spent several months living in a traditional village upcountry, in Bulacan. I would now make some alterations to the piece in the light of that.
Having said that, there is no doubt at all that within the village, a matriarchy was in force. Women I interviewed made that very clear; they said things like ‘Men make the money but we decide what goes on here.’ In addition, many of the women had their own businesses, some such as sari-sari stores but others in town; one ran a midwife clinic, others had jobs in town.
However, though the detail of my view and my understanding of the relationships have somewhat changed, in principle I stand by them. In traditional Filipino villages — and this is replicated across SE Asia — matriarchies exist. Men are not in charge. I understand the argument you make about ‘virginity being prized’ but that flies in the face of the evidence — which is of large numbers of unmarried mothers. I accept that a lot of that has to do with FIlipino men not accepting their obligations, but if Filipina girls were all virgins, then it could not happen.
I now think that matriarchy can only exist in partnership with a patriarchy. Essentially, you have to get the men out of the home space. That is what happens in a culture where most of the men work in distant cities or, as in the Philippines but also amongst the Minangkabau of Indonesia, they work abroad. The men, by their effort, support and maintain the matriarchy.
This raises the interesting point that the matriarchy, as seen by western feminists, is a canard. In fact what they want to do is to colonise and take over the patriarchy. They want to be ‘women-become-men’ as I said.
So I hear what you say, but I insist that I can take you to places in the Philippines where real matriarchies, run by matriarchs, exist. This is not just in traditional rural villages, I have seen it in the heart of major cities like Manila.
Thanks again for your comment and I hope you’ll come again
Regarding the concept of virginity in the Philippines, if you take a look at sources that documented pre-Hispanic Philippines, the concept did not even exist to begin with! The idea only came with the Spanish colonizers! But old habits that are part of thousands of years worth of cultural memory always finds a way to persist, and comes out in the forms that you described above Rod!
All this talk by Filipino men calling their wives “kumander” definitely did not come out of thin air for sure! Good read though and generally makes sense to me being a man who was born and raised in the Philippines! Thanks for the post.
Thanks again for your insight. Could you give me titles/refs for the sources on pre-Hispanic Phils? All I have is a very brief section in a general history book, I’d love to have more…it’s an area that interests me a lot
Interesting read. In my Chinese-Filipino family, my Lola was definitely the most dominant force that I can recall.
Off topic, watching documentaries about the preference for male sons in China to carry on the family name, in the Philippine, family names didn’t exist until the Spanish gave ppl family names for taxation. Any correlation with taking off the pressure of carrying a family name, which then takes away the added preference for males?
HI Melanie, you’re right about the names, it’s why so many Filipino family names are either Spanish (from the Spanish priests who registered them) or are place-names, from the location they lived in. I think in the Phils it was and remains the clan, ie the group of related families that is the basic social unit rather than the families. Because the Phils uses an Americanised naming system where children take the father’s family name rather than both the mother and the father’s, which is the Spanish one, or the mother’s alone, and because of the Chrstian tradition of wives taking their husband’s names names, surnames within clans can be very mixed. You’re absolutely right about the strong preference amongst men for male children, but that does not apply to women, who generally prefer female children — because they are key to the next generation. The clan exists through female fertility and its generations are from mother to daughter, not father to son. Traditional Filipino society is thus matrifocal and in practical terms, clans are matriarchal — Lola is the boss. (Peggy Reeves Sanday wrote about similar systems amongst the Minangkabau in Indonesia and it appears to be universal across SE Asia.) Something very similar existed until recently in Scotland, where I come from, and in southern Europe even today, but Anglo-Saxon culture has been extremely destructive of these traditional ways. Sometimes this is done with overtly ‘good’ intentions but usually has unforeseen consequences, which may not be so.