The Filipina Paragon (Part 2)
I'm procrastinating again. I have a few documents that need some work before I head out to hang out with friends in Malaysia next week. But I'm kinda stuck. So I checked the blog, which I haven't seen in over three weeks. And then I see this from angelicsmile:
Thank you for your opinion. If you read the stories provided by the Filipinas around the world, you will see the Filipina activist, the Filipina mail order bride, the Filipina working against domestic violence, the Filipina daughter, the foreigner hurt by his Filipina girlfriend, the Filipina mom, the Filipina daughter and so much more. We show hundreds of stories both positive and negative.
FilipinaImages.com is a collaborative effort of all the bloggers who believe that the The Filipina of the Future deserves a more empowered, diverse image online. Multiple, complex, and whole. " We are not out to change the Filipina perception but to balance the search engine results of Filipina websites. It's that simple.
I hope you take the time to read their stories.
Which is pretty cool. I generally blog for myself, and I don't really expect anyone other than my friends to comment. So receiving a stranger's comment, and a dissenting one at that, is good.
And the comment is fair enough.
I have to admit, when I wrote the The Filipina Paragon (Part 1), I was knee-jerk-reacting to a site that seemed to be trying so hard to improve the Filipina image -- with images that make me cringe. So I went back to the Filipina Images site to give it another go.
One of the things that are currently featured on the site were the WikiPilipinas Filipina Stories, a contest of one-shot blog entries on the modern Filipina. So I went to the winners of this contest as a starting point. Let it not be said that I am not willing to have my mind changed (ADHD kind of dictates that I do that at least once every thirty minutes, anyway). So here we go:
The winning entry was titled, The Filipina Doctor: Coming Full Circle, which expounds on the evolution of the Filipina healer from the pre-colonial babaylan to the Western doctor that she is now. It nods to ground-breaking Filipinas in the medical field. And it was a nice trip down the history of women in the medical field.
The entry the placed second was called, The Evolving Beauty of the Modern Filipina. The metaphor the blogger used was that of beauty products -- how beauty products have evolved from sabila to an entire fruit cocktail of products, and how that evolution was very much like that of The Filipina (the modern Filipina is as well-developed as the current beauty products out in the market)... And the blogger also compared his effort to define the Filipina to a reader analysing a book., failing to realise that a woman is not the freakin' book, she's the freakin' author. Not objects or subjects, but creators of that so-called evolution... And don't get me started on how the history of the modern woman is compared to the history of beauty products... How the heck did that entry get second place?
The third place entry, the Cyber Feminisation of Poverty: Mail Order Brides and the Image of the Filipina, should have won. The title was not a faked intellectual one. It actually cohesively looks at how the Internet has exacerbated the Mail Order Bride Dilemma (it sites sources and all that). It was well-written and the fact that the blogger didn't go all "We're Filipinas, we're so awesome" was pretty cool. It was the most intelligent one out of all of them. My only problem with it was that the blogger posted pictures of women from mail order bride sites. What about their privacy, eh?
All in all, I was pretty pleased that the comment from angelicsmile prompted me to go back and read those blog entries.
But here's the thing. The objective of the Filipina Images site is to revamp the image of The Filipina from an exoticised Mail Order Bride to that of one that is empowered and not-a-hoe. Good for them! But I still have an issue with who the subject of all of this is: Filipina Mail-Order Brides; Filipinas who go to these dating sites so they can bag a foreigner.
To me, it reeks of self-righteousness.
Let's all change the image of the Filipina into something more like us because we have careers and families and jobs and empowerment. Let's not let those Mail Order Brides ruin our image.
The whole thing speaks to a foreign audience.
Look! Filipinas are more than Mail Order Brides, we are empowered! Please change your minds about us!
I can't help but hear that underneath the pretty words.
I can't help but think that what this is doing is further alienating those women who think the Mail Order Bride thing is the only way out of their miserable lives. Further making them into objects of pity / scorn / analysis as we middle-class, empowered few sit in front of our machines and try to tell the world that we are not them.
