WOMEN INCONTEXT Women in Context ed. by Tiziano Tosolini
Women in Context
Th e present publication of the Asian Study Centre focuses on Tiziano Tosolini women in the diff erent contexts of Bangladesh, Japan, the Philip- pines, and China-Taiwan. In a time in which the “woman question” is forcibly taken up by government and non-government organizations alike, the four authors felt that there is a lack of attention concerning this topic in missionary refl ection. It is not, however, just a matter of catching up with present-day trends; the choice of the topic was determined by the simple realization that in Asia, if not everywhere in the world, the face of Christianity is mainly a woman’s face. In the countries under study, Christian Churches exist and prosper because of the untiring dedication and work of Christian women, both lay and religious. When all is said and done, to examine the place of women in Christianity is to study the place of Christianity in society, and vice versa. Asian Study Centre
dy Stu C n en ia t s r e A Xaverian Missionaries – Japan women in context Asian Study Centre Series
FABRIZIO TOSOLINI. Esperienza Missionaria in Paolo. 2002. Sergio Targa, Fabrizio Tosolini, Tiziano Tosolini. To What Needs are Our Cultures Responding? 2003. Sergio Targa, Fabrizio Tosolini, Tiziano Tosolini. Culture and Alterity. 2004. Sergio Targa, Fabrizio Tosolini, Tiziano Tosolini. Experiences of Conversion. 2005. Fabrizio Tosolini. Th e Letter to the Romans and St. Paul’s Grace and Apostleship:Towards a New Interpretation. In collaboration with Fu Jen Catholic University Press, Taipei, Taiwan. 2005. Tiziano Tosolini. Controstorie dal Giappone. 2006. Sergio Targa, Fabrizio Tosolini, Tiziano Tosolini. Faith and Money. 2006.
Published by Asian Study Centre Ichiba Higashi 1–103–1 598–0005 Izumisano (Osaka), Japan
Private edition, 2007
Printed in Taipei (Taiwan roc) Women in Context
edited by Tiziano Tosolini
dy Stu C n en ia t s r e A Xaverian Missionaries – Japan Contents
Introduction 1
Women and Society Bangladesh – Sergio Targa 9 Japan – Tiziano Tosolini 21 Philippines – Eugenio Pulcini 30 Taiwan – Fabrizio Tosolini 48
Women and Religions Bangladesh – Sergio Targa 61 Japan – Tiziano Tosolini 71 Philippines – Eugenio Pulcini 79 Taiwan – Fabrizio Tosolini 94
Women and Christianity Bangladesh – Sergio Targa 109 Japan – Tiziano Tosolini 119 Philippines – Eugenio Pulcini 126 Taiwan – Fabrizio Tosolini 138
Conclusion 147
Cumulative Index 153
Introduction Sergio Targa
. he present publication of the Asian Study Centre focuses on women in the diff erent contexts of TBangladesh, Japan, the Philippines and China- Taiwan. In a time in which the “woman question” is forcibly taken up by government and non-government organizations alike, the four authors felt that there is a lack of attention con- cerning this topic in missionary refl ection. Far from pretending to fi ll up this knowledge and/or bibliographical gap, the pres- ent study wishes only to initiate a debate on a question which eventually has turned out to be very complex. However, it is not just a matter of catching up with the present modern trend; the choice of the topic was determined by the simple realisation that in Asia, if not everywhere in the world, Christianity has mainly a woman’s face. In the countries under study, Christian Churches do exist and prosper because of the untiring dedication and work of Christian women, both religious and lay. Somehow it thus 4 | Women in Context
becomes a truism that to study the situation of women means to study the situation of Christianity and vice versa. While it is diffi cult to overemphasize this role of women in the day to day life of the diff erent churches, church authorities oft en misrecognise it as a matter of fact. Obviously, the “woman question” goes beyond the Christian realm and actually gets entangled in socio-cultural constructs whose origins are lost in the beginning of societies and polities and in their transformations over time. From time immemorial, in fact, women because of their biological constitution have been recognised in one way or another as privileged vehicles of the divine, the sacred and of life in general. Th is however has ambiguously determined their liminal position vis a vis ancient and not so ancient societies. Attraction and repulsion, love and hatred, praise and fear have been the content of relationships between women and their male counter- parts or society in general. More oft en than not, women throughout history have been used as tools for male supremacy, a sacrifi ce on the altar of power and patriarchy which it embodied. To talk about women today, in the here and now, is thus also to acknowledge a history of suff ering, oppression and marginalization which for many women of Asia, is as yet unfi nished. Th is book wishes then to be a vehicle through which women’s voices, too oft en silenced or unheard, may resound loudly in their cry for human dignity and respect. Th e authors are aware that their desire to listen to and allow women’s voices to be heard passes through their own foreign and male fi lters. Th is fact which is an unavoidable shortcoming of the endeavour may somehow be off set by considering that to rediscover the human dignity of women, too oft en denied in the name of tradition, culture and reli- gion, i.e. the diff erent guises in which power reveals itself, is to enhance, accomplish and fulfi l the human dignity of men as well. Patriarchy and all its defi ciencies, in fact, do not only degrade or lessen women, but also men. Th e book’s basic approach is phenomenological without at the same time shying away from proposing inputs of a more theoretical and academic nature where the authors so deemed it necessary. Tending to be a realistic and organic research on the situation of women in Bangladesh, Japan, the Philippines and China-Taiwan, the reader should nevertheless be aware that the authors, more than detached academicians are life-long witnesses of the reality in which they live. It is hoped that their eff ort will be successful if at least some women could recognise themselves in the refl ections and narrations here proposed. Th e book is neatly organised in three main sections, each of which collects articles from the countries under study. Th e fi rst section, Women and Society, proposes, in historical perspective, to collocate women within the wider socio-cultural context of their respective countries. Th e authors endeavour to position women within a wider scheme of patriarchy teasing out the diff er- ent positions which consistently deny and negate women’s voices. Th is denial is disturb- Introduction | 5 ingly striking in the situation of systemic violence in which Bangladeshi women fi nd themselves. Th e second section, Women and Religions, attempts a reading of the roles and collo- cation of women within religious traditions of peoples’ of other faiths. Th e diff erential nuanced dynamics of exclusion-inclusion and marginalization-absorption are high- lighted as a consequence of women's liminal nature. Institutional and historical religions are here found to be less woman-friendly than traditional, decentralised Asian natural or animist religious traditions. Th e third section, Women and Christianity, looks into women’s role vis a vis Christianity, analyzing particularly the Catholic denomination. Apart from the more positive histori- cal experience in China-Taiwan and Japan, the authors underline the hypothesis that the encounter with Christianity has not always been liberating for women. In particular, Christianity’s introduction in tandem with the entry of colonial political power has been traumatic for some (Th e Philippines) and its a-critical acculturation in and absorption of local cultural setups have emptied Christianity of its liberating novelty for others (Bangladesh). Th e four authors wish to thank several friends—James Heisig, Maria Villar, Archie Casey and John Fagan—who in diff erent countries have helped by correcting and editing the draft s for publication. Th eir discrete and unimposing work is gratefully acknowl- edged. Th e authors would also like to thank the Xaverian Missionaries who supported and encouraged the completion of this work. Women and Society Bangladesh
Sergio Targa
Man sees women as slaves and creates them as such. Sometimes because of self-interest and fear he may even glorify them as goddesses… but he is certainly a cheater and a liar in his lauds.
Humayun Azad 1
n the light of the above quote, to address women as goddesses may be a cruel lie indeed in the context of IBangladesh. Th e Daily Star, a widely circulated English newspaper, reported that in the year 2006, 6,054 women were tortured or killed all over Bangladesh. 967 women were raped and brutally tortured. Among them 248 were victims of gang
1. A. Humayun, Nari (Dhaka: Agami Prokashoni.Tritio Sonskoron, 2004), 13. In Bengali, my translation. Prof. Humayun Azad (1947–2004), a prolifi c writer and a scholar, was famous for his liberal socio-politic critique. A freethinker and an atheist, he was victim of an assassination attempt at the hands of Islamic radicals on February 27, 2004. His book, Nari, was banned in 1995 by the then Bangladeshi Government. Th e ban, following a decision of the High Court, was eventually lift ed in 2000. He died in mysterious circumstances while in Germany for research work on August 11, 2004. 10 | Women in Context
rape and 170 were killed aft er being raped. 478 other women committed suicide.2 Th ese numbers are however defective. Th ey have been evinced by an article counting only the cases which during the year interfaced with 12 national newspapers. Th e reality must be very much worse if we consider the strongly patriarchal and traditional connotations of Bangladeshi society in which women live hidden, silent and forgotten existences. Th e paper, of course, produced other disturbing statistics but the few mentioned here may give us an idea of women’s standing in Bangladesh. Th e present essay will try to provide an insight into the position of women in the diff erent domains of private and public life by focusing particularly on violence perpetrated against them. A woman’s life usually starts out on a wrong footing. Generally speaking, a baby girl in Bangladesh is not welcomed as much as a baby boy is. In the collective imagination of Bangladeshi people, girls are burdens and this refl ects practically on the kind of care baby girls are aff orded from their fi rst day in this world. Demographic science quantifi es this care or better, the lack of it. Bangladesh is one of the very few countries in which the female/male ratio in its population is “unnatural.” South Asia is a region where even the global biological pattern of men-women ratio, which implies that if both sexes receive similar nutritional and health care, women outlive men, has been overturned. While it is natural that women live longer than men do, there is an overall ratio of 106 women to 100 men globally. But in South Asia, the men outnumber the women, where there are only 94 women to every 100 men.3 In more recent statistics the same gap has been confi rmed albeit with a slight improve- ment. In Bangladesh in the year 2006 the sex ratio was 95 women to every 100 men.4 Th ese latest statistics also show the unnatural diff erence in life expectancy in Bangladesh. While women have a life expectancy of 53.3 years, their male counterparts have a life expectancy of 55.3 years.5 Even the infant mortality rate shows the kind of discrimination baby girls are subjected to: “For every 1,000 live births in 1998, 470 of the female children died before their fi ft h birthday as opposed to 370 of the male children.”6 Th e same report estimates that in 2001 the maternity mortality rate was approximately 3.8 deaths per 1,000 live births, one of the highest in the world.7
2. Staff Correspondent, “6,054 Women Tortured, Killed in 2006,” Th e Daily Star, vol. 5/932, Jan. 12 (2007). 3. Y. Lailufar, Law and Order Situation and Gender-based Violence: Bangladeshi Perspective. rcss Policy Studies, 16 October 2000, ch.3.
In the fi eld of health and nutrition too women and girls are worse off . It has been shown that girls under 5 years of age are relatively more undernourished than boys in the same age group. As a result in rural areas 25 of unmarried adolescent girls were found to be disproportionally thin (severely and moderately).8 Th is certainly has to do with the situation of chronic and endemic poverty many Bangladeshi households found them- selves in; but it has also to do with the neglect and disregard meted out daily to women and girls. Th e degree of what we may call “passive” violence women must endure right from the moment of their birth is met only by the degree of active violence wilfully perpetrated against them during their life span. Strange as it may seem the place where most of the violence takes place is the family, their fathers’ family fi rst, their husbands’ later. During childhood and adolescence, for the lucky ones,9 girls are socialised according to the prin- ciples of patriarchy. Discrimination is in-built in their education. Th ey are thus taught how to behave, how to dress, how to talk, and particularly, while their male siblings are allowed any sort of liberty and dreams, girls, from a very early age, are instilled with the poison of seclusion and reclusion, pardah. Th eir only dream is to fi nd a good husband and raise a family. To this purpose they are taught to cook, to maintain the household and to care for it. But what is worse, they are taught through socialisation processes that their sexuality is intrinsically bad, and thus must be denied, hidden, forgotten. Lojja or shame/modesty is put at the service of ijjat and somman or honour, not primarily theirs, but that of the family and lineage they belong to. Women are consequently taught that they are incomplete human beings and human beings of a lower nature. Seldom are they recognised as individuals since their personal existences fi nd completeness only and always at the dependence of the male components of their families, be it the father, the husband or the son. Nevertheless, the all important burden of safeguarding family hon- our is nested on them. Th eir not being fully human persons justifi es the strict control women are subjected to from cradle to grave. Th is control oft en degenerates into violence, which is, however, somehow culturally and socially tolerated as a lesser evil. Th e fear of women losing their ijjat is what impedes them from seeking legal aid. According to a reliable report, in the year 2005, 835 rape cases reached the public domain through newspapers. Women and their families lodged complaints with the police in less than half the cases, while fi ft y one cases were resolved informally through a salish or village arbitration.10 To expose vio- lence, particularly sexual violence, is to ruin the standing of one’s own family.
8. See icddr.b., “Nutritional Status, Knowledge and Practices of Unmarried Adolescent Girls in Rural Bangladesh,” Health and Science Bulletin 2006 (4/3): 9. 9. It is reported and I can confi rm it from my own fi eld experience that 70 of girls are married off before reaching 17. 10. See D.M. Siddiqi, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Women Rights in 2005,” Hameeda Hossain, ed., Human Rights in Bangladesh 2005 (Dhaka: Ain O Salish Kendra - ask, 2006), 209. 12 | Women in Context
In addition, the archaic, lengthy and expensive criminal justice system oft en prevents women from bringing cases to the court. If somehow they manage to lodge cases, 95 of the accused in rape cases are acquitted due to faulty investi- gations or lack of evidence.11 Bangladeshi women are capable of incredible patience and endurance. But even Bangladeshi women cannot bear the unbearable and the 478 women who committed suicide in 2006 are a stark reminder of that. Despite the intervening socio-economic changes at both national and international levels, Bangladeshi women still obtain social identity and recognition basically through marriage. Marriage aff ords them a degree of social visibility, a specifi c traditional role and psychological fulfi lment. However, as anticipated above, the household is the place where much of the violence against women takes place. A study carried out in 2001 revealed that 60 of urban women and 61 of rural women reported being physically or sexually abused at some point in their lives.12 Th e study found that the perpetrators were in most cases husbands: 84 of the cases in rural areas and 75 in urban ones.13 Sexual violence by their husbands was reported by 37 of urban women and 50 of rural women.14 Th e research established then a link between violence and suicide. Among urban women 7 of those who were never abused contemplated sui- cide, compared to 21 among abused urban women. Among rural women, 4 of the never-abused compared to 15 of abused women contemplated suicide. Among women who contemplated suicide, abused women were twice as likely to attempt suicide (29) compared to the never-abused group (14).15 Even though two thirds of the physically assaulted wives did nothing to redress the wrong perpetrated and that those who actually did something basically relied on informal net- works of relatives and neighbours, for the year 2005 ask still reported 356 cases of domes- tic violence which somehow managed to reach the press. Th ese cases were related to dowry demands. Apparently “dowry now constitutes a major trigger for violence against women in their homes.”16 Mention has to be made here of a specifi c crime against women unique to Bangladesh: acid throwing. In 2005, 130 cases of acid attacks were reported in the press; down from an all time high number of 484 cases recorded in 2002. Seven of the cases recorded in 2005 were related to dowry demands, but most of the other cases were related to landed
11. B. Afroza, “Rape: a Deprivation of Women’s Rights in Bangladesh,” Asia-Pacifi c Journal on Human Rights and the Law 2004 (1/1–48): 2. 12. See icddr.b., “Domestic Violence against Women in Bangladesh,” Health and Science Bulletin 2006 (4/2): 3. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., 5. 16. D.M. Siddiqi, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Women Rights in 2005,” op. cit., 205. women and society: bangladesh | 13 property disputes, followed by family enmity. Apparently the reasons behind acid attacks have undergone a shift over the years. While at fi rst17 these were predominantly deter- mined by the refusal by women of marriage or sexual proposals, “acid attacks on women have [now] become the prime means of intimidating or taking revenge on personal and political rivals.”18 Indeed familial violence is a major problem for women and society at large in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, women, despite major achievements in most other fi elds, do not seem capable yet of doing much about it. Women in Bangladesh are still lagging far behind men in important social domains. Th e literacy rate for women still stands at a meagre 29.9 while it is 52.3 for men.19 And this certainly has relevance for the way women see themselves, build their identities, relate to the outside world and concep- tualise the treatment meted out to them. Among the reasons mentioned by assaulted wives for keeping silent, the study mentioned above reports: “Not considering violence as serious enough to report (57 urban, 52 rural), stigma or fear of not being believed or being blamed (30 urban, 40 rural), disgracing her family with disclosure (26 urban, 34 rural) and a belief that seeking help would not bring them any respite (11 urban, 10 rural).”20 Th ese answers refl ect a low degree of self-awareness and self-esteem and, particularly, a high degree of tolerance and endurance induced by discriminatory socialisation practices. Th e feeling of helplessness projected by the above responses is reinforced and, at the same time, caused by the low economic value of women.21 Women are still very far from any economic empowerment which would free them from the absolute dependence for their own subsistence on the male earner of the family. Although women make up 41.7 of the work force in the agricultural sector, 27.8 in the industrial sector and 30.5 in the service sector, their average income is only 57 of that of their male counterparts,22 so it is no wonder that in today’s Bangladesh the hardcore poor are largely women. Women’s helplessness is built into women’s lives as part of their nature and identity. Any breach of this discriminatory but socially accepted and fostered attitude cannot but produce violence both in the family and in society. Traditionally in Bangladesh village arbitrations (shalish) carried out by elders and religious specialists, have been used to police women’s bodies. In these arbitrations women are not allowed any role if not that of defendants. Cases such as extra marital relations, premarital pregnancies, divorces, mar- riages etc. are the kind of matters these informal tribunals may deal with. Th e verdicts are
17. Th e fi rst acid attack which has been documented goes back to the year 1983. 18. D.M. Siddiqi, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Women Rights in 2005,” op. cit., 212. 19. See Shadow Report to the Fift h Periodic Report of the Government of Bangladesh, op. cit., 33. 20. icddr.b., “Domestic Violence against Women in Bangladesh,” op. cit., 5. 21. Women in Bangladesh do not have economic value per se. Th eir value depends on the dowry they bring to the husband’s family. 22. See Shadow Report to the Fift h Periodic Report of the Government of Bangladesh, op. cit., 35. 14 | Women in Context
nearly always against women’s interests and may end up with punishments like caning, lashing, stoning, shaving hair and social boycott of the women involved. In cases in which religious specialists are involved, the proceedings end with a fatwa or religious edict which sanctions the verdict by fashioning it with a religious garb. Th ese fatwas are illegal but of the 46 fatwas recorded in 2005 only 4 were prosecuted in a regular court of law.23 As a matter of fact, village arbitrations work as a strong deterrent against women’s “immoral” deviations. Oft en the judges of these village courts are semi-liter- ate, bigoted but infl uential people whose only purpose is to perpetuate power relations maintaining the status quo of class domination within village society. Women are just the tool for such unholy power struggles. In the same way as land disputes oft en hide power struggles between rival groups or families, women, as commodity, possession or property of families or groups, are used and sacrifi ced to exert the hegemony of one group over the other. Th e extent of violence both passive and active against women is indeed diffi cult to quantify. Th e statistics available rely basically on press reports. It seems however that violence against women is on the increase. On February the 8th, 2007 in a newspaper article it was reported that during the year 2006 in ten southern districts 250 women were murdered and 400 committed suicide,24 a sharp rise if we consider that in 2005 in the same districts only 65 women were reported killed. Despite persisting discriminatory attitudes at all levels of public and private life, women undoubtedly in the last two decades have witnessed a degree of development. More and more women have been joining the work force and the spreading of micro-credit facilities all over Bangladesh has undeniably enhanced women’s self-reliance. More and more girls are attending school. Recent statis- tics would show that 95 of girls are enrolled in primary schools.25 And more and more women are slowly but steadily raising their voices demanding respect for their dignity and rights. Th e Janakantha, a widely circulated Bengali daily, reported that within the Dhaka municipal area in the year 2004 because of torture and dowry complications 2,500 wives divorced their husbands, while in the same period only 1,000 husbands divorced their wives. Women activists interpreted this as a sign of women’s empowerment.26 Women are starting to enter the political scene too. From 1997 the government reserved 3 seats for women in local administrative units. In that year’s election 12,828 women were elected including 20 as chairpersons and 110 as members from general seats.27 Similarly, at national level women are guaranteed 45 reserved seats in parliament
23. See D.M. Siddiqi, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Women Rights in 2005,” op. cit., 210. 24. See A. Amanur, “Sharp Rise in Violence against Women in South-Western Dists,” Th e Daily Star, vol. 5/956, Feb. 8 (2007). To be noticed, at the beginning of this paper it was mentioned that during the year 2006 the suicide of women all over Bangladesh topped 472 cases. Here the number of suicides for the same year but for only 10 districts out of 64 is reported to be 400. Indeed, the number of suicides among women must be much higher than that reported in the press. 25. See R. Hausmann, L.D. Tyson, S. Zahidi, eds., Th e Global Gender Gap Report 2006, op. cit., 37. 26. M.A. Choudhori, “Talaker pothe eghie nari-nirjaton o joutuker porinoti,” Janakantha June 16, 2005. 27. See Asian Development Bank, Women in Bangladesh (Manila: Country Briefi ng Paper, 2001), 15. women and society: bangladesh | 15 by the Constitution of the country. In the last legislature 7 women were elected directly by the people and 5 of ministerial offi ces, including that of the prime minister, were occupied by women (i.e. 3 women out of a cabinet of 67 members).28 Th ese indisputably positive signs contrast stridently with an increase in violence against women. Th e two opposing kinds of data, however, may be partly explained by referring to the changing roles of women in Bangladeshi society. While culturally society remains strongly patriarchal and discriminatory towards women, women themselves through improved education, economic solvency and political participation are no lon- ger confi ned to their socially sanctioned traditional roles of mothers and wives. Violence then becomes the only way and means for society to keep in check women’s new chosen roles and power. In particular, the increased economic independence of women may have destabilised power relations within the family. It is therefore possible that participation in credit related development interventions increases the possibility of violence within the family. Someone suggests that “expanding women’s access to economic opportunities and resources does not always make them less vulnerable to domestic violence, at least not right away. Rather, in some cases, credit creates a new arena of hostility and confl ict.”29 Violence, moreover, is certainly invited by the more than ambiguous role of the govern- ment and its agencies in matters concerning discrimination against women. Perhaps one of the most heinous dimensions of the situation of women in Bangladesh has to do with the direct or indirect complicity of law enforcing agencies, particularly the police, in perpetrating violence, especially sexual violence, against women. In the year 2003, 27 rapes or attempted rapes (14 and 13 respectively) were perpetrated by security forces.30 Victims in these cases are oft en very poor women and women belonging to reli- gious and ethnic minority communities. It is disturbing then to realise that most rapes or attempted rapes by security forces took place while women were being kept in “safe custody.” One wonders what safe custody means! Unfortunately the state in all of these cases has been too slow to react and bring the culprits to book. Successive governments of Bangladesh, perhaps due more to international pressure rather than conviction, have been active enough in passing legislation meant to protect women’s rights and close the gender gap. Ratifying “Th e Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women” (cedaw) albeit with reservations on Articles 2 and 16.1 c., Bangladesh has undertaken to revise all its legislation and align it to the Convention’s requirements. In 1995 Bangladesh endorsed the Platform for Action (pfa) of the Fourth World Conference of Women held in Beijing and it committed to ensuring its implementation at national level. Accordingly the government devised a
28. See Shadow Report to the Fift h Periodic Report of the Government of Bangladesh, op. cit., 27. 29. Naripokkho and Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, Violence against Women in Bangladesh. Baseline Report. International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacifi c (Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur, 2002), 21.
National Action Plan for the Advancement of Women immediately followed in 1997 by a National Policy on Women whose stated aim was to prioritise any government inter- vention aimed at eradicating any sort of violence against women. Th e Prevention of Repression of Women and Children Act of 2000 then replaced the Repression of Women and Children (Special Enactment) Act of 1995. Th is last piece of legislation increased the punishment for rape to the death penalty and provided for a special tribunal to adjudicate in cases involving rape and other repressive off ences against women. Th is act has notably stopped the practice of placing women and girls in safe custody in jails. It, however, still allows a judge to place an adult woman in “safe homes” without fi rst seeking her con- sent. Th e Acid Attack Crime Repression Act and the Acid Control Act have been enacted in 2002 to try to counter cases of acid attacks. Th is new legislation was added to that already existing, for instance the Child Marriage Restraint Act (1983), the Dowry Prohibition (Amendment) Ordinance of 1982 and the Immoral Traffi cking Act (1993) which provides punishment for forcing a girl into prostitution. Unfortunately this legislation basically failed to deter and check crimes against women. Despite all good intentions the succes- sive governments failed to strictly enforce the legislation. Indeed one may even doubt the good intentions of the government and its machinery. In 2003 the parliament amended the Prevention of Repression of Women and Children Act (2000) directly undermining women’s interests, among other things, by weakening the grounds of sexual harassment.31 More recently in 2004 the government secretly,32 without parliamentary discussion, introduced critical changes in the National Women’s Advancement Policy. “Taken as a whole, the modifi ed language appears to be calculated not only to limit women’s equal rights to and participation in the economy but also to bolster a specifi c construction of femininity and the role of women in the family.”33 In 2005 the government reneged on its electoral pledges and international commitments once again. In 2004 the constitutional provision providing for the reservation of 30 seats for women in parliament had expired. Women activists had been lobbying for a renewal of the provision but allowing for the reserved seats to be directly elected by the people of the country. Despite all the pledges, the government amended the constitution enhancing the number of members of parliament from 300 to 345 and reserving 45 seats for women. Th ese 45 women will not however be directly elected, instead they will be nominated by political parties according to their parliamentary strength. Th is of course will dimin- ish and undermine women’s standing in parliament as well as their responsibility and accountability to the people.
31. See Shadow Report to the Fift h Periodic Report of the Government of Bangladesh, op. cit., 22. 32. Incredibly, the revision of the said document (May 2004) was discovered a year aft er its emendation, by chance (May 2005). Th is not only had been detrimental to women’s rights but also to the democratic process of the country as a whole. 33. D.M. Siddiqi, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Women Rights in 2005,” op. cit., 198. women and society: bangladesh | 17
Basically, in the last few years or so the government has been paying lip service to the cause of women’s rights and equality. On the international forum its rhetoric has hidden or tried to hide the structure of a patriarchal state which, to maintain its institutionalised patronage framework and thus protect existing power relations, needs to consistently overlook the women question. From earliest times in the Indian Sub-continent women have been construed as infe- rior to men to allow their commoditisation and use. Th e hierarchy of the caste system and the stability of power relations codifi ed into it depended on women and on their control. Patronage was the base relationship existing among the diff erentially powerful and pow- erless groups of the state. In this respect violence against women may be seen as the result of shift s in traditional power relations within the country. Accordingly, what in India is said of the relationship between caste and gender may be applicable also to Bangladesh. Gender within caste society is… defi ned and structured in such a manner that the “manhood” of the caste is defi ned both by the degree of control men exercise over women and the degree of passivity of the women of the caste. By the same argument, demonstrating control by humiliating women of another caste is a certain way of reducing the “manhood” of those castes.34 And reducing manhood means reducing men’s power and their capacity to eff ectively exercise it. Obviously in Bangladesh the caste system is no longer what it used to be. However, there are power groups within today’s society which behave and operate in the same way caste hierarchy did. Th e absurdly high incidence of gang rape in the last few years lends support to such an interpretation. In the year 2005 alone the media reported 250 cases of gang rape.35 Such an interpretation gains increased validity when the victims are members of minority communities. Aft er the national political elections of 2001 violence in general and gang rape in particular erupted at the expense of the Hindu population. Th e political alliance which won the election took revenge on the Hindu community traditionally believed to support the defeated Awami League party. Needless to say the then government failed blatantly in prosecuting such instances.36 Th e same is to be said of the gang rape of 8 tribal women in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Th is happened in August 2003 in Mahalchari where together with the 8 women raped, 300 Chakma and Marma houses were set on fi re by Bengali settlers while law enforcing personnel stood by and protected the arsonists.37 Obviously, not all violence against women may have the same explanation. It may be
34. V. Kannabiran & K. Kannabiran, “Caste and Gender: Understanding Dynamics of Power and Violence,” A. Rao, ed., Gender and Caste (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2006), 254. 35. See D.M. Siddiqi, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Women Rights in 2005,” op. cit., 209. 36. In 2001, I myself investigated a case of gang rape in a village in Jessore district. Two girls and two married women belonging to a Hindu low caste were gang raped by alleged supporters of the winning political coalition. In passim, it may be noted that when I informed the second in charge of the usa Embassy in Dhaka, he simply dis- missed the case by saying that these things happen normally in Bangladesh whichever the party in power. 37. See S. Halim, “Women, Violence and Gender Injustice in Bangladesh Perspective,” op. cit., 103. 18 | Women in Context
said, however, that all violence against women may be seen either as the cause and source of patriarchal power at all levels of society or as its eff ect. In fact, when womanhood is construed as inferior and valueless, violence itself becomes cheap! Th e contradictory and ambiguous attitude of the Bangladesh government towards women may actually be itself the result of a wilfully devised state policy. While on the one hand the government cannot but go ahead with an internationally fostered rhetoric of capitalist development and the economically necessary38 ideology of women’s empowerment, on the other hand it must continue to keep women within traditionally sanctioned acceptable roles. Women are seen as the main transmitter of societal values and behaviours; therefore, the changing role of women is associated with the disruptions of a more systemic social order. As a result, eff orts are made to try to re-impose tra- ditional behaviours for women as a remedy for crisis and destabilization.39 To this end Islamisation has become a handy political tool in the last two decades. More specifi cally, the government continues to hold on to a rigid distinction between public and private spheres of life. While in the public domain it could not but pass legislation to protect women’s rights, in the private domain it continues to keep its eyes shut. For instance, women’s rights activists had been lobbying the government to amend existing legislation to protect women from marital rape and violence in general. Everybody knows that domestic violence is perhaps the greatest problem women face in Bangladesh, how- ever, the government consistently denies any intervention in the matter. To do so in fact the government would enter on a collision course with the religious right and undermine the patriarchal power relationships which from the family extend upwards to the highest echelons of political power. Similarly, the reservations maintained by the government on articles 2 and 16 of the cedaw cannot but be explained in the same way. Article 240 requires the government to eliminate all sorts of discrimination against
38. Modernisation is an economic need more than a human rights’ requirement. Th e state needs to tap a hith- erto untapped female work force to run its industries and thus keep up with capitalist development induced by global economic changes. In Bangladesh, 80 of people employed in the garments and textile sectors are women. 39. G. Nasreen, Bangladeshi Women and the Politics of Religion.
bibliography
Afroza, Begum 2004 “Rape: a Deprivation of Women’s Rights in Bangladesh.” Asia-Pacifi c Journal on Human Rights and the Law, 1:1–48. Ain o Salish Kendra, Bd Mahila Parishad, Steps Towards Development 2004 Shadow Report to the Fift h Periodic Report of the Government of Bangladesh.
41. A. Humayun, Nari, op. cit., 371. My translation. 20 | Women in Context
2006 “Nutritional Status, Knowledge and Practices of Unmarried Adolescent Girls in Rural Bangladesh.” Health and Science Bulletin, 4/3: 6–10. Lailufar,Yasmin 2000 Law and Order Situation and Gender-based Violence: Bangladeshi Perspective.
Tiziano Tosolini
he notion of history in Japan is characterized by circularity and fl uidity. Events, happenings, and Tfacts occurring in time hardly ever seem to be neatly encompassed by the past and prevented from leaking into the present; hardly ever do they show the dust and sediments typical of things no longer in use or lost in the labyrinth of mem- ory. Much like religious festivities, past events and occurrences they reemerge unexpectedly on the ridge of the present, reappear between the folds of our time, instantly evaporating centuries and millennia of history. To become aware of this, one need only to take a look at the role that women played—or, more oft en, the role they were assigned to play—in Japanese society. Based on the few clues that can be found prior to the draft ing of the myths concerning the birth of Japan that are recounted in the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters, 712 ce) and in the Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan, 720 ce), we can infer that diff erent family clans, heirs to the Yōmon and Yayoi cultures, were organized accord- ing to a matriarchal system. Because of their procreative power 22 | Women in Context
and their fecundity, women were not only held in high esteem, they were also considered closer than men to the magical and the divine. Some of the women whose names survive in myths and legends were shamans and chieft ains. Furthermore, the ancestral cult of the sun goddess Amaterasu is further witness to the infl uence of the matriarchal structure. Th e fi rst chronicles of Japan, written by Chinese travelers in the third century, refer to these islands as the “Queen Country” because of the frequency of female rulers. Th e leg- endary shaman woman Hamiko led Japan from 180 to 248. Queen Jingū brought Japan into contact with the Asiatic mainland, preparing the way for the infl ux of continental infl uences. Th e fi rst time the word “emperor” was used as the imperial title was during the reign of Suiko (592–628), and Japan’s fi rst permanent capital, Nara, was built in obedience to the requests of empress Gemmei (707–715).1 Th is idyllic world in which women and men were at ease with one another, free from social intimidations and stratifi cations, at home with the natural world and with its innumerable gods, and—as the fi rst chronicles of the Chinese travelers once again testify—“in whose meetings and deportment, there is no distinction between father and son or between men and women,”2 slowly crumbled with the introduction of Buddhism and Confucianism. Imported from China in the sixth century, these religious and philo- sophical systems were based on rigid canons of behavior and on the exclusion of women from monastic communities. Th e relaxed ways of autochthonous Japanese customs and the matriarchal structure whereby it was the husband who would enter into his wife’s family (mukoirikon 婿入り婚) were soon replaced by the three well-known Confucian obediences—a woman has always to obey her father, her husband, and her older son— and a new precept according to which the wife was to enter into the husband’s family (yomeirikon 嫁入り婚).3 Th e fi rst inequalities started to surface in the economic sphere. Th e custom stipulat- ing that a landowner daughter was entitled to her parent’s home and a fair distribution of the parent’s possessions was now replaced by the convention that she could own only a small part of the inheritance, which had to be smaller than that of her husband. In the course of several centuries the Confucian social organization and the various Buddhist precepts came to aff ect all the strata of Japanese society, but from the start these rational and religious systems seem responsible for introducing clear distinctions and discrimi- nations with respect to women. In this way they contributed to the establishment of a patriarchal system which, as it gained strength over time, worked to eliminate or to silence—without ever succeeding completily—one based on the visions and aspirations of women. During the Heian period (794–1192) women’s infl uence on Japanese society and cul-
1. For a more detailed historical survey see G.B. Samson, Japan. A Short Cultural History (New York: Appleton Century Croft s, 1943), 22–106. 2. Ibid, 30. 3. S. Pharr, “History of Women in Japan,” Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983), 8: 258. women and society: Japan | 23 ture was rekindled. Great works of classic literature like Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book and Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji 4 witness the vivacity, prestige, and independent thinking of noble women. Moreover, these works bespeak the originality with which women, by refusing to employ the imported style of Chinese poetry, created new literary forms (the short story and the diary) that allowed them to describe, through an extraordinarily fi ne and elegant use of the Japanese language, their inner life and feelings. Th e reins of power passed again into the hands of men during the era of the shōgun and samurai, whose culture suppressed almost entirely the cultural expression of women. Obedience and submission became typically feminine virtues; wives were confi ned to the innermost rooms of the house and were denied all involvement in public and political matters. Within the samurai culture, every open display of aff ection and love was taken to be a manifestation of weakness and frivolity, a despicable eff usion of one’s feelings, an unacceptable revelation of one’s spontaneity—attitudes that will remain part and parcel of the social structure of contemporary Japan. Th e spreading of Confucianism and the hier- archic division of people in blood and rank is at the root of the incompatibility of roles and the increasing separation between genders that characterize that historical period. In 1672 the Confucian scholar Ekken Kaibara (1630–1714) published a now famous book, Greater Learning for Women, whose purpose was to illustrate which qualities a woman was supposed to possess and which vices she was to avoid: Th e only qualities that befi t a woman are gentle obedience, chastity, mercy, and quietness… Th e fi ve worst maladies that affl ict the female mind are: indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy, and silliness. Without any doubt, these fi ve mala- dies infest seven or eight out of every ten women, and it is from these that arises the inferiority of women to men… Th e worst of them all, and the parent of the other four, is silliness. Woman’s nature is passive. Th is passiveness, being of the nature of the night, is dark.5 Exactly what prompted Kaibara and intellectuals of his stature to dim the bright halo sur- rounding women at the origins of Japanese history and relegate them to a world of dark- ness and shadows is diffi cult to say with any precision. At any rate, Kaibara’s book was not intended for a wide audience, and throughout the feudal era the peasant majority and most other commoners were left to their own devices in matters of marriage and family. Th e Constitution (1889) and the Civil Code (1898) compiled during the Meiji resto- ration (1868–1912), were addressed to women and the role they were to play in society establishing and legalizing restrictions and prohibitions directly concerning women. Th ey were forbidden to gather in social organizations and to get involved in meetings or rallies of a political nature. Women could own property but were prevented from administrating
4. S. Sei, Pillow Book. Trans. by M. McKinney (London: Penguin Classics, 2006); S. Murasaki, Tale of Genji. Trans. by K. Suematsu (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1975). 5.
it at will. And they did not share their husband’s right to divorce, simply because a woman was defi ned legally as her spouse’s property. Th is forced exclusion of women from public life was captured ideologically in the formula proposed by Nakamura Masanao: “good wife, wise mother” (ryōsai kenbo 良妻賢母). He argued that women’s sphere of compe- tence was the family, and that their natural vocation was the education of their children. What was new in this affi rmation was the idea that a woman could play a greater role within the family, that she could prove her intelligence and competence, but only as an educator. In this way, women were gradually acknowledged as persons who were sup- posed to contribute to the development of the state through their qualities and talents. But the role they were assigned were the usual ones of the “traditional Japanese woman.” Th ey were to be frugal (so as to contribute to the advancement of Japanese industry), excellent pedagogues (so as to educate her children to be good imperial subjects), and wise managers of the household (which she could govern as she liked).6 Women reacted against this situation of near repression and segregation with inno- vative solutions by which they redefi ned the all too marginal and secondary role in which they had been secluded. Th e Taishō period (1912–1926) witnessed the birth of the “modern girl” (moga) who had style and no politics, who worked and toiled, but instead of marrying she spent her money on fashionable clothes and luxurious objects, frequent- ing nightclubs in the Ginza and drinking gin with apparent nonchalance. In the literary and poetic fi eld, the compositions of Yosano Akiko (1878–1942) made the feminine voice heard once again, a voice through which women could express and exalt their individual- ity, their feelings, and their profound desire to be considered as persons capable of love rather than merely as silent and anonymous entities completely dedicated to their fami- lies and the good of the state.7 During this period we also see the birth of the fi rst movements that would inspire the multifaceted development of feminism. One thinks of women like Kishida Toshiko (1864–1901), who was the fi rst woman openly to defend and advocate the rights of women; Kageyama Hideko (1865–1927), who fought courageously in favor of the emancipation of women and denounced their inferior social status; Shimizu Shikin (1868–1933), whose short story, Imin gakuen (School for Migrants), took up for the very fi rst time in the his- tory of Japanese literature, the issue of the Burakumin, or the “untouchables” of society; and Hiratsuka Raicho (1886–1971), who championed women’s right to an autonomous life and rejected the traditional family system.8
6. For a description and analysis of women’s conditions in the Meiji period, see G. L. Bernstein, ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). 7. J. Beichman, Embracing the Firebird. Yosano Akiko and the Birth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002). 8. M. Fujieda, “Japan’s First Phase of Feminism,” K. Fujimura and A. Kameda, eds., Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future (New York: Th e Feminist Press, 1995), 323–38; V. MacKie, Feminism in Modern Japan: Citizenship, Embodiment, and Sexuality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). women and society: Japan | 25
Th ese and many other feminine fi gures took advantage of this brief period of relative democracy to put forward their egalitarian claims and try to regain some of the dignity and independence that seemed to have been lost for ever. Despite the relative fl urry of cultural movement at the time, another wave of renunciations and privations was gath- ering strength. Th e modernization of the country and the reopening of its borders to international trade signalled an opportunity for Japan to fi nd a specifi c market in which to establish itself as a powerful force by creating a lasting balance between supply and demand. Th e country found such a market in the textile fi eld, whose workforce was mostly made up by women (80). But although women gave Japan its fi rst “number one” (early in the twentieth century, Japan became the world leader in cotton textiles, a posi- tion it kept until the late 1930s), their social condition showed no signs of improvement. On the contrary, in the decade preceding World War II the idea of the emancipation of women increasingly lost the relative popularity it had aft er so much eff ort come to enjoy. Th e entire Japanese population focused all its energies on the empowerment of the nation and, during the war, on its army and soldiers. Women were recruited for all sorts of pro- ductive and relief activities, and for the sake of the nation they soon abandoned every legitimate request or claim for themselves.9 Paradoxically, a drastic change in the social, political, and economic status of women was to take place not so much as a result of women’s struggles, but through the prom- ulgation of the new Constitution (1947) under the guidance of the Allied Forces. Th e Constitution stipulated: …all people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin. (No. 14) …marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis. (No. 24) Gradually women were endowed with rights previously unthinkable. Working in the eve- ning was prohibited along with doing more than two hours of overtime; maternity leave was to include the six months before and aft er childbirth; women could freely own and manage their property; equal divorce conditions for both spouses were established, with a wife having the right to receive an allowance from her former husband. Towards the end of the 1950’s and the beginning of the 1960’s the increase in industrial production and the gradual spread of material wellbeing gave birth to the fi gure of the “salaryman family,” made up of a family head (dedicated to work for his company with the zeal of a samurai), a wife, and two children. Besides working for the household, the woman took charge, almost obsessively, of the children’s education. During this period
9. M. Brinton, Women and the Economic Miracle: Gender and Work in Postwar Japan (California: University of California Press, 1994). 26 | Women in Context
there appeared the fi gure of the kyōiku mama (educational mama) who made it her veri- table raison d’être to see that her child performed well in school. From a social viewpoint, the development of supermarkets, convenience stores, and fast-food chains provided part-time or temporary employment opportunity for women and mothers during school hours. As material wellbeing became more widespread (the “three sacred treasures” of television, refrigerator, and washing machine which were all the range in the late 1950’s were now followed by the “three Cs:” cars, cooler or air conditioner and color TV’s), women began to expand their interests beyond their homes and neighborhoods. Th ey took advantage of increasing opportunities to develop personal interests and networks: hobbies and study circles, visits to museums, and the well-paid professions of teaching traditional arts (ikebana, dance, tea ceremony, calligraphy, and the like).10 Th e 1970’s were witness to the phenomenon of the so called “new family,” whose basic postulates were that people should get married out of love or companionship rather than enter into arranged marriages, that the husband should spend more time at home with his wife and children rather than be totally dedicated to his company, and that household chores should be shared equally among the family members. A whole market developed around this new ideal of the family: family-style hotels, amusement parks like Tokyo Disneyland, shopping malls with playgrounds for children, family cars, and family restaurants. It did not take long, however, for people to realize that the “new family” was starting to look very much like the old one, with endless work hours for the husband, the responsibility for the family and the education of children falling completely on the wife’s shoulders, and no improvement in the couple’s aff ective relationship. Th e condition of women saw signifi cant improvements in the 1980’s. In 1986 the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was promulgated to facilitate the presence of women in the workplace. Th e fi rst women politicians appeared on the scene, typifi ed by Doi Takako, a candidate in the Socialist Party who eventually became a symbol for women aspiring to a political career. Numerous journals drew attention to the oyaji gyāru, women who tired of the stereotypical roles that society had imposed on them took up lifestyles commonly considered irreverent or impudent, such as spending entire nights at clubs and bars, or that of using rough language. Meantime, the O. L., or offi ce ladies, who were assigned tasks of limited responsibility, started to spend their money to travel abroad on their own and visit exotic, far-away places. In recent times, the collapse of the “bubble economy” and the increase in the cost of living that followed it forced more and more women into the labor force. Th e precarious- ness of their social condition led to a rise in the average age for wedding (26 for women, 31 for men). To this economic reason must be added an existential one. Disillusioned by the failure to reconstruct the family based on reciprocal love and shared responsibility in the management of the household, women have no longer been in a hurry to get mar-
10. I. Sumiko, Th e Japanese Woman: Traditional Image and Changing Reality (New York: Th e Free Press, 1993). women and society: Japan | 27 ried; and once married, they are no longer eager to have children (the average birth rate is below 1.5 children per family).11 Divorces and separations are more frequent, especially as the husband enters retirement. Having spent their whole life taking care of home and children, women are resisting the idea of taking care of spouses who, unaccustomed to family life, are virtual strangers in their own homes. Given this situation, it comes as little surprise to see modern women prepared to forsake starting a family for pursuing a career. Th ey have become less tolerant toward a society that keeps trying to assign them more duties than rights. Th ey are no longer disposed to keep hidden their desire for happiness and their longing for independence. Once again history has brought back into the public eye the needs of women and their determination not to be patient, obedient, and long-suff ering victims of a situation that silently legitimates the disparity of gender roles. New social labels fi tted to new lifestyles appear with regularity, refl ecting the anger and dissatisfaction of the contemporary Japanese woman: Cinderella Mrs. (for a wife who returns home just before her husband in the evenings), Hobbusiness Woman (for one who turns her hobby into a business), Part Mrs. (for a woman who works part-time), Yenjoy Gal (for a young working woman who spends her salary during off -hours), Ms. Anne Marie (a pun for unmarried women who have realized that they can live happily without a man), the parasaito shinguru (the single parasite, who prefers the comfortable life in her parents’ home to the responsibilities of marriage). Taken together, this odd collection of nicknames refl ects a generation of women bent on living lives parallel to those of men, creatively seeking a healthy balance between their individuality and the established con- ventions, unafraid to question a political, economic, and family system that throughout the course of history rarely gave a second thought to their situation. Japanese women, who until today have lived in a world of shadows and silence, have decided to send a fi nal, desperate message to Japanese society and to the men that domi- nate it: a system that deprives a person of dignity, self-esteem, and individuality is neither indestructible nor unchangeable; it is something that can—and will—be corrected. Th e assurance that this will come about rests on the simple awareness women seem to have known ever since they were considered the queens of this country: that nothing around us will ever change if fi rst we do not start by changing ourselves.
Bibliography
Beichman, Janine 2002 Embracing the Firebird: Yosano Akiko and the Birth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
11. M. Jolivet, Japan: Th e Childless Society? Th e Crisis of Motherhood (London and New York: Routledge, 1997). 28 | Women in Context
Brinton, Mary 1994 Women and the Economic Miracle: Gender and Work in Postwar Japan. California: University of California Press. Fujieda Mioko 1995 Japan’s First Phase of Feminism. K. Fujimura and A. Kameda, eds., Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future. New York: Th e Feminist Press, 323–38. Jolivet, Muriel 1997 Japan: Th e Childless Society? Th e Crisis of Motherhood. London and New York: Routledge. Kelski, Karen 2001 Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams. Durham: Duke University Press. Imamura Anne, ed. 1996 Re-Imagining Japanese Women. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. MacKie, Vera 2003 Feminism in Modern Japan: Citizenship, Embodiment, and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mortely, Patricia 1999 Th e Mountain is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Nolte, Sharon and Hastings, Ann 1991 Th e Meji State’s Policy toward Women, 1890–1910. G.L. Bernstein, ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 151–74. Pastore, Antonietta 2004 Nel Giappone delle donne. Torino: Einaudi. Robins-Mowry, Dorothy 1983 Th e Hidden Sun: Women of Modern Japan. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Rosenberg, Nancy 2001 Gambling with Virtue. Japanese Women and the Search for Self in a Changing Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Rodd Laurel, Rasplica 1991 Yosano Akiko and the Taishō Debate over the “New Woman.” G.L. Bernstein, ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 175–98. Silverberg, Miriam 1991 Th e Modern Girl as Militant. G.L. Bernstein, ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 239–66. Skov, Lise and Moeran, Brian 1995 Hiding in the Light: From Hoshin to Yoshimoto Banana. L. Skov and B. Moeran, eds., Women Media and Consumption in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1–74. women and society: Japan | 29
Sumiko Iwao 1993 Th e Japanese Woman. Traditional Image and Changing Reality. New York: Th e Free Press. Takie Sugiyama Lebra 1984 Japanese Women. Constraint and Fulfi llment. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Tanaka Kazuko 1995 Th e New Feminist Movement in Japan 1970–1990. K. Fujimura and A. Kameda, eds., Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future. New York: Th e Feminist Press, 343–52. Philippines
Eugenio Pulcini
his paper will attempt to describe a framework which portrays the contextual situation of women Tin relation to the history and present realities of Philippine society. Th e author addresses the major themes run- ning through the women’s movement and gender policy in the Philippines in order to off er the reader a general impression of Filipino women’s lives and experiences. Th e paper illustrates the situation in general of women in the country and does not enter into the details of the conditions of women belonging to cultural indigenous minorities1 or the situation of women in Islamic com- munities.2
1. Th e concept of cultural community (or cultural minority) in the Philippines is largely a consequence of the process of colonization; it is a designation attached to people who were not colonized and have not become Christian and who have main- tained a traditional culture. Before the colonization, there were no distinct cultural communities, only independent or interdependent social groups. Cf. U.E. Eviota, Th e Political Economy of Gender (London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1992), 145–46. women and society: philippines | 31
The Pre-Spanish period Th e language and the stories of a people are a refl ection of the society in which they live; legends, stories, myths usually describe or rationalize existing conditions in a society. Th e concept of god among the ancient Tagalogs—one of the largest Filipino ethnic groups— was more closely linked with woman, and when linked with both the concepts of man and woman there is nuance of union, mutuality not subordination. In the Philippines, the most popular tale of creation describes the beginning of humanity with a bird fl ying between the heavens and the sea. Becoming tired, it looked for a place to alight and rest. It alighted on a bamboo fl oating on the waters. Hearing some sound coming from the bamboo, it began to peck at it with its beak. As the bamboo split, in the wink of an eye, man (Malakas, the strong) and woman (Maganda, the beautiful) slipped out of the joint, the man bowing politely to the woman. Th e woman gave recogni- tion to the man. Th en they walked away hand in hand.
Not only was the woman not derived from the rib of man, the woman was, in fact from a long time regarded as the sole guardian of the perpetuation of the species, without external factors infl uencing the phenomenon of fecundity. For primitive tribes who put much value in the continuation of their progeny, the woman, as one who possesses the power of generation, enjoyed an elevated position—a refl ection of some matriarchal elements in the pre-Spanish Filipino society.3 Analyzing the role of the woman in the primitive Filipino family, chroniclers noted the economic independence of Filipino women. Women had their own purse and were also custodians of the conjugal purse. Because of her sagacity and her innate manage- rial instinct, she appeared to have the key role in the economic stability of the family. A chronicler wrote: “Impelled by her personal situation and recognized moral supremacy, the India found herself the real chief of her land-holdings and in spite of communal deprivation and by her industrious and general labour and thanks to the fertility of the soul, the India not only succeed in attending the ordinary necessities of the house but she
2. Islam is one of the oldest organized religions to be established in the Philippines. Its origins in the country may be dated back to as early as the fourteenth century, with the arrival of Arab and Malay Muslims traders who converted some of the native inhabitants in the south-western Philippine islands. Nowadays they form 5 of the total population. Although undiff erenciated racially from other Filipinos, they are set apart by their religion and way of life. Th e Muslim Filipino, or Moro population, is increasingly identifi ed with the worldwide Islamic com- munity, particularly in Malaysia, Indonesia, Libya, and Middle Eastern countries. Traditionally, there has not been a closely knit or even allied group and at least ten subgroups could be identifi ed on the basis of language. Th ey were confi ned almost entirely to the southern part of the country: southern and western Mindanao, southern Palawan, and the Sulu Archipelago. Muslims and Christians, in the Philippines, generally remained distinct societies oft en at odds with one another. 3. Ma Lia Guerrero y Tuazon, quoted by M.J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women (Manila: St. Scholastica’s College, 1987), 9. 32 | Women in Context
also frequently improved its economic situation achieving a position of relative prosper- ity.”4 Th e early Filipinos and non Christian minorities attach equal importance to both male and female off spring although the roles assigned to girls are more distinct and specifi c. Th e early Filipinos equally divided inheritance property among their male and female children, distinguishing only primogeniture and legitimacy. Kinship was determined bilaterally so that lineage was reckoned through both male and female lines. In the same line, ethnographic studies of various lowland cultural communities point to the “egalitarian” character of man-woman relations. “Fox… asserts that the Filipino family is neither patriarchal nor matriarchal; that on the contrary, Filipino men and women share the exercise of power and authority especially in the household.”5 Women who belonged to the family of the chief shared most of his privileges; however they could either inherit the position only in absence of male heirs, or not inherit it at all. Women in other social groups had similar rights and obligations as the men of the group. Th e primitive Filipino mother, on the whole, bears the same weight on the status of her children as does a father. Arranged marriage was a custom among the pre-Spanish Filipinos. Women were the valued people exchanged in the marriage transaction. Th e groom, depending on the extent of his resources and that of his kin, paid bride-price or provided bride-service to the bride’s parents. Some authors interpret this as a compensation for the loss of an eco- nomic factor in the family which the woman in the pre-Spanish society was considered to be. Marriage was an arrangement that lasted as long as harmony prevailed, and divorce was socially acceptable and could be obtained by either party. Th e husband and wife had equal rights before the customary law in this matter, although in practice, there was a more limited cause for the woman for divorce and there was more tendency to overlook or minimize a husband’s infi delity. According to several authors, virginity in young girls was not valued among many tribes with some exceptions, for example among the Tagalogs. Sexual relations were not confi ned to marriage so that premarital sexual relations were not rare. In any case, unwed mothers did not lose face in the community nor lose their chance for a good marriage, because they were considered to have, in fact, proved their capacity for motherhood. Th e law of custom, however, provided punishment for undue misbehaviour between members of the opposite sex thus preventing unrestricted promiscuity and the practice of prostitution. In fact, in the seventeenth century a parish priest, Fr. Lorenzo Juan of Aringay could categorically state that “no existe la prostitucion en los pueblos idólatras.”6 On the whole the early Filipinos practiced either polygamy in the more common form
4. M.J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women, op. cit., 13. 5. C.I. Sobritchea, “Rural Women in the Philippines,” L. Bautista and E. Rifareal, eds., And She Said No! Human Rights, Women’s Identities and Struggles (Quezon City: National Council of Churches in the Philippines, 1990), 51. 6. M.J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women, op. cit., 11. women and society: philippines | 33 of polygyny, or monogamy but with the acceptance of concubinage. Other authors say that monogamy was the common form of marriage but in areas where Islam had pene- trated and in coastal regions which had frequent contacts with Chinese and other foreign traders, concubinage and polygyny were practiced. Keeping concubines (lower-ranked women) and having multiples wives (same-ranked women) were practices associated with wealth: chiefs and nobles usually had more than one woman.7 Th e role of woman in the political fi eld, especially her leadership in it, is a disputed point. According to Eviota, gender relations in pre-Hispanic Philippines, it seems, did not consist of an uncomplicated complementarity of roles, as is oft en asserted, but of a complex set of gender-diff erentiated and autonomous spheres. “Th ere were spheres where women exercised some autonomy and other spheres where dominance was already in place.” She categorically states that “Political options were not freely open to women: economic inheritance did not discriminate against women, but political positions were either not available to them or theirs only on condition of the absence of male heirs.”8 In the same line, others maintain that women’s political power in the pre-Spanish period is based merely on legends.9 However, if one considers myths and legends as faithful mirrors of the existing condi- tions of the society that gives rise to them, there is ample evidence of women exercising leadership in the political fi eld in the pre-Spanish Filipino society. Th ese historic-legend- ary sources speak of women who became rulers in the country. Queen Sima in Cotabato (part of Mindanao Island, in the south of the Philippines), Queen Maniwantiwan, Princesa Urduja of Pangasinan (Luzon) are some of the women leaders reportedly char- acterized by integrity, uprightness, honesty, and justice in dealing with their subjects, including the members of their own family.10 It is in the religious fi eld that the predominant role of the woman in pre-Spanish Filipino society is unquestioned. Religion (animism) permeated the whole life of the people and the woman was not only an active participant in religious ceremonies, but she oft en had a leading role in them (shamanesses or priestesses).11 Th ey were older women with no extraordinary rights or privileges, but they were an infl uential group. Th is role ranged from being the chief mourner of the dead, being the performer of ritual dances and songs, to being the one who off ered sacrifi ces, performer of the wedding ceremony, to being the preferred religious practitioner. Although diff ering in name, (babaylanes o cata- lonas) every tribe had its own women religious practitioners who were preferred to men.
7. T.R. Infante, Th e Woman in Early Philippines and Among the Cultural Minorities (Manila: University of Santo Tomas), 126ff . 8. U.E. Eviota, Th e Political Economy of Gender, op. cit., 36. 9. “Women seldom held the reins of government… women are seldom recognized to have the authority nor to represent any cause or group on an offi cial basis,” T.R. Infante, Th e Woman in Early Philippines and Among the Cultural Minorities, op. cit., 159. 10. M.J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women, op. cit., 15–6. 11. T.R. Infante, Th e Woman in Early Philippines and Among the Cultural Minorities, op. cit., 160–95. 34 | Women in Context
Documented studies on the woman in early Philippines and among tribal minorities encourage the Filipino women today in looking back at her sisters in the ancient past with approval and pride; and rather sceptical and disdainful towards the western world that claims to have raised the Filipino woman to a higher dignity that only a Christian culture could bequeath. Th is consideration goes against the prevailing belief that one of the benefi ts brought by the Spanish colonization of the Philippines was the raising of the status of women. However if we consider status in terms of degree of participation in decision-making in domestic as well as public aff airs and the amount of benefi t from such participation, we should draw the conclusion that the status of the Filipina was con- sidered far higher before the arrival of the Spaniard than aft er four centuries of colonial domination.
Spanish Colonial Period
Centuries before Magellan arrived in the Philippines in 1521, foreign visitors, mostly traders, had written accounts of their observation which showed that the Filipino women enjoyed high social esteem and leadership. Th ere were even woman rulers of note mentioned. Th ese statements were corroborated by early Spanish chronicles and missionaries: but when Spanish rule and laws were established, the women’s right were curtailed to the level of those of the Spanish women then. Soon, however, they gained leadership in a new fi eld. Quick to recognize their latent ability, the Spanish friars made use of them in the propa- gation of the Catholic faith. Th is is the practice today, with fund-raising for charity and civic work added.12 It was in 1521, that Magellan discovered the islands for the western World. However it was not until the arrival of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1565 that a systematic colonization of the people began. Th e Philippines would become a colony of Spain for almost 400 years until 1898. It is not the purpose of this paper to evaluate the Spanish colonial system as a whole. However, the imposition of the strongly patriarchal Spanish system had decidedly nega- tive consequences on the role of women in society. A brief comparison will suffi ce. Whereas the young girl in pre-Spanish society enjoyed educational opportunities and similar freedom of movement as the young boy, the young girl under the Spanish infl uence became a sheltered, over protected, timid maiden who received an education confi ned to church, kitchen and children. She who could transact business with anybody, look aft er the economic welfare of the family, who could bear the responsibility of being
12. Pecson quoted by A.F. Maranan, “Do women really hold up half of the sky?” M.J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women, op. cit., 37. women and society: philippines | 35 a pact holder and even a leader of her tribe, was reduced to a helpless creature like Maria Clara.13 Manuals for young girls, replete with typical anti-feminine ideas and misogynistic language and abounding with a set of values, concepts and prescriptions brought to the islands regarding women were either translated or written.14 Th e new Filipina (or female India) was now her father’s meek daughter, her husband’s faithful subject, the church’s obedient servant. Religion then became the women’s overwhelming concern and sole refuge. Th e con- tent of Christian traditions and devotion laid emphasis on the Virgin Mary as handmaid and mother, an emphasis which made them increasingly disregarded in community life. Her freedom of choice in important aspects of her life was curtailed by the imposition of new laws and mores. At any rate, the Spanish conquest facilitated the transition from pre-feudal to feudal relations with the crucial result of the transformation of communal lands into private pre- serves—a visible problem up to this time—the virtual cause of the entire history of social unrest in the Philippines. Th e colonial gender ideology is based on the notion of the inherent inferiority of women. Women in Spanish culture were not thought of as being particularly intelligent people; Spanish law regarded women as the inferiors of men.15 Th e numerous limitations on, and prohibition against, what colonial and Filipino women might or might not do, refl ected the Spaniard’s view of the role of women. Within the context of these developments, the transformation of women from highly- respected equals of men to objects of subjugation began. “History now illumines for us the fact that women had been the primary victims of landlords and friar abuses… not to mention the sexual advances of Spanish Friars, oft entimes culminating in forced rela- tions with native women… Th e image of the long-suff ering woman, the woman who would sacrifi ce her virtue and even her life, the woman who would submit to the fate of the predestined in her short lifetime… became part of the consciousness that moulded the Filipina.” 16 Also in the rural world, women carried the burden of reproductive work and were much busier than men: tending to the children and weaving by day, and pounding rice to remove the husk by evening, or planting or harvesting rice by day and selling their wares in the market-place by torchlight at night. Male colonial observers noted that Filipino
13. Maria Clara, a central character in two famous political satires of the time, is the heroine of Jose Rizal’s novel Noli me tangere. Philippines society, during the Spanish times and onwards, enthroned her as the ideal woman: sweet, docile, obedient, self-sacrifi cing and bearing with her husband’s faults. Maria Clara is the personifi cation of the doncella educated by the Spanish Friars. Economical, political and religious impositions had transformed the lively sexual assertiveness of Filipino women into a more prudish, cautious image of womanhood. 14. Some impressive testimonies about the content of these manuals can be read in M.J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women, op. cit., 23ff . 15. U.E. Eviota, Th e Political Economy of Gender, op. cit., 44. 16. A.F. Maranan, “Do Women Really Hold Up Half of the Sky?” M.J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women, op. cit., 40. 36 | Women in Context
women were more “industrious” than men, and had little leisure; while men had time for cockfi ghts, cards, drinking and gambling—oft en with their wife’s meagre earnings.17 Th e political privilege of men was endorsed by the colonial apparatus and the politi- cal sphere remained closed to women. Th ey did not participate in political discussions or undertakings, such activity being deemed as the exclusive arena for the men. Th e practice among the Spanish of removing women from the public sphere laid the ideological foun- dations for a pattern of behaviour for Filipino women. By the 1890’s, an economic depression had begun to exacerbate grievances. Th e eco- nomic conditions of the majority of people, who must never have been far from poverty and death, were made worse by natural calamities. Moreover what had been a movement for reforms led by some ilustrado (foreign-educated men) and which failed in its purpose, was joined by peasants and workers turning into what is known today as the “Philippine Revolution against Spain.” Women were active in the Revolution; they formed their own groups for the armed struggle and played their roles of messengers, nurses, and supporters of what was the liberation process from the Spanish colonial rule. Th ere were revolutionary heroines who transcended their time with their charism and extraordinary courage. Gabriela Silang (1763) was the fi rst Filipino woman to lead a revolt during the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. She carried on the leadership of a rebellion in Ilocos aft er her husband’s death, and was executed by the Spanish authorities. Melchora Aquino, (called Tandang Sora) was considered the mother of the Revolution because of her consistent support for the revolutionaries; Trinidad Tecson, Gregoria de Jesus—wife of Andres Bonifacio, one of the chief leaders of the revolution movement— was a full-pledged member of the revolutionary organization called Katipunan (sort of secret society), where she worked actively in the anti-Spanish underground. Th ese women of Katipunan, as well as the women of Malolos, Bulacan, who earlier had actively campaigned for women’s right to higher formal education, are two important milestones in women’s recognition of their capacity and contribution to society change in the Philippines. Although it is true that they were not fully representative of the entire popu- lation of women then unpoliticized and unaware, their commitment contributed to the eventual consciousness-raising among the vast multitude of women. From there, many associations of women—at the beginning most of them from middle-upper classes—were formed to organize and to fi ght.
American Colonial Period At the end of the Spanish-American War, the Treaty of Paris transferred control of the Philippines to the United States. U.S. colonial rule of the Philippines began in December 1899, with very limited local rule permitted beginning in 1905. Th e United States defi ned
17. Cf. also M.J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women, op. cit., 19–21. women and society: philippines | 37 its colonial mission as one of tutelage, preparing the Philippines for eventual indepen- dence. Th e First Philippine Republic was established during this time but it was short-lived. Although the First Republic—or the America Colonial Period 1898–1946—was supported by the majority of the Filipinos it failed to further their interests because it reproduced the same pattern of dominance and control as that of the colonial power. It privileged the political interests of men as well; its constitution denied women their political rights. Church and state were now separated, but religious forces were not necessarily less pow- erful in regulating women’s lives. A number of women, mostly of the wealthy and middle classes, were educated and went into professions such as teaching, nursing and pharmacy. Th e system of public education introduced in the country by American colonialism schools did not actively promote gender equality. However, it did substantially increase the level of literacy of Filipino women (as a matter of fact, during the Spanish period, the education of females was very minimal), providing them the necessary skills, ability and confi dence to struggle for legal and political adulthood and assume responsible roles in public life. It was in this time, that the women’s movements started to materialize through diff er- ent associations. Th e fi rst feminist group in the Philippines, Asociacion Feminista Filipina, was organized more than one hundred years ago, in June 1905, by a group of prominent ladies of the time headed by Ms. Concepcion Felix (later Mrs. Rodriguez) amid the grow- ing clamour for national independence. Asociacion Feminista Filipina was created with the object of engaging women in social service and/or community welfare work such as prison reforms on behalf of women and minors, labour reforms in factories employing women and minors, educational reforms, the drive against prostitution, gambling and drinking; religious and moral campaigns in schools and factories and the establishment of recreation facilities; the campaign for the appointment of women to municipalities and provincial boards of education, electoral precincts and municipal committees.18 Th e issue of women suff rage was raised fi rst in 1906 by one of these associations. It took 30 years of women struggles to obtain that women were allowed to vote and the fi rst elections where they voted were in 1937. To achieve this, women crusaders held rallies, house to house campaigns and made appeals through the media. Liberal ideas and attitudes were changing the manners, dress, and way of thinking of people, especially of women, above all in Manila and other urban areas. Th e American educational system was having an unsettling eff ect on gender relations and the result was Filipino women began to behave like American women. Concerns like the one described here below were expressed over the loss of Filipino “women’s inherent virtues.”
18. Cf. A.J. De Dios, “Participation of Women’s Groups in the Anti-Dictatorship Struggle: Genesis of a Movement,” T.P. Domingo, ed., Women’s Role in Philippine History. Selected Essays (Quezon City: University Center for Women Studies, University of the Philippines, 2001), 142ff . 38 | Women in Context
She passes before me, chatting in a strange language… shall this new Filipina, the unconscious victim of modernity… be allowed to lose… her characteristic simplicity?... Th e Filipina soul should not be allowed to disintegrate!... Th ey have taken up reading so that they are inevitably with a newspaper or a little magazine in English in hand…We shall soon see her crossing our streets, look- ing through smoked glasses at the large signs over the stores. We shall soon come to hear her voice joined to that of the rabble throng in a cry against some person in authority. We shall soon see her approach the coff ers of the state to receive fat salaries. On that ominous day, they shall have obtained all that they could ever desire.19
From Independence to our days Th e United States withdrew its sovereignty over the Philippines on July 4, 1946, as sched- uled, and with the so called “granting of Independence,” the Philippines became a sover- eign country. Since the post-war years were relative years of peace for the Filipinos who saw the electoral process as a manifestation of democracy, there seemed to be no need for women to agitate for new reforms. Most women’s groups during the 50’s and 60’s reverted to social welfare work. Except for the passage of some laws benefi cial to women, such as the Women and Child labour law, nothing much changed in the status of women whose domain, remained the home and family, despite the liberalization of many aspects of social life for women brought about by education and advances in health and technol- ogy. It was not until the late sixties that the women’s movement emerged as a major social force of change in the Philippines. Th e broad context of this reaction was the struggle against class and foreign domination, struggle predominantly male led. But for the fi rst time, women raised the separate issue of women’s liberation from economic exploitation and gender oppression. Th e material and ideological contradictions of women’s position had surfaced and had begun to be expressed in a “women’s movement.”20 When martial law was imposed by President Marcos (President and Dictator of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986), a repressive state suppressed the open movement. Some members of the women’s movement, were forced to go underground; others were impris- oned, a few were killed. Within the armed struggle that emerged alongside the open movement, women were once again the organizers, propagandists and couriers; a grow- ing number were armed combatants.
19. Quoted by U.E. Eviota, Th e Political Economy of Gender, op. cit., 73. 20. Mainly, but not only, we are referring here to the Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (Free Movement of new Women) more popularly known by the acronym makibaka (struggle); a movement which not only sought to mobilize women for a national democratic struggle, but also to develop women’s consciousness. women and society: philippines | 39
Among the fi rst to respond during the critical years of martial law was the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (amrsp), an organization of religious women. In 1974 it organized several task forces to assist the farmers, the workers and the political prisoners. Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (tfd) which became one of its most active committees pioneered the documentation of military abuses and atrocities while extend- ing moral and material assistance to the political prisoners and their displaced families. By the mid–1980, with a succession of economic crises and the collapse of the political legitimacy of the dictatorial regime, the women’s movement was revitalized and became an important force in the dismantling of the dictatorship. Th is movement had a broader base, including women from the middle and wealthy classes and professional groups21 and the issues that united women were more political than women specifi c. Various women’s organizations actively performed signifi cant parts in the spontane- ous uprisings of the edsa People Power I and II in 1986 and 200122 respectively, which resulted in the ouster of both Dictator Ferdinand Marcos and President Joseph Estrada who had become unpopular to the nation. When Cory Aquino came to power in 1986 it was diffi cult to ignore this visible and organized female presence. Th e proclamation of gender equality was accordingly, for the fi rst time, written into the new Constitution of 1987: “Th e state recognizes the role of women in nation building and shall ensure the fundamental equality before the law of women and men.” Two main legislative and planning changes for women in those years were the revision of the Family Code and the inauguration of the Philippine Development Plan for Women. However, as a devout Catholic, Cory Aquino herself didn’t pursue wom- en’s issue as intensely as the women’s group would have like her to, showing that the cause of feminism is not necessarily advanced by having a woman president. Th e Philippines has had two women presidents in the last twenty years. While acknowledging that the President, fi ve Supreme Court Justices, 20 of the representatives of the House of Congress, three senators are women, there is still concern about the low level of participation of women in elected and public bodies. With the highly personalistic type of Filipino politics based on family alliances and relations of patronage and clientage left unchanged, only the upper and middle class women are given the opportunities to run for top elective positions. As a matter of fact, women who have succeeded in landing in top positions are members of the established
21. Nowadays, the sprouting of women’s groups will be remembered as a phenomenon of 1983 Philippines, when aft er the cold-bloodied murder of Ninoy Aquino, a leading oppositionist to the autocratic rule of Ferdinando Marcos, many political women’s organizations mushroomed. One of the largest and most active is the General Assembly Binding women for reforms, Integrity, Equality, Liberty and Action (gabriela in honour of Gabriela Silang). From being a coalition of only 42 organizations in 1984, they are, today, a grassroots-based national alliance of various multisectoral groups up to 250 organizations, institutions, desks, and programmes. 22. edsa People Power 1 and 2, referred to as the People Power Revolution and the Philippine Revolution of 1986, and People Power 2, were mostly non-violent mass demonstrations in the Philippines. edsa stands for Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a main highway in Metro Manila and the main site of the demonstrations. 40 | Women in Context
dynasties in the country and are mostly seen as substitutes for either their fathers or husbands. On the other hand, the presence of women in political positions, while indicative of women’s participation in political aff airs, does not automatically work towards the inter- est of the majority of women. Indeed Filipino women of the rich and middle class who are in positions of political power have tended to behave in the interest of their class rather than in the interest of their sex. Women who have held political power have largely been unwilling to pose fundamental challenges to the accepted defi nitions of gender and to improve the right of women to labour. Th ere is a great diff erence between more women holding social power and women using social power to improve both the conditions and positions of the majority of women! In these last decades the economic system in the Philippines has been characterized more and more by export orientation and foreign control. Th e economic instability has widened more and more the gap between the rich and the poor, leading to the impover- ishment of the country as a whole, leaving it in the hands of a few extremely wealthy fami- lies. It is since the 70’s that a relatively new type of cultural fetter on the Filipino women has been worsening, considering her as a sex object. Even if sexual exploitation has been happening in all countries throughout history, there are however distinct nuances to this phenomenon in the setting of the exploited, underdeveloped countries. Such is the case of the Philippines. Following the hypothesis that in underdeveloped, exploited countries, women tend to bear the burden of a double exploitation, because of their class and because of their sex, thousands of young women from the provinces are herded into Manila and other urban centres for the sex trade. Since the 70’s, with Marcos’ strategy to earn dollars, the Philippines considered tourism as a pillar of its economic development and it did so at the expense of human dignity and especially at the cost of the exploitation of its women (cf. Eviota and his distressing description of “Th e Sex Trade”: servicing the servicemen: pros- titution and the American bases; sex tourism and the bride trade.)23 Even the labour code of the 70’s made prostitution, in the guise of one or another euphemism, formal waged work, a dollar earning activity, for a number of American military bases and through the promotion of tourism. Opposition by women’s groups and movements to this unjust reality, diminished the explicitness and also perhaps the number of prostitutes involved, but spawned the phe- nomenon in more subtle forms of sexual trade: women started to go to Japan and other countries as entertainers and artists to service the men there. For instance, at the begin- ning of the 90’s, 93 of Filipino women working in Japan were in the “sex industry.” Now women as entertainers and as brides are the subject of international commerce! Th e magnitude of prostitution in the Philippines, perhaps more than any other economic activity by women, is dramatically indicative of the lack of options they have for produc-
23. U.E. Eviota, Th e Political Economy of Gender, op. cit., 133–40. women and society: philippines | 41 tive work. It is noted with concern that traffi cking in women and young girls and the exploitation through prostitution continue to thrive in the Philippines, owing to the deep unjust economic structures which keep millions of families in extreme poverty. In an almost totally Catholic country, prostitution is also the only work that women do whose increase is accompanied by moral indignation (no other women’s work pro- vokes such a response), of course there is indignation about the morality of women, revealing once more the double standard of sexuality where the women are to be regu- lated, morally and legally. Domestic violence—another consequence of the dominating patriarchal pattern—has been viewed as “ordinary” and “normal” within the context of marriage and stems from the polarized socialization of men as aggressive and assertive, and women as passive and submissive. Confl ict over husbands’ unfounded jealousy and resistance to their wives’ decision to separate, along with unwanted pregnancies, money shortages, male drinking and womanizing are causes giving rise to domestic violence. Th at’s why women’s rights’ organizations in the Philippines and worldwide, assisted in no small terms by the accessibility of women’s stories in the media, have more fi ercely sought the protection of women and young female children. In recent years, the advocacy for women’s rights has heightened, new laws were passed and great gains have been made by the Filipino woman. Th e Government has responded positively to much of her plight: the Anti-Rape Law of 1997 which redefi nes and expands rape from a crime against chastity to a crime against the person and implicitly recognizes marital rape; the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995, the Anti-Traffi cking in Persons Act of 2003, the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act of 2004 have all been passed among others. It is still said that it is easy to fi le a complaint for rape but it is hard to prove it. To date, lawyers of women’s rights continue to complain about gender insensi- tivity of judges, and the prevalence of gender stereotyping of women’s roles and behaviour in the judicial system and in the decision of trial judges. Nevertheless it has been acknowledged that Philippine laws, rules of procedure, train- ing programmes intended to aff ect gender sensitivity and responsiveness in the courts, designed to rectify roughly fi ve centuries of the hegemonic practice of the law as it applies to gender issues, are of relatively recent vintage, allowing gender sensitivity to seep, how- ever slowly, into the consciousness of the Judiciary. Th e development decades through the last twenty years has led to the increased deterioration of the cultural and material lives of most of the Philippine population, but especially women and children. Th e economic system may have shown vigour and dynamism at times, but people’s basic needs remained unmet. Th e past administrations, including the present one of President Gloria Arroyo, have basically opted for the insti- tutionalization of labour migration as a central measure to counter the economic crisis in the country due to the eff ects of neo-liberal policies and this has been badly aff ecting the condition of women. In the Philippines, human resources are now the primary commodities for export; and most of the labour deployed is female, to respond to labour demands in the advanced 42 | Women in Context
countries, such as domestic work, taking care of the ageing population and other human service-related work. Th e aggressiveness of this human trading was even shown during the wars in Lebanon and Iraq when President Arroyo announced that she was sending more “super maids” to Middle East countries, while other governments were sending rescue vehicles for their citizens living in these countries.24 Women have been engaged not only in rural-urban migration (mainly in the 60’s) but also overseas or international migration. While international migration was largely male-dominated between the mid–1970’s and mid–1980’s, nearly half of Overseas Filipino Workers (ofws) of the 90s period—trumpeted as heroes of our time—have been women. National Statistics Offi ce (nso) fi gures show that of all ofws from 1995 to 2004, 60 were women—teachers, domestic helpers, labour and unskilled workers, entertainers (oft en an euphemism for prostitutes, mainly in Japan), caregivers and nurses. Additionally, women ofw remittances were only 57 that of the men, signifying that they held lower-paying jobs. At the present time the feminization of migration is continuing unabated. Most of ofws are still young, below thirty years old, like Jane C. whose family is from the province. Th ey emigrated to Manila at the beginning of the 90’s. Her parents earn only enough for their everyday subsistence with hardly anything to spare for the school- ing of all fi ve children in the family. Th rough hard work and persistence, Jane was able to graduate from college, with a degree in accountancy. Unable to fi nd a suitable job, she decided to work abroad (in Hong Kong) as domestic helper in her desire to help her younger siblings fi nish their education. “Kung alam ko lang na ganito lang pala ang bagsak ko, hindi na sana ako nag-aral” (Had I known that I would just end up a domestic helper, I wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of studying), she says. She even wipes the pos- terior of elderly Chinese while she couldn’t take care of her own ageing parents in the Philippines proving the paradox of this feminization of migrant labour where women who have left their homes are still performing the same function for other families in First World countries. But emigration has both deep personal and social consequences too. Many women did not have any idea of the kind of environment in which they were supposed to work. Some left the country without knowing how much income they were to receive aft er all the taxes and contractors’ fees were deducted. Cultural diff erences have also meant pain- ful psychological experiences for many women who had left . Th is is particularly true where women’s behaviour is much more circumscribed, as in the Middle East. While work abroad may be higher paying and fulfi lling for some women, it has been painful or violent for others. Th ere have been many documented cases of Filipino women badly treated by their employers; women who have lived in a world of fear, degradation, insan- ity and sexual abuse. And murder has been the fate of several women. Despite the reports of these abuses many Filipino women still migrate and work in these countries, putting
24. Cf. E. Olaer, Exporting Domestic Labour—the Philippines’ Participation in Globalization: Development or Devastation?
Final Observations Th e following fi nal observations sum up to some extent the complexity of the situation of women in Filipino society along with our historical perspective: a) From the foregoing analysis of the position of women before and aft er the coming of the Spaniards to the Philippines until the present time, “it is clear that the Filipino
25. Data published by the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women.
woman enjoyed a singular status in pre-Spanish society, not shared by other women from other parts of the world at that time.”27 Th ough the pre-Spanish society cannot be charac- terized as matriarchal, defi nitely matriarchal elements were present in it. Th is description does not imply that the condition of women in pre-Spanish Filipino society was ideal, however, she did have a signifi cant role both in the home and in the society. b) “Spanish colonization was to gradually transform or reinforce social, economic and political practices… Gender diff erentiation was to fi gure prominently in this transforma- tion.”28 Colonial culture, society and, above all, religion brought a variety of restrictions and prohibitions that sought to bound and restrain Filipino women from taking part in any social, economic, political and educational progress. c) In the Philippines, the liberation of women is a necessary facet of the liberation of the country. It is not suffi cient to decry gender oppression as a separate and additional burden on the backs of women but to see it as an integral part of her existence and her struggle for survival. As a woman, as a member of a defi nite social class and as a citizen of this country, women’s marginalization has happened by virtue of sex, class and society. To “tackle” only one of the dimensions of the problem is to solve only a third part of it. For instance, the phenomena brides-for-sale, prostitution, domestic violence, domestic help- ers desperately seeking employment abroad, etc. are obvious manifestations of a lopsided, unjust economic order. When Filipino women truly understand gender oppression and its connection to the national struggle, a feminist direction shall crystallize in a stronger way and women will be able to handle gracefully together with men, the many functions in home and society. d) In large part, the present women’s movement, grown out mostly from the nation- alist, liberation and feminist struggle of the 70’s and 80’s is heterogeneous and pluralist, refl ective of the ideological, economic and political divisions of the larger social scene. Men and women alike perceive the ideology of feminist orientation as too radical and incongruous within a “Filipino tradition” that is rooted in cultures of patriarchy and feudal bondage. Indeed some groups of women view women’s roles in society within traditional frameworks. However, others make demands that are giving women more rights, access to better employment opportunities and an improved position within their own family-household. What cannot be denied is that the women’s movement has made women “visible” in the history of the Philippines and that the central role the movement has played (and is still playing) in nation-building and in the creation of a more just, equal and human society must be recognized. e) Nowadays, women are oft en seen as having a stronger position in Filipino society than their counterparts in other cultures; gender divisions of labour and gender role expectations are seen to be less rigidly demarcated in Philippine society than in other countries. Th is latter aspect is refl ected—to some degree—in the relatively equal treat-
27. M.J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women, op. cit., 34. 28. U.E. Eviota, Th e Political Economy of Gender, op. cit., 37. women and society: philippines | 45 ment of male and female children and in the women’s stronger role in household fi nancial management. “It has been observed not only that Filipino women are oft en in charge of the family ‘purse strings’, but, as such, that they are more oft en ‘co-managers’ than ‘imple- menters of their husband’ wishes. Many of these features are viewed as having roots in pre-Hispanic patterns of gender roles and relations, common not only to the Philippines but to other parts of Southeast Asia where the principle of ‘human sameness and complemen- tarity’ arguably prevailed over structures of hierarchy and diff erence.”29 f) Th e widely observed phenomenon of increased labour force activity among Filipino women has brought about a series of associated factors—new patterns of female labour migration, new household arrangements, new relationships to wage income and so on— which are generating changes in women’s lives. To what extent is this likely to provoke changes in household structure and/or further fl exibility in gender roles and to enlarge women’s basis of formal power and ability to control their own lives? Will they have to continue to show their internal resilience, traditional submissiveness, to endure a lot of violence or will they have to challenge male privilege, not to replace men but to trans- form the system into a sense of shared responsibility, nurturing, openness and rejection of gender and social hierarchies?
Conclusion Women in the Philippines have come a long way, and they are still advancing. On the one hand, gender stereotypes which perpetuate gender divisions and violence against women continue, being still very much alive up to now. Th e fact remains that physical, sexual, psychological and state violence, continue to be perpetrated against women. Th is situa- tion reveals a mindset that is basically unjust, that stems from arrogance and discrimina- tion against women, the poor and the marginalized, a mindset that is only refl ective of the pervasive thinking that women are mere objects that can be abused for the convenience of men and society. What religion and traditional culture values have instilled in them through centu- ries—namely, the belief that women suff er the most and must do it in silence—still exists. Moreover in the Philippines, as everywhere, women’s issues are community issues and what is perceived as aff ecting men, aff ects women and children. When the man of the family has a problem, sa nanay nakasabit lahat ng anak (all the children are dependent on the mother). On the other hand, the Philippines as well has entered an era in which the voices of women on what it takes to be human are expected to be heard and are heard. Filipino women have been breaking down barriers, overcoming obstacles and destroying stereo- types that have prevented them from being “fully” human being. A growing awareness
29. S. Chant, C. McIlwaine, Women of a Lesser Cost. Female Labour, Foreign exchange & Philippine Development (Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press), 6–7. 46 | Women in Context
that there are no “women’s rights” as such but that they are integral to the human rights of the whole of humanity is strongly materializing. Many more women are much better educated and the trend is continuing to grow. People are becoming more and more used to women becoming the dominant fi gure (i.e. in the last twenty years the Philippines has already had two women presidents and there is quite a high percentage of women justices in the Supreme Court). In their cri- tique and struggle against the quality of life which many of them experience, women in the Philippines are shaping the vision of the new human community, the new country, new relationships, taking it upon themselves to ensure that these dreams and visions will become true. In the Philippine historical journey we have just portrayed, we have discovered that it is to the credit of the Filipina that in spite of all the inhibiting infl uences forced on her, her innate common sense, wisdom, inner strength and courage, keeps on breaking the bonds of her confi nement, especially during times of emergency and need, of economic crisis and struggle. Th is has been happening again and again in history, up until these days, making it true what an American Governor-General would exclaim in admiration of her: “In the Philippines, the best man is the Filipino woman.”30
bibliography
Bautista, Liberato & Rifareal, Elizabeth, eds. 1990 And She Said No! Human Rights, Women’s Identities and Struggles. Quezon City: National Council of Churches in the Philippines. Chant, Sylvia & McIlwaine, Cathy 1995 Women of a Lesser Cost. Female Labour, Foreign exchange & Philippine Development. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Eviota, Uy Elizabeth 1992 Th e Political Economy of Gender. Women and the Sexual Division of Labour in the Philippines. London and New Jersey: Zed Books. Infante, Teresita 1969 Th e Woman in Early Philippines and Among the Cultural Minorities. Manila: University of Santo Tomas. Mananzan, Mary John, ed. 1987 Essays on Women. Manila: St. Scholastica’s College. Montiel, Cristina & Hollnsteiner, Mary R. 1976 Filipino Woman: Her Role and status in Philippine Society. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University, Institute of Philippines Culture.
30. Quoted by M. J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women, op. cit., 36. women and society: philippines | 47
National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women 2005 Report on the State of Filipino Women 2001–2003.
Fabrizio Tosolini
. very period of China’s history—the history on record, which reports important events and fi g- Eures—shows, on the one side a clear understand- ing of the world of women, according to which women are confi ned inside ideal parameters and submitted to man; and on the other side the remarkable contributions of some, or—more precisely—many feminine fi gures, who were able to infl uence the political life and society of their time. Th e yin-yang symbol off ers a pattern of reference for this fact: the dark swirl within the symbol’s circle is the passive, yielding, feminine yin; the light swirl is the active, aggressive, male yang. Neither principle is considered subordinate to the other; each complements the other and is capable of expressing both female and male charac- teristics. Ancient China’s highest goddess, Xi Huang Mu (Queen Mother of the West), found in the classic tale Journey to the West, also expresses aspects of yin-yang beliefs. As yin, this goddess is compassionate, promising immortality; as yang, she is a force who women and society: taiwan | 49 has the power to disrupt the cosmic yin-yang harmony. Th e pervasive fear that women can bring chaos by upsetting the cosmic harmony has always been an obstacle for women to fulfi ll their aspirations in Chinese society. Th e history of China records many examples of women who reached the highest levels of political hierarchy. One of the fi rst was Empress Lü Zhi (呂雉, d. 180 bc), the wife of Liu Bang (劉邦), who overthrew the Qin rulers to become Emperor Gao, the founder of the Han Dynasty. Aft er he died in 195 bc, Empress Lü became immensely powerful. She murdered Concubine Qi’s son Liu Ruyi, and then tortured Concubine Qi by cutting off her limbs and blinding and deafening her, causing her death. Her inhumane treatment of Concubine Qi was the main source of her son’s depression, the gentle but weak Emperor Hui. Aft er Emperor Hui’s death in 188 bc, his two infant sons, Emperor Qianshao and Emperor Houshao, were installed as her puppets on the throne. Th us, real power rested in her hands for sixteen years. When she was under threat of the Xiongnu (possibly the ancestors of the Huns), she found a way to appease them, by giving a royal princess in marriage to their ruler Modu Shanyu.1 During the Han Dynasty period Confucianism replaces Taoism as the basic tenet of the state ideology and organization of China.2 Th e Lienü Zhuan (Traditions of Exemplary Women)3 is published during this era, a key work that helps us understand the condition of women since then. Th e manuscript, composed by Liu Xiang (79–78 bc), is the earliest extant book in the Chinese tradition solely devoted to the moral education of women. It consists primarily of the biographical accounts of 125 women who were noted for various virtues in early China, and one fi nal chapter that off ers examples of feminine wicked- ness.4 Th e Lienü Zhuan became the standard textbook for female education for the next two millennia in China, inspiring generations of women to cultivate not only traditional virtues such as fi lial piety and maternal kindness, but to commit suicide and self-mutila- tion as means to preserve chastity. Although most of Liu’s book is comprised of materials
1. Th is became a common practice during the Han (206–220 ad) and Tang (618–907 ad) dynasties. It was called the Heqin (龢親/和親, literally: “peace marriage”). Over the course of Tang dynasty, for example, more than 20 princesses were dispatched as wives or concubines to foreign rulers, ensuring that peace and hopefully trade would result from the union of the two countries. As the wife of a high offi cial, the “diplomat bride” was well placed to become the “eyes and ears” of her natal court. If allowed to establish her own quarter or administer her own lands, she might become the center of trade exchanges. She not only brought ideas and goods from her region of birth, but might spread her “native” culture where she lived through books, textiles, foods, and religious beliefs. 2. Emperor Wu (140–87 bc) decided that Taoism was no longer suitable for China, and offi cially declared China to be a Confucian state; however, like the previous Emperors of China, he combined legal methods with the Confucian ideal. Th is offi cial adoption of Confucianism led to not only a civil service system, but also to the compulsory education of candidates for the imperial bureaucracy in Confucian classics, a requirement that lasted up to the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911. Confucian scholars gained prominent status as the core of the civil service. 3. Th e information about the Lienü Zhuan is taken from: A.B. Kinney, Traditions of Exemplary Women (Lienü Zhuan): An Introduction.
found in earlier texts, prior to his eff ort, no special attempts appear to have been made to educate women in Confucian subjects. Th e new emphasis on Confucian learning for female education possibly refl ects both ideal and pragmatic concerns. First of all, it reveals a utopian notion: only when the entire population engages in self-cultivation (a Confucian activity that had previously excluded women) will the empire achieve an era of great peace and high civilization. Th en, it exerts moral infl uence over women that cannot be subjugated by political means,5 given the immense power acquired by imperial women during this period. Th e Lienü Zhuan, with its lessons guiding women from all levels of society, is a fi rst attempt to shape the entire female population in the Confucian mold, as well as an eff ort to eff ectively control it. Shortly aft er the Lienü Zhuan was published, Bān Zhāo (班昭, fi rst century ad), the fi rst female Chinese historian, writes the Lessons for Women (Nüjiè 女誡), a work that outlines the four virtues a woman must abide by, proper virtue, proper speech, proper countenance, and proper conduct.6 Many women had sections of it memorized. Bān Zhāo highlights the importance of humility, which defi nes the relative natural positions of the male and female sexes. Accordingly, the female was deemed to be the weaker of the two and naturally, the humblest. Bān Zhāo also lays the stress on the proper relationship between husband and wife: the sole role of a woman as a wife was to serve her husband and be wholeheartedly devoted to him, to the point that, if the husband were to die, there would be no re-marriage for the widow. Th is was considered to be the most virtuous duty in later dynasties.7 In Ban Zhao’s words: “Th e Way of respect and acquiescence is woman’s most important principle of conduct.” Paradoxically enough, the guidelines for the submissive behavior of generations of women in China, and their confi nement inside family life, were laid down in times of feminine power. “For thousands of years the core power structure of Chinese families was
5. As an example: Zhao Feiyan (趙飛燕) is reported to have been one of the most beautiful women in this dynasty. Th e Emperor Cheng Di (32–37 bc) was attracted by her slim and graceful fi gure. She displayed her agile body as a vivacious and energetic dancer. With her sister, Zhao Hede, she used her beauty as a weapon against the Emperor, of whom she was a concubine. Th e government was thrown into chaos in an internecine struggle for power. Her story shows that strength and confi dence were highly regarded female virtues during this period. Th is is in stark contrast to the frailty and wilting beauty that was later to be admired in the Ming and Qing dynasties. 6. Lessons for Women was published at a time when China’s Confucian society desperately needed a way to impose order on its oft en complex and unruly families. Expected to serve as models of decorum and order, the typi- cal Chinese family oft en consisted of multiple wives and concubines and many children. Confl icts were common, and chaos was the norm in many households. Th e existing Confucian documents did not off er specifi c and practical information for women’s everyday lives. Ban’s book served to codify easily learned rules of behavior, which centered on her advice to women to subjugate themselves to the men in the family. 7. A history archive of a county in Qing Dynasty (1644–1911 ad) recorded a story of a young 19-year-old woman named Huang Xuehui who was engaged to a man named Zhu. Zhu died before the marriage and Huang’s parents suggested that she consider marrying another man. But she decided not to marry and committed suicide when she was 24. Th e Hui county, in today’s Anhui Province, produced more than 2,200 chaste women who became vestal virgins or who committed suicide for the sake of their chastity during the 267 years of the Qing Dynasty. Such women were highly commended in their society. Th ey and their families would be honored by neighbors. Th e government built high stone arcs in their honor so people could show respect for these women generation aft er generation. women and society: taiwan | 51 in the authority of the husband and father. Th e famous saying, ‘San Cong Si De’ (‘Th ree obediences and four morals’) instructed women to obey masculine authority. Before mar- riage, they should obey the father. Aft er marriage, they should obey the husband. If the husband died, they had to obey the son—the man was the sole authority in the family.”8 Confucianism played a part in the process of subjugating women. “Confucianism became the most pervasive doctrine to promote the belief in women’s ‘natural place.’ Confucius himself did not inherently denigrate women, although he placed them at the lower end of the patriarchal family structure. Yet, through the ages the assumption that men’s and women’s social places and expected behaviors were quite distinct was based on Confucian hierarchical precepts.”9 During the Tang Dynasty the fl ourishing of Buddhism contributed to the empow- erment of women in some areas. Women went on pilgrimages to Buddhist temples, retreated to nunneries, sometimes gave public lectures, and led temple groups. Chinese Buddhism was at its height during the reign of the only woman Emperor of China, Wu Zetian (武則天, 690–705 ad),10 who promoted Buddhism and even justifi ed her rule by claiming that she was a reincarnation of a previous female Buddhist saint. During Wu’s reign, and throughout the early to mid Tang period, women enjoyed relatively high status and freedom. Lovely Tang era paintings and statues depict women on horseback, and as administrators, dancers and musicians. Stories and poems, like those from the pen of the infamous female poet Yu Xuanji, also attest to the almost modern openness of the period. Besides Wu Zetian, another woman was particularly famous during the Tang period: Yang Guifei, who entered the court of the emperor Xuanzong in the 740’s. Yang Guifei slowly enticed the emperor, making him neglect the growing threat of enemies at the border and her own ambitious family members. When the capital was taken, the court fl ed and the emperor reluctantly ordered that she be strangled. Under the Song Dynasty (960–1279 ad), the position of women became even more stratifi ed. Notions of wife fi delity and husband worship brought by the Mongols, strengthened Neo-Confucian beliefs and led to the practice of foot binding,11 insistence
8. Cf.
on widow chastity, and the selling of unwanted daughters. Despite the perceived need to limit female mobility, foot-binding did not appear until the Song Dynasty and was not universally followed. Women of most ethnic minorities, including Hakka and Manchu women, did not practice it, nor did some peasants who had to work in the fi elds.12 Few noteworthy events aff ected women’s lives during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Th e growing infl uence of Confucian views led to the establishment of a new legal code (Da-Ming Lü 大明律) at the time of the Emperor Hongwu which was considered one of the greatest achievements of the period. Th e Ming law guaranteed the protection of slaves as well as the protection of free citizens, an ideal that went back to the reign of (Han Dynasty) Emperor Guangwu in the fi rst century. Th e code also placed great empha- sis on family relations. Th e Da-Ming Lü strongly infl uenced the laws of China until the Communist’s takeover. Following the Confucian tenets, it stressed the traditional submis- sive role of women in the seclusion of family life. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, widely accepted beliefs about gender were seriously challenged in China and Japan. Although concerns about women’s position had been expressed earlier, the concept of women’s liberation became a major motivating force for the nationalist, reform and revolutionary movements. Male national- ists argued that an improvement of women’s status was essential for their country to be accepted by other technologically advanced nations. A core of educated women joined their call in both Japan and China, speaking and writing in public for the fi rst time. Conservative nationalists and traditionalists in Japan and China reacted at diff erent points, mounting long campaigns against changes in gender roles and labeling female activists as unseemly, unfeminine, and too Western. At this time some prominent female fi gures emerged in China.13 Th e most famous among them were Empress Dowager Ci Xi,14 who ruled China to the end of the Qing Dynasty and the three Song Sisters, who occupied the front stage of China’s political life for a substantial part of the last century.15 Th e most renowned women during Mao’s era
12. Quite diff erent from the image of the woman with bound feet are the many women warriors who from time to time appear in the history of China. Among the most famous: Fu Hao (Shang Dinasty); the Maiden of the Southern Forest (496–465 ad); Hua Mulan (possibly Sui dynasty, 589–618 ce); Wang Cong’er (1777–1798); Shi Xianggu (1775–1844), pirate and admiral; Feng Shuyan (1910- ), legendary markswoman and army offi cer. 13. An example among many: Qiū Jin (秋瑾, 1875–1907), who was a Chinese anti-Qing Empire revolutionary killed aft er a failed uprising. She was an eloquent orator who spoke out for women’s rights, such as the freedom to marry, freedom of education, and abolishment of foot binding (her own feet were bound). In 1906 she founded a radical women’s journal with another female poet, Xu Zihua, in Shanghai. 14. Dowager Ci Xi (慈禧太后, Cíxī Tàihòu, 1835–1908), was a powerful and charismatic fi gure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, from 1861 to her death in 1908. Coming from a fairly ordinary Manchu family and having been selected by the Xianfeng Emperor as a concubine, she exercised almost total control over the court under the nominal rule of her son the Tongzhi Emperor and her nephew the Guangxu Emperor, both of whom attempted to rule unsuccessfully in their own right. Largely conservative during her rule, many historians considered her reign despotic, and attribute the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and therefore Imperial China, to her management. 15. Sòng Àilíng (宋藹齡), was the eldest of the three sisters and the one who “loved money.” She was married to the richest man and fi nance minister of China, H. H. Kung. Sòng Qìnglíng (宋慶齡), the one who “loved China,” women and society: taiwan | 53 were Deng Yingchao, the wife of Zhou Enlai and an advocate of women’s rights, and Jiang Qing (江青, Madame Mao, 1914–1991), the fourth wife of Chairman Mao. Th e latter was appointed as the deputy director of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 and formed the Gang of Four with Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen, becoming one of the most powerful fi gures in China during Mao’s last years. During China’s long revolutionary years the state both promoted and rejected new roles for women. Th e most severe reaction against female activism was the Guomindang’s counter revolution, called the White Terror (1927–1928), which accused female activists of instigating social chaos. During Chiang Kai-shek’s relentless hunt for Communists, thousand of women were murdered and raped, including some who had simply bobbed their hair. Th e Communists, on their part, turned a blind eye to what seemed bourgeois feminist reforms to condemn instead the socioeconomic conditions perceived as the source of all female oppression. Th ey believed that once gender diff erences were erased, women would be free to help spearhead the “new society.” Mao Zedong coined the phrase “Women Hold Up Half the Sky,” and set into motion a campaign to get women out of their homes and into the labor force. Selections from oral histories collected during the period illustrate his attempts to mobilize the lowest members of society, the female peas- ants, so they could confront “feudal” fathers, husbands or landlords.16 Ultimately, the need to develop a sense of solidarity between male and female peasants as subjects of oppression resulted in criticisms that primarily addressed women. Such was the fate of Ding Ling,17 the most prominent female writer of her generation, who was persecuted for denouncing the sexist attitudes of her comrades. Even though the state did not oppose the progressive changes embodied in the Marriage Law of 1950, which granted young people the right to choose their own mar- riage partners, and women the rights to initiate divorce and inherit property, female- was married to the Father of Modern China and fi rst President of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen. She became joint President of the People’s Republic of China with Dong Biwu from 1968 to 1972 and Honorary President in 1981, just before the 1982 Constitution was passed. Sòng Méilíng (宋美齡), the youngest and the one who “loved power,” was married to the leader of the Kuomintang (kmt), Generalissimo of the Chinese armies, and later President, Chiang Kai-shek. Th eir father was the American-educated Methodist minister Charlie Song, who made a fortune in banking. Th eir three brothers were all high ranking offi cials in the Republic of China government. 16. For a more detailed account of the evolution of the role of women in the prc, cf. Stefan Landsberger’s Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages analysis:
specifi c concerns continued to be ignored during the Cultural Revolution when gender equality was assumed and the class war took center stage. With China’s post 1980 modernization eff orts, new tensions have emerged as women are urged to return to their traditional roles at home and at work, and to “feminize” their physical appearance. At the same time, the ideal of the worker who forsakes even family duties to selfl essly contribute to society continues to hold. Although over 80 of women work outside their homes and some participate in political activities, propaganda posters dramatically illustrate the shift s from revolutionary times to present. It is clear that habits established thousands of years ago do not easily disappear. Th roughout China’s history, beliefs about gender diff erences have found refl ection in the age-old assignments of women to “women’s work,” and men to “men’s work.” Th is is clearly illustrated by the predominance of women in their cloth production industry. Th e Zhou period (1100–770 ad) phrase, “Men plow and women weave,” has resonated repeat- edly. Silk production, so vital to Chinese trade and diplomacy, has traditionally rested on the labor of women who cultivated the mulberry trees, raised the worms, extracted the silk thread from the cocoons, and span and wove the cloth.18 In both China and Japan women’s work in the textile industries proved to be the key to industrial success. Many of the mill workers in both countries, since the late nineteenth century, were girls who left poor rural homes to live in dorms. Short diary excerpts, songs, work contracts, and charts, dramatically describe the mill workers’ hard work, low wages, and attempts to improve their working conditions. Accounts also reveal that with an independent income, some women began to lead a more self-suffi cient life. Th e unusual marriage resistance movement among some silk workers in South China was a particularly intriguing outcome of such independence. Th e notion that women “have their place” in textile production persists until today. Women are the major workforce in the mills of South China and in globalized textile factories and clothing sweatshops world-wide. And the question of whether this sexual division of work marginalizes women, or off ers them greater opportunities, is still being debated. Th e rapid evolution of Chinese society, following recent economic growth has given birth to a set of phenomena similar to those observed in Western societies, among which is the diversifi cation of female roles, with the ensuing impacts on their lifestyle. It must also be kept in mind that the pace of the change is by no means the same in the cities and in the countryside, or among the Han and other minority groups. Th e evolution of the condition of women in Taiwan resembles the patterns observed in Mainland China. A common mainstream cultural tradition, dating back to the begin-
18. Legends, such as that of Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih, who is credited with the introduction of silkworm rearing and invention of the loom, illustrated women’s connection to this work. And so did poems like the 11th century female poet Chien Tao’s lament about upper class, silken clad “beauties” who knew or cared little “Of a weaving girl,/ Sitting cold by her window/ Endlessly throwing her shuttle to and fro.” women and society: taiwan | 55 nings of Chinese civilization, and the massive emigration of Mainlanders from all parts of China aft er the Second World War partially account for this fact. Eff orts on both sides of the Straits to eliminate old economic structures in order to create modern, industrialized societies also contribute to similarities. Diff erences in the organization of their political economies—strong centralized planning and leadership in the People’s Republic of China (prc) and free-market democracy in Taiwan—seem to have limited infl uence on evolving gender patterns.
Present Conditions, Possible Developments In order to explain the historical evolution of the condition of women both in the prc and Taiwan, it is necessary to understand the Chinese family structure and diff erent gender role assignments. Family is the all-important unit, to which individual life is devoted; however, only males are acknowledged as part of it. A male belongs to a family as a liv- ing element in the chain connecting past and future, ancestors and even not-yet born descendants. He has a family. A woman does not have a family. She is not part of the genealogies; she is only a temporary member of her father’s household, until the time she enters a husband’s household.19 And even there, her function is to perpetuate the lineage of a family where she is perceived as irrelevant. Th e relationships with her own children and grandchildren constitute her family20, in the same way that she constituted the family of her mother and grandmother.21 Th e challenges women are facing at present resemble those they have faced in the past and may be traced back to their eff orts to escape the contradictions of a system where they can only have a subordinated role. Th ey are part of the long and painful process of shift ing from the traditional extended family structure in villages (three generations under the same roof) to other family patterns characteristic of big city life. Indeed, complex interactions within large families, coupled with social pressures exerted by neighbors in villages created a powerful control system that determined femi-
19. “In one of the rituals of the wedding ceremony the bride’s father or brothers symbolically inform her by means of spilt water that she, like the water, may never return, and when her wedding sedan chair passes over the threshold of her father’s house, the doors are slammed shut behind her.” M. Wolf, Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1972), 34. 20. M. Wolf, Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan, op. cit, 32–41, defi nes the family experience of women as “temporary family” or “uterine family:” since in the patrilineal family system they are external/outsiders, they experience family as a set of deep relationships with their own mothers/grandmothers, with their own sons and daughters, with their own nephews. All these relationships are established on the basis of physical birth, hence the term “uterine families.” 21. “With a male focus we see the Chinese family as a line of descent, bulging to encompass all the members of a man’s household and spreading out through his descendants. With a female focus, however, we see the Chinese family not as a continuous line stretching between the vague horizons of past and future, but as a contemporary group that comes into existence out of one woman’s need and is held together insofar as she has the strength to do so, or, for the matter, the need to do so… Th e uterine family has no ideology, no formal structure, and no public existence. It is built out of sentiments and loyalties that die with its members, but it is no less real for all that.” M. Wolf, Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan, op. cit., 37. 56 | Women in Context
nine roles before and beyond the individual ability of women to choose a style of life.22 Curiously, women’s interactions and talk/gossip at the village level were essential to keep- ing the system going. Villagers’ comments generated a larger, superimposed conscience with which each individual had to come to terms in order to be accepted and respected in the community—a community which was necessary for the survival of every single fam- ily. Th is held—and still holds—for men and women alike, but for men, it draws reason- able boundaries to freedom while confi ning women into the shuffl es of ordinary heroic virtue/submission.23 It is clear, therefore, that to leave the village for study or work, and to dwell in the city for a substantial part of the year introduces new behavior patterns in the lives of women, new mindsets, and the possibility to play new roles in the society. Such a process is a gen- eral phenomenon being experienced by the majority of young women in Taiwan.24 Th is change, however, comes at a cost. In the village, it deprives families of substantial contributions to the workforce necessary for many services. Th e physical absence, or the unavailability of women to assume submissive roles, shakes the position of men both in the family and in the village. Th e women who live in the city enjoy more freedom, more opportunities to develop their talents and climb the social ladder, but do not easily fi nd a way to fulfi ll their desire for family life and motherhood. When women pursue both goals in the hectic life of the city, they become like “candles burning from both ends” doubly worn by family and job duties. Like their mothers and grandmothers whose function was to perpetuate patterns of village life at the price of individual freedom and self-fulfi llment, so now they perpetuate city culture and life at the price of their fulfi llment as women.
22. In Taiwan a widespread traditional custom was that of adopting a girl (sim pu a 媳婦仔), who would grow in the adoptive family and serve as a lower status child to eventually marry one of her brothers. Such girls and women were sacrifi ced for the survival logic of extended families. As this custom disappeared, a new kind of servant emerged to be in charge of household chores and to assist the elderly, giving rise to the strange phenomenon of foreign spouses in Taiwan. More than 200.000 young wives on the island come from Vietnam, Th ailand, Indonesia. Because they do not know Chinese they are confi ned within their houses, at the mercy of their husbands and in- laws, unable to teach their own children to speak Chinese or Taiwanese. Th ey are a new form of sim pu as resisting the change of time. Th eir counterparts are the 200.000 Chinese women who face diffi culties fi nding husbands and serve overtime in companies, sacrifi ced to the survival logic of city economy and culture. Th e presence of many foreign caregivers, although a phenomenon not exclusive of Taiwan, partially obeys to these forces. 23. An explanation for the relatively high number of suicides among young wives can be sought in their unhappy experiences in their new families. At the end of her study “Women and Suicide in China,” Margery Wolf quotes a comment of Arthur Smith, written in the nineteenth century: “One of the weakest parts of the Chinese social fabric is the insecurity of the life and happiness of woman, but no structure is stronger than its weakest part, and Chinese society is no exception to this law. Every year thousands upon thousands of Chinese wives commit suicide, tens of thousands of other persons are thereby involved in serious trouble, hundreds of thousands of yet others are dragged in as co-partners in the diffi culty, and millions of dollars are expended in extravagant funerals and ruinous lawsuits. And all this is the outcome of the Confucian theory that a wife has no rights which a husband is bound to respect. Th e law aff ords her no protection while she lives, and such justice as she is able with diffi culty to exact is strictly a post mortem concession.” M. Wolf and R. Witke, Women in Chinese Society (Stanford: California: Stanford University Press 1975), 141. 24. Th e variegated world of the Aborigines presents more complex patterns, given structural diff erences in their societies and the ways they are infl uenced by the culture of the city, and the diff erent environment and forms of economic life. women and society: taiwan | 57
Behind these structural shift s are the all-encompassing global market economy and media empires, which create the behavioral patterns that guarantee their own reproduc- tion and perpetuation. People’s self-understanding is learnt on a day-to-day basis from ads, tabloids, opinion makers, talk-shows and the like, just about the same way economi- cal life is bound to evolve according to plans that are beyond the control of any single human groups or traditions. In this sense, the condition of women in the Chinese world closely resembles that of women in many other countries of the world, leaving behind a pattern of submission to enter a new one. At least, however, there is this small gain for the women of China: if at the end they are only guests in the families where they live, their lives will not be burnt anymore like incense on their ancestors’ altars.
Bibliography
Bennett Peterson, Barbara, ed. 2000 Notable Women Of China:Shang Dynasty To the Early Twentieth Century. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe. Buckley Ebrey, Patricia 2003 Women and the Family in Chinese History. London and New York: Routledge. Croll, Elisabeth 1978 Feminism and Socialism in China. London, Henley and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 2000 Endangered Daughters: Discrimination and Development in Asia. London and New York: Routledge. Landsberger, Stefan 2004 Iron Women and Foxy Ladies.
Martin Ahern, Emily and Gates, Hill, eds. 1981 Th e Anthropology of Taiwanese Society. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Reese, Lyn 2003
Sergio Targa
Where the chains of religion are loose, women’s development status is almost like that of men. But with the pretext of religion, men now lord over women.
Begum Rokeya1
eligions diff er on many things. What for one reli- gion is prohibited may be allowed and perhaps Reven encouraged in another. Strangely enough, however, all religions agree when it comes to belittling, disre- garding and oppressing women.2 Th is is certainly the case in Bangladesh with the two major religious traditions of Hinduism and Islam. Th e present paper will attempt a phenomenological reading of women’s standing in these two religions. Attention will be primarily given to the lived experience of ordinary people.
1. Quoted in G. Murshid, Nari Dharma Ittadi (Dhaka: Anyaprakash, 2007), 31. In Bengali, my translation. 2. See ibid., 83. 62 | Women in Context
Orthodoxy as such or the well-meaning theological lucubration of scriptural experts is ignored here in favour of the “true” religions as lived out by their respective followers in the disparate situations of everyday life. Women in fact do not suff er for what each reli- gion in theory is or should be; they suff er for what religion is in practice. Issuing from a highly patriarchal and male-centred society, both Hinduism and Islam could not but enshrine in their respective tenets those same social characteristics. Accordingly both religions, generally speaking, do not aff ord any role to women in the public space. Th is is entirely occupied and dominated by men. Women’s religious expres- sions and roles are confi ned to the private sphere, and possibly, restricted to the household walls. Religious practitioners in both temples and mosques are always and only males. In mosques women are not allowed to join the congregation. Th e fi ve times of daily prayer (namaj) are to be performed by them in the secrecy of their own houses. In Bangladesh it is not even conceivable that things will be otherwise in the near future. Hindu women, on the contrary, may visit temples and off er their prayers (puja) to gods and goddesses. Th is, however, is of course forbidden during menstruation. While men in both traditions undergo a sort of religious initiation, upanayana and circumcision for Hindus and Muslims respectively, women are not required to undergo any religious ceremony. Th eir religious belonging is somehow guaranteed by their father’s or husband’s religious affi liation. In fact, women are always the possession of somebody and it is their owner who qualifi es their religious connection. In cases of mixed marriages, therefore, it is almost always the wife who must convert to the religion of her husband. In short, as it is unbefi tting for women to take up any responsibility outside of their domestic hearth, in the same way they are found unsuitable to play institutional roles in the domain of religion. As a matter of fact, in today’s Bangladesh religions are the most formidable obstacles laid on the path to women’s emancipation. Religion is becoming a sort of last stronghold of patriarchy, a stronghold which, unfortunately, does not seem yet to be in the process of crumbling. Hinduism in the forms we know it today developed from the beginning of the Christian era. As a Brahmanical reaction to the then diminishing Buddhist hegemony, basically centred on urban and commercial centres, Hinduism developed primarily in agrarian contexts, at the peripheries of Buddhist empires and kingdoms. Right from the beginning Hinduism claimed an ideological continuity with the ethos and practices of ancient Vedic religion. In practice the reference to the Vedas was only instrumental to the construction of a new religion. Th e Vedas worked in fact as an empty ideological box to be fi lled up according to necessity by the new priestly elite. Th e Brahmans indeed were the only ones who knew what the Vedas were all about. Be that as it may, the fact remains that as a reaction to Buddhist egalitarianism,3 as a continuation with the pastoral ethos of the Vedas where women were considered untouchable during menstruation and
3. Indian Buddhism allowed women to become nuns. women and religions: bangladesh | 63 childbirth4 and by acknowledging the ideology of fertility and the feminine as encoded in the agrarian relations of the society in which it was being born, Hinduism produced and codifi ed a conception of womanhood still to be found today everywhere in the Indian subcontinent. Perhaps the best synthetic yet organic exposition of such a conceptualisa- tion can be found in the Manava Dharma Shastra. Chapter 9 of this ancient text deals with the duties of husbands and wives. It says: Men must make their women dependent day and night, and keep under their control those who are attached to sensory objects. Her father guards her in childhood, her husband guards her in youth, and her sons guard her in old age. A woman is not fi t for independence.5 Th e strictness of such injunctions was to a great extent justifi ed by the political require- ments of the then infant Hindu state. From the beginning of the Christian era the caste system was being rehearsed as the political template of Hindu polities. Th e stricter the enforcement of caste law (varnadharma) the more stable the state was. To this purpose women’s dependence and segregation was a necessary corollary. Says Manu: If men persist in seeking intimate contact with other men’s wives, the king should brand them with punishments that inspire terror and banish them. For that gives rise among people to the confusion of classes [i.e. castes], by means of which irreligion, that cuts away the roots, works for the destruction of every- thing.6 However, segregation and dependence of women needed to be justifi ed on a deeper and natural level. Good looks do not matter to them, nor do they care about youth; “A man!” they say, and enjoy sex with him, whether he is good-looking or ugly. By run- ning aft er men like whores, by their fi ckle minds, and by their natural lack of aff ection these women are unfaithful to their husbands even when they are zeal- ously guarded here. Knowing that their own nature is like this, as it was born at creation by the Lord of Creatures, a man should make the utmost eff ort to guard them.7 Of course it must be said that historians cannot say if the Manava Dharma Shastra ever rose to the status of law in any Hindu state of the past. Th is however is irrelevant to our discourse. Th e fact is that despite being unknown even to most of today’s Bangladeshi Hindus, the text’s ideas have become common cultural heritage not only of the Hindus
4. See A.S. Altekar, Th e Position of Women in Hindu Civilization (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1999), 194–95. 5. Th e Laws of Manu, trans. by W. Doniger with B.K. Smith (London: Penguin Books, 1991), ch. 9,2–3, 197. Th e Manava Dharma Shastra is variously dated between the second century bc and the second century ce. 6. Ibid., ch. 8,352–53, 189. 7. Ibid., ch. 9,14–6, 198. 64 | Women in Context
but of all the people of the Subcontinent. Th ese ideas in fact have been reproduced time and again in puranas and epics so that eventually they gained cultural hegemony. Th e Mahabharata, a widely known epic everywhere in south Asia, for instance, says: Th ere is nothing else that is more sinful than women. Verily, women are the root of all faults. Th at is certainly known to thee, O Narada! Women, even when possessed of husbands having fame and wealth, of handsome features and completely obedient to them, are prepared to disregard them if they get the opportunity.8 It seems that in earlier Vedic times, women (i.e. twice born women) had a certain access to both the Vedas and the performance of sacrifi ces. Th is changed abruptly in Hinduism, where women of any caste were denied access to the Vedas and to the sacrifi ces to be performed by the householder only. But what really changed was the status of women in general. Th ey were now being assimilated to the status of sudra, the fourth caste, the caste of servants. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says: “No servitor of mine is lost. Even people of low origins, women, vaisyas, nay sudras, go the highest course if they rely on me.”9 Th ese religious changes were at the same time the result of shift s in the polities of the time. As already touched upon above, the Vedic religion refl ected a pastoral and nomadic kind of society. Th ere rulers were called gosvami the owners of cows, with explicit refer- ence to the importance of herds. Hinduism refl ected instead the structure of a peripheral agrarian society, since urban and commercial centres were still very much in the grip of Buddhist ideology. Here the rulers started becoming known as bhusvami, owners of the land. In this latter society both the requirements of the caste system to be seen as a chain of lordships and the similitude between women’s procreative power and the fertility of the land could not but produce the commoditisation of women as an essential accessory to male patriarchal supremacy.10 Th e same relationship between king and kingdom came to be interpreted through the conjugal metaphor. Interestingly enough, the word svami is even today commonly used for the English word “husband”: the owner of a wife. Amusingly, the marginalization of women and low caste people in the offi cial and institutional domains of religion coincided with the beginning of a new religious strand. Th e bhakti (i.e. devotion) movement, which preached and fostered the creation of a personal love-relationship between a devotee and his or her chosen deity (ista devata), became the space where devotees in general and women in particular could exercise, as it were, their religious freedom. Indeed, if in the beginning the bhakti movement might
8. Mahabharata. Book 13, Anusasana Parva, Section xxxviii, trans. by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli.
11. Ibid., ch. 5,154; 156; 158; 160, 115–16. 12. Ibid., ch. 5,168–69, 116. 13. G. Murshid, Nari Dharma Ittadi, op. cit., 82. In English this Bengali proverb would sound like this: “All jack- als have the same voice.” My translation. 14. For example, I bought the following book while travelling from Dhaka to Khulna on a bus: Maolana Abdullah Abu Said Gajipuri, Mohilader Oaj o Adorsho Nari Shikkha. (Women’s Prayer and Women’s Ideal Education), Dhaka: Sagar Book Depo, 2004. In Bengali. It is a formalistic listing of rules and regulations of what virtuous Muslim women should or should not do. 66 | Women in Context
Islamic books the following may be mentioned here: Behester Kunji (Th e Key to Paradise), Beheshti Zewar (Th e Treasures of Paradise), Maqsudul Momeneen (Th e Destiny of the Believers) and Kassa-suul-Ambia (Th e Stories of the Prophets). Th ese are dated books which however command great respect and authority. Maqsudul Momeneen for instance was written by the late Maulana Gholam Rahman in 1935. By 1994, however it had reached 45 editions. Th is literature propagates a very dogmatic brand of Islam albeit founded basi- cally on superstition and patriarchal misconceptions. Needless to say, here women fi gure very badly. As an example, Gholam Rahman’s Bengali work Maqsudul Momeneen “justi- fi es husband’s beating and punishing their wives under the following circumstances: If the wife refuses to have sex with her husband whilst having no valid excuses. If the wife does not dress up and go to her husband if asked to do so. If the wife does not clean her- self. If the wife visits someone’s house without her husband’s permission. If the wife does not practice Islamic rituals and fails to observe seclusion. If the wife gives away things to others without her husband’s permission or runs away aft er taking the dower.”15 But the real jewel of this book is represented by the 35 commandments put together exclusively for women.16 Here our author not only reaches Manu’s understanding of women, perhaps he even surpasses it. To give the reader a taste of the kind of niceties to be found there I relate here the last two of the 35: 34. You should be thankful to God even if your husband happens to be insane, stupid and illiterate. You should regard your husband as precious as the moon and spend your life at his feet so that you get eternal bliss.
35. Whether your husband is rich or poor, educated or illiterate, blind or crippled, good-looking or ugly always serve him as your master and be loving and caring. According to the Prophet, an immoral woman is worse than one thousand immoral men combined together and one virtuous woman is better than seventy saints combined together.17 Of late, this kind of Islamic teaching has found new inroads to the Muslim masses of Bangladesh. Audio cassettes, video cassettes and CDs publicise the same teachings so that they can now reach also the illiterate part of the Bangladeshi population. Maulana Delwar Hussain Saidi is right now the most well known orator and proponent of such teachings. His speeches can be heard on busses and in religious gatherings. From 1996 he is also a member of parliament with the Jamat-e-Islami.18 Like him thousands of Mullahs all over Bangladesh continue to reinforce and foster this very popular, misogynist and
15. Quoted in T. Hashmi, Popular Islam and Misogyny: A Case Study of Bangladesh, part 2, 2006, 2.
19. Th ese notes on Hindu Personal Law are taken from Taposh Kanti Baul & Khandaker Farzana Rahman Akhi, “Personal Rights of Women in Hindu Laws,” Law & Our Rights (weekly magazine of Th e Daily Star), issue 227, Feb. 25. 20. For other changes see P. D’Costa, Dainondin Jibone Ain Sahaieka (Law Use in Daily Life), (Dhaka: Heaven and Holy Prokashon, 1998), 39. (In Bengali). 68 | Women in Context
a social contract which to be valid requires the consent of both the parties contracting marriage and the presence of two witnesses. Th e latter may be male or female.21 Since it is a contract, the wife is supposed to receive the dower (den mohor). Th is is a sort of security money given to Muslim wives. Th ey maintain this right to dower even in case of divorce or death of husbands. Its amount is stipulated in the marriage contract. Some argue that the dower given to women is a sign of the respect and honour Islam bestows on them. Reality may be slightly diff erent. “A Jamat-e-Islami worker was very frank in saying that the system of Mehr [i.e. den mohor or dower] was introduced because women are weak and dependent on men. He immediately added, ‘if one fears God, there should not be any opposition or criticism to this!’”22 Th e same 1961 Ordinance attempted to control and restrict polygamy in Bangladesh. It thus prescribes that before contracting a second marriage a husband must obtain permission from the Union Parishad Chairman (i.e. Chairman of the Local Government Council) who, gathering an Arbitration Council, is asked to verify the fi rst wife’s consent and the grounds for such a request. Unfortunately, “the Arbitration Council is composed of males who give permission to remarry even on the slightest of pretexts.”23 As far as divorce (talaq) is concerned, only the husband has the right to divorce his wife. Th e wife may have this right if at the time of marriage the husband agrees to give it to her. Th e 1961 Ordinance somehow tried to mitigate and bring under control the power of men to divorce their wives at will. It thus introduced a system of arbitration. On pro- nouncing the divorce, the husband must send a notice of it to the local Union Parishad Chairman and for her knowledge to his wife. On receiving the notice the chairman con- venes an Arbitration Council to try and reconcile the aggrieved couple. If the attempt is successful, the divorce is avoided, otherwise within 90 days from the chairman receiv- ing the divorce notice, the divorce becomes operative and defi nitive.24 “However, the Arbitration Council cannot prevent the talaq by the husband even if it is highly arbitrary and unjust and can only delay the divorce with the hope that some reconciliation might take place between the parties.”25 Muslim wives may ask to divorce their husbands by resorting to judicial courts. Th e grounds for this kind of divorce must be: a husband’s long
21. Before the Muslim Family Law Ordinance of 1961, the witnesses could be either two men or one man and two women. Apparently, the 1961 ordinance does not prohibit one woman to act as a single witness together with a man. See H. Kamrul, “In Search of Equality: Marriage Related Laws for Muslim Women in Bangladesh,” Journal of International Women’s Studies, vol. 5, 1–11, 2003, 99. Th e article can be found at
Bibliography
Altekar, A. S. 1999 Th e Position of Women in Hindu Civilization. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. D’Costa, Paul 1998 Dainondin Jibone Ain Sahaieka (Law Use in Daily Life). Dhaka: Heaven and Holy Prokashon. Doniger, Wendy with Smith, Brian K. 1991 Th e Laws of Manu. London: Penguin Books. Ghulam, Murshid 2007 Nari Dharma Ittadi. Dhaka: Anyaprakash. Hossain, Kamrul 2003 “In Search of Equality: Marriage Related Laws for Muslim Women in Bangladesh.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 5: 96–113.
Kamal, Sultana 1998 “Mehr: An Advantage or Dependency Reinforced?” wlumul Dossier 19, Feb. 1998: 1–3.
Tiziano Tosolini
nyone interested in Japanese society knows that the relationship that women have had to reli- Agion throughout history, and continue to have, is a very complex one. Th e reasons stem not only from the variety of religious expressions found in Japan, but also from the origi- nal contributions that women have made to the development of religion (as in Shamanism and in the New Religions), as well as from the segregation imposed on them by particular reli- gious creeds or social norms (as, for instance, in Buddhism and Confucianism). If, on the one hand, we can speak of “feminine religions” where the divine becomes manifest through a particu- lar woman’s charisma or through the special qualities of the femi- nine nature itself, on the other, we need to analyze the obscure rationale and dense logic of the prohibitions employed by men to subjugate women in the religious domain. In any event, it seems clear that in both cases women exercise within religion a role that can hardly be overlooked, too quickly dismissed, or underestimated, if for no other reason than the simple fact that 72 | Women in Context
women make up the majority of adherents and sympathizers in many of Japan’s reli- gions. Th e fi rst contacts of the gods with the inhabitants of the islands of Japan took place through shamanic women called mikogami (御子神), whose vocation and task was to mediate between human and divine forces, usually by entering a trance and communicat- ing oracles from the gods, oft en in the form of a spirit possession. Th rough these magic practices shaman women would invoke the soul of a deceased person, cure diseases, fore- see the future, and provide information about lost objects. Chinese chronicles of the third century allude to the magical powers of Queen Himiko, and the Kojiki tells us of how Empress Jingū was possessed by a divinity who predicted that the child she was pregnant with was a boy who would conquer Korea.1 Many scholars are convinced that the infl u- ence and work of powerful shaman women was the main reason for the designation of the sun goddess Amaterasu as the principal deity of the Shinto pantheon. As Shinto developed, the phenomenon of shaman women started to fade, though it was never completely to disappear. Beginning with the Taika reform of 646, which promoted the centralization of the Japanese state and its religious practices, a great vari- ety of cults and local gods were organized into a single central system. Shinto was soon institutionalized as an offi cial cult with its own legal codes and regulations, and with a hierarchic structure dominated by men. A certain prestige accorded to women survived in some of the most ancient and famous temples, such as at Ise, in which liturgy and divination were entrusted to a Saiō, or “consecrated princess.” Offi cial Shinto, however, considered these practices of secondary importance. From 881, with the Oral Transmission from the Ancients (Korō kujitsuden 古老口実伝), religious authorities began to catalog the various regulations and prohibitions governing the attendance of those worshipping at a shrine. Among them is the stricture against a man staying in the same house with a woman on the night before going to a shrine and the forbidding of a woman to attend a shrine for ninety days aft er giving birth or to share a cooking fi re with men for one-hundred days.2 Gradually, if somewhat ironically, the very characteristics that had earned shamanic women the role of intermediaries with the divine (namely, their procreative power and fertility) came to be the reason for their exclusion from liturgical celebrations and the case of resentment on the part of the gods. Moreover, the charism and special qualities that they brought to divination practices were soon replaced by the purely mechanical, repetitive, and ritualistic role played by the Shinto priest (kannushi). Not even the Meiji restoration of 1868, which reestablished Shintoism as a state religion and elevated the emperor to the leader of the nation, was particularly friendly to women. In 1873, in an attempt to abolish all “superstition” and “magic,” the political
1. Kojiki. Trans. by. D. Philippi (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1968), ch. 93, 259–61. 2. K. Smyers, “Women and Shinto: Th e Relation between Purity and Pollution,” Japanese Religions 1983 (12/4): 7–18. women and religions: Japan | 73 authorities banned all shamanic practices, which were still being exercised clandestinely. It was only in the period following World War II that women were once again able to cross the threshold of the sacred gates, and that only because the Jinja Honchō (the offi cial organization of Shinto shrines) were faced with a lack of kannushi and had no choice but to grant women the possibility of becoming priestesses. Th e number of women priests has grown steadily since then and today they number some 1,825 (as against 18,714 male kan- nushi). In Shinto shrines today it is not unusual to see miko in attendance. Formerly the daughters of priests devoted to the service of altars and shrines, today’s miko are generally part-time employees or volunteers put in charge of ceremonial dances, assisting priests, or selling sacred objects in shrine stalls. Women received a very diff erent, and rather negative, welcome within Buddhism. If in Shinto women could be purifi ed and cleansed from their pollution, Buddhism saw women as unclean, deviant creatures with no access to salvation. As one can read in the documents of the Pali canon—a collection of sutras composed between the fourth and third centuries ce—early Buddhist portrayed Gautama Buddha himself as ambivalent toward women. On the one hand, he clearly says that women need to be saved and indeed can enter nirvana. On the other, he was of two minds about whether to accept them into his monastic communities. Th is ambiguity is further refl ected in the fact that while the monks’ discipline was regulated by 250 precepts, the nuns had 348 of them to follow. Th e problem of the pos- sibility of salvation of women soon became a central theme both within the Th eravāda (the oldest school originating from the ancient communities that chose an orthodox and literary approach to the teachings of the historical Buddha) and within the Mahāyāna tradition (the “great vehicle,” purporting a much more permissive and popular attitude with respect to those who aspired to Buddhahood, and considering an excessive indoc- trination as an impediment to the attainment of enlightenment). Despite these diff erences, initially both he Th eravāda and the Mahāyāna schools were in agreement that women could not directly attain enlightenment for two fundamental reasons. Th e fi rst concerned the “fi ve hindrances” to which women were subjected, lock- ing them off from the fi ve states of existence because they were women: the god Brahma (the highest god), Indra (the Buddhist protector god), Mara (the divinity of evil), the god governing the world, and the Buddha. A second reason, parallel to the well known Confucian practice, concerned the three submissions to which women were subjected (to father, husband, and elder son) which in the end prevented them from being independent and autonomous.3 Th ese prohibitions, which mirrored the rigid discrimination already present in Indian society, were tempered in the Mahāyāna school, whose doctrines spread to China, Korea, and Japan. Th ese doctrines put greater stress on the perfection of wis- dom and the importance of compassion (personifi ed in the fi gure of the goddess Kannon, who has been important in Japan), thus giving priority to self-sacrifi ce, generosity, and
3. Th e fi ve hindrances and the three obediences are known collectively as 五障三従 (goshō sanjū). 74 | Women in Context
benevolence over mystical asceticism and solitary discipline. Th e ideal of this Buddhist school now becomes the bodhisattva, or one who vows to seek spiritual salvation not only personally but for the benefi t of all sentient beings, one who is committed to undergo the cycle of deaths and rebirths until the whole of humanity has entered nirvana. From the time Buddhism was introduced in Japan, women were active in sponsoring and propagating it in the courts and promoting its teaching in the provinces. It is only at the end of the eighth century that the status of women began to decline, as nuns gradually disappeared from offi cial ceremonies and the nunneries came under the management of monks or were converted to monasteries. By the ninth century, the formal ordination of women appears to have been completely abandoned. Even without ordination, however, women began to enter the ascetic life aft er having raised their children, oft en on the death of their husbands. Depending on their social status and resources, some nuns established private retreats houses, became mendicants, or supported themselves by washing and mending the monks’ robes. Many, however, continued to live in the family household while devoting themselves to Buddhist practices. From a doctrinal viewpoint, new interpretations of the scriptures found a loophole for optimism concerning the salvation of women: a woman could now achieve the supreme condition of nirvana aft er being transformed into a male body. Despite their egalitarian and progressive views and their courageous opposition to view that women were inferior persons and sinners, the great founders of the new Buddhist schools of the Kamakura era (1185–1333)—Hōnen, Shinran, Dōgen, and Nichiren—ended up in the same ambivalence that had puzzled the Buddha. Hōnen (1133–1212), founder of the Pure Land School, considered women immoral and dissolute beings who could not be welcomed into any one of the Buddhist paradises. Shinran (1173–1262), founder of the True Pure Land School, was convinced that before the saving power of Amida Buddha “there is no discrimination between noble and humble or black-robed monk and white-clothed laity, no diff erentiation between man and woman, old and young.”4 And yet he himself—although he married, something inad- missible for a monk at that time—was never able to let go of the prejudice that women were irreparably marred by the fi ve hindrances. Shinran seems to have felt it necessary to defend that idea, using it, in fact, to emphasize the dire position of women and their particular need to be rescued by the merciful goodness of Amida Buddha. In his explana- tion of the thirty-fi ft h Vow, Shinran states that “so profound is Amida’s great compassion that, manifesting inconceivable Buddha-wisdom, the Buddha established the Vow of transformation into men, thereby vowing to enable women to attain Buddhahood.”5 And again: “If women did not entrust themselves to Amida’s Name and Vow, they would never become free of the fi ve obstructions, even though they passed through myriads of kalpas;
4. Collected Works of Shinran. Trans. by D. Hirota, H. Inagki, M. Tokunaga, and R. Uryuzu (Kyoto: Jōdō Shinshū Hongwanji-ha, 1997), vol. 1, 107. 5. Ibid., 341. women and religions: Japan | 75 how, then, would their existence as women be transformed?”6 To help women to bring about this metamorphosis, he composed a funeral hymn Changing into a Man (henjō nansi 変成男子), which was recited when the deceased was a woman. Nichiren (1222–1282), in contrast, affi rmed that devotion to and practice of the Lotus Sutra represented the only true Buddhism for his times. As for women, he vowed that he would save all women of Japan, declaring that his sincerity could not be doubted since what he said was in accordance with the Lotus Sutra. To be sure, the text does include a description of the daughter of king Sāgara reaching enlightenment, but it also mentions that the validity of such an endeavor was questioned by Śāriputra, who affi rmed that “the body of a woman is soiled and defi led, not a vessel for the law.” Dōgen (1200–1253), the founder of the Sōto Zen School, explicitly criticized the exclusion of women by ancient Buddhism (kyū bukkyō 旧仏教), claiming that it was an evil practice and had no grounding in actual religious practices. Later, in 1243 when he moved to the Eihei temple in Echizen, he began to assert that in order to achieve nirvana it was essential to abandon secular life and embrace monastic life and, at the same time, he became a mild supporter of the idea that women should be excluded from temples. In fact, it had become customary to forbid women to live in shrines, temples, sacred mountains, and ritual sites, to perform religious practice at them, or even to enter them, a phenomenon known as nyonin kinsei (女人禁制) or nyonin kekkai (女人結界).7 As Japan entered the modern era, and as the religious power of earlier centuries passed from Confucianism into those of Shinto, the situation of women in Buddhism changed little, even though today the prohibition against women entering temples and sacred mountains has been abolished (with rare exceptions, such as Ōmine in Nara). Recently, however, a new problem has come to the fore, rekindling the debate on the role and identity of women in Buddhism: mizuko kuyō (水子供養) or the memorial rituals for aborted fetuses and miscarried or stillborn babies. Mizuko kuyō has become an issue because of the discrimination it can harbor against women. In the case of an abortion, the women contend, the moral responsibility seem to be wholly theirs and men are exoner- ated from all implication in the violation of the fi rst and fundamental Buddhist precept, namely that of not taking the life of any sentient being.8 Also within the Confucian tradition, which views the cosmic order as the primary source of the harmony regulating all human and family relationships, women occupy one of the lowest and humblest positions. A man’s task is to follow the “way of the sages” (sheng-tao), while that of a woman is to pursue the “wifely way” (fu-tao), a way restricted to the context of the family and subjected to the three obediences (as a daughter, a woman is subject to her father, as a wife to her husband, and when older, to her own son). In fact,
6. Ibid., 377. 7. J. Stone, “Buddhism,” P. Swanson and C. Chilson, eds., Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), 38–64. 8. N. Kawahashi, “Gender Issues in Japanese Religions,” Swanson and Chilson, eds., op. cit., 323–35. 76 | Women in Context
Confucianism affi rmed that those who follow moral norms of behaviors immediately come to realize that the family and the state are based on hierarchic relations implying the recognition of authority and of specifi c reciprocal duties (the duties that tie ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brother, friend and friend). Human beings must practice rectitude, humanity, and fi lial piety toward others and carry out the rites that stress the immutable relations of human beings among themselves and with the heavens.9 Th ese virtues or duties soon became an integral part of Japanese soci- ety, the collagen that brought the diff erent social components into unity. Loyalty toward one’s group and harmony and respect in relationships to others certainly had a debilitat- ing eff ect on women’s desire to express their dreams and aspirations openly, to reverse all the celestial decrees that had stipulated for them a position of acceptance and renuncia- tion, endurance and sacrifi ce, patience and silence. It is in the so-called New Religions that women will come to rediscover and play an indispensable and crucial role in the religous sphere. Th e charismatic women who gave life to new spiritual movements are various and numerous, among them Nakayama Miki (1798–1882), founder of Tenrikyō; Deguchi Nao (1836–1918), who founded Ōmoto together with her son in law; Naganuma Myōkō (1899–1957), who founded Risshō Kōsei- kai together with Niwano Nikkyō; and Kitamura Sayo (1900–1967), who founded Tenshō kōtai jingū-kyō, popularly known as the “Dancing Religion” because of the characteristic trance-like dance (muga no mai 無我の舞, or “selfl ess dance”) of its members.10 Th ese and other new religions, responding to a felt need to fi nd a spiritual balance amidst the insecurity and imbalance brought about by the rapid transformation of tradi- tional values, are grounded in the messages and the directives of their founders who, not unlike their shamanic ancestors, are divinely invested with spiritual power. No doubt the popularity of these new religions is due to the charismatic energy emanating from the founders, but many scholars have noted out that the leadership and authority within such movements are still in the hands of men. As Carmen Blacker notes: Had not Nakayama Miki been joined by Izō Iburi, Deguchi by Nao Ueda Kisaburō, or Kitamura Sayo by Nakamura Kimitake, it is doubtful if their pow- ers would have reached beyond the narrow rural circles where they were fi rst manifested. It was the combination of the inspired woman with the dedicated but extremely practical man which ensured the success of the cult as a mission- ary enterprise.11 What is more, the combination of female charisma and male leadership in many cases was prone to tensions and open confl ict. It is also signifi cant to observe that in contrast to the extraordinary authority of some charismatic women, the rank and fi le members tend
9. T. Kellher, “Confucianism,” A. Sharma, ed., Women in World Religions (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), 135–59. 10. N. Th elle, “Women in Society and Religion,” Japanese Religions 12/4 (1983): 51–4. 11. C. Blacker, Th e Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan (London: Allen and Unwin, 1975), 138. women and religions: Japan | 77 to adhere to rather traditional attitudes. At the grass roots level they engage in a variety of activities, but their roles are generally limited to the traditional domains of women, such as the management of the family, the education of the children, and worship. Th e story of women in the major religious traditions of Japan confi rms that they were secondary and marginal fi gures, certainly necessary to increase the number of adherents in these traditions, but ultimately prevented from holding roles that would validate the uniqueness of their spiritual depth. Th e periods in which women were most active and closest to the divine were those of early Shamanism and in the birth of new religious movements. Other than this, women have been systematically absorbed into structures or organizations that con- stantly reminded them of their impure and sinful nature, to the point of asserting that women could never and truly be saved as women but had fi rst to be liberated from being a woman. It is hard to predict whether and to what extent women will occupy new spaces and play new roles within these religious systems. One thing, however, seems certain: whenever women were in charge of relationships with the gods and made themselves available to serve as intermediaries for the divine, men were fi lled with a uniform though unjustifi ed feeling—fear.
Bibliography
Blacker, Carmen 1975 Th e Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan. London: Allen and Unwin. Hori Ichirō 1975 “Shamanism in Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 2/4: 231–87. Kamata Hisako 1972 “Th e Role of the Priestess in Ryukyu Ritual Performance.” Japanese Religions 7/4: 11–7. Masatoshi Ueki 2001 Gender Equality in Buddhism. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc. Nakamura Kyoko, ed. 1983 “Women and Religion in Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 10/2–3. Kawahashi Noriko and Masako Kuroki, eds. 2003 “Feminism and Religion in Contemporary Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 30/3–4. Kawahashi Noriko 2006 “Gender Issues in Japanese Religions.” P. Swanson and C. Chilson, eds., Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 323–35. Junko Oguri and Nancy Andrew 1983 “Women in Japanese Religion.” Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha, vol. 8, 256–7. 78 | Women in Context
Okano Haruko 1995 “Women’s Image and Place in Japanese Buddhism.” K. Fujimura and A. Kameda, eds., Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future. New York: Th e Feminist Press, 15–28. Sharma, Arvind, ed. 1987 Women in World Religions. New York: State University of New York Press. Smyers, Karen 1983 “Women and Shinto: Th e Relation between Purity and Pollution.” Japanese Religions 12/4: 7–18. Yamashita Akiko 1990 “Tenrin-ō and Henjō-Nansi: Two Women-Founders of New Religions.” Japanese Religions 16/2: 1–23. Yusa Michiko 1994 “Women in Shinto: Images Remembered.” A. Sharma, ed., Religion and Women. Albany: Suny Press, 93–119. Philippines
Eugenio Pulcini
his paper will try to describe the role which Filipino women held in the Early Philippine TPeriod, up until the end of the Spanish colonial period. Th e analysis is focussed on the unique fi gure of the babaylans or catalonans, women who acted as ritual specialists in pre-Christian indigenous religious practices and who are considered to be one of the fundamental elements of ancient Philippine society. Documenting the position of these religious leader women within the diff erently constituted cultural soci- ety that existed at the beginning of the interface with Spanish colonialism, the paper will attempt to describe the confl ict that arose when Animism and Catholicism came into collision with the arrival of the Spanish in the Philippines, confl ict that led Catholicism—a male dominated religion—to undermine, debase and attempt to abolish the role and status of a feminised Animist Shaman tradition. 80 | Women in Context
How did this confl ict profoundly change the role of women not only in their religious Animist ritual aspect but also in their role within society? What happened in the process to the mental capacity and spiritual vigour of Filipino women, especially the potential babaylans? How and where did these women fi nd space, place and time to practice their indigenous religiosity within the new religious template imported by the Conquistadores? Th rough some revealing and sometimes disturbing recollections, there is an attempt to describe in the fi rst place the process of resistance of religious women and then the acceptance into the diffi cult transition into another kind of religious life from the Filipino pre-Christian to the Christian age.
In the Beginning Defi ning the word “religion” is always fraught with diffi culty. In fact, defi nitions of reli- gion are elusive tending to be either too narrow excluding many belief systems which most agree are religious, or too vague and ambiguous, suggesting that just about any and everything is a religion. In our research we choose to follow Ninian Smart’s defi ni- tion, which implies the role that religion—as a major feature in the landscape of human life—plays in binding communities to a particular worldview: A religion, or the religion of a group, is a set of… rituals identifi ed with a tra- dition and expressing and/or evoking sacral sentiments directed at a divine or trans-divine focus seen in the context of the human phenomenological environ- ment and at least partially described by myths or by myths and doctrines.1 When the Spaniards began the twin processes of colonization and Christianization of the Philippines in 1565 (in the form of Catholicism, the only Christian denomination at that time), they found that the vast majority of spiritual ministers in the Islands were priestesses. Th is was a religious genesis Filipinos shared in common with other Malay peoples. In fact, before the arrival of Catholicism, “a form of Shamanistic Animism was the spiritual substratum or bedrock upon which the communities relied… Indeed there are strong similarities between the many animist traditions of Southeast Asia—with Hinduism being the common link albeit with regional variations.”2 From the beginning of my readings concerning the situation of women in the Philippines, I immediately came across—not without some surprise—the importance of women religious leaders within the prevailing Shamanistic cults and traditions. Almost all pre-Hispanic and contemporary non-Christian Filipinos agree in their preference for women religious practitioners accepting that the role of women in religious rituals was invariably active, salient, highly regarded and unrestricted. Such was the predomi-
1. Quoted by C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), xvi. 2. Ibid., xvii. women and religions: philippines | 81 nance of women in this fi eld that when a man performed religious offi ces he dressed as a woman.3 Th e contrast—or “holy confrontation”—between the (whole encompassing) male dominance of Catholicism and the importance of women as ritual leaders in Filipino Animism brought in traumatic changes which dramatically aff ected the religious auton- omy and infl uence of the women, besides restructuring fundamentally the indigenous idea about gender, including the relationship of women and men. Women will be oft en marginalized and misrepresented, demonized or silenced and written out of history alto- gether by the accounts of European male chroniclers, mostly friars or priests. In passing, these are the only descriptions with which researchers have to deal nowadays, sources and material where women, more oft en than not, were inserted merely to provide evi- dence for the successes or failures of the colonization and evangelizing endeavour.
Some Basic Terminology: Shaman or Priestess? It is outside the scope of this study to enter into a scientifi c-detailed analysis of the termi- nology used to describe the functions of women in the spiritual realm of pre-Christian indigenous religious practices.4 Here I will only give a short description of some of the principal terms with which we need to be familiar because of their importance to the objective of the discussion in question. Th e Filipinos had developed their own terms for priestesses. Th e Tagalogs—one of the largest Filipino ethnic groups—called them katulungan (or catulunan) which the Spanish transcribed as catolonan and sometimes catalonan. Th e root of katulungan is tulong (help) and thus it signifi es “a group of persons who assist or help” referring to the assistance the priestess extended to the people in their spiritual and other needs. Th e Visayan—the largest ethnic group of the Philippines—term for priestess was babaylan, which obviously came from babae lang (women only). Th e Bicol term—one of the 16 regions of the Philippines occupying the Bicol Peninsula at the South-Eastern end of Luzon Island—in turn, shortened it to balyan. Scholars today are using either baylan, babaylan and/or the Tagalog catalonan. And, interesting enough, nowadays women are using the Visayan term babaylan in an appar- ent intent to keep the link between woman (babae) and the priestly function of the babaylan. In the early Philippines, men who aspired to be priests had to dress and act like
3. Cf. T.R. Infante, Th e Woman in Early Philippines and Among the Cultural Minorities (Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 1969), 160ff . 4. Th e authors’ mindset is decisive in defi ning the use of one or another terminology: from the more gen- eral term “religious practitioners,” to the more specifi c “shamans” or “priestesses.” Teresita Infante, for instance, theorizes from her traditionalist Catholic perspective, the diff erences between the priest and the shaman. Cf. T.R. Infante, Th e Woman