_____
I'm not done. When I have free time, I will go back to that site and read some more.
But for now it's back to those concept briefs.
Thank you for your opinion. If you read the stories provided by the Filipinas around the world, you will see the Filipina activist, the Filipina mail order bride, the Filipina working against domestic violence, the Filipina daughter, the foreigner hurt by his Filipina girlfriend, the Filipina mom, the Filipina daughter and so much more. We show hundreds of stories both positive and negative.
FilipinaImages.com is a collaborative effort of all the bloggers who believe that the The Filipina of the Future deserves a more empowered, diverse image online. Multiple, complex, and whole. " We are not out to change the Filipina perception but to balance the search engine results of Filipina websites. It's that simple.
I hope you take the time to read their stories.
Which is pretty cool. I generally blog for myself, and I don't really expect anyone other than my friends to comment. So receiving a stranger's comment, and a dissenting one at that, is good.
And the comment is fair enough.
I have to admit, when I wrote the The Filipina Paragon (Part 1), I was knee-jerk-reacting to a site that seemed to be trying so hard to improve the Filipina image -- with images that make me cringe. So I went back to the Filipina Images site to give it another go.
One of the things that are currently featured on the site were the WikiPilipinas Filipina Stories, a contest of one-shot blog entries on the modern Filipina. So I went to the winners of this contest as a starting point. Let it not be said that I am not willing to have my mind changed (ADHD kind of dictates that I do that at least once every thirty minutes, anyway). So here we go:
The winning entry was titled, The Filipina Doctor: Coming Full Circle, which expounds on the evolution of the Filipina healer from the pre-colonial babaylan to the Western doctor that she is now. It nods to ground-breaking Filipinas in the medical field. And it was a nice trip down the history of women in the medical field.
The entry the placed second was called, The Evolving Beauty of the Modern Filipina. The metaphor the blogger used was that of beauty products -- how beauty products have evolved from sabila to an entire fruit cocktail of products, and how that evolution was very much like that of The Filipina (the modern Filipina is as well-developed as the current beauty products out in the market)... And the blogger also compared his effort to define the Filipina to a reader analysing a book., failing to realise that a woman is not the freakin' book, she's the freakin' author. Not objects or subjects, but creators of that so-called evolution... And don't get me started on how the history of the modern woman is compared to the history of beauty products... How the heck did that entry get second place?
The third place entry, the Cyber Feminisation of Poverty: Mail Order Brides and the Image of the Filipina, should have won. The title was not a faked intellectual one. It actually cohesively looks at how the Internet has exacerbated the Mail Order Bride Dilemma (it sites sources and all that). It was well-written and the fact that the blogger didn't go all "We're Filipinas, we're so awesome" was pretty cool. It was the most intelligent one out of all of them. My only problem with it was that the blogger posted pictures of women from mail order bride sites. What about their privacy, eh?
All in all, I was pretty pleased that the comment from angelicsmile prompted me to go back and read those blog entries.
But here's the thing. The objective of the Filipina Images site is to revamp the image of The Filipina from an exoticised Mail Order Bride to that of one that is empowered and not-a-hoe. Good for them! But I still have an issue with who the subject of all of this is: Filipina Mail-Order Brides; Filipinas who go to these dating sites so they can bag a foreigner.
To me, it reeks of self-righteousness.
Let's all change the image of the Filipina into something more like us because we have careers and families and jobs and empowerment. Let's not let those Mail Order Brides ruin our image.
The whole thing speaks to a foreign audience.
Look! Filipinas are more than Mail Order Brides, we are empowered! Please change your minds about us!
I can't help but hear that underneath the pretty words.
I can't help but think that what this is doing is further alienating those women who think the Mail Order Bride thing is the only way out of their miserable lives. Further making them into objects of pity / scorn / analysis as we middle-class, empowered few sit in front of our machines and try to tell the world that we are not them.
_____
I'm not done. When I have free time, I will go back to that site and read some more.
But for now it's back to those concept briefs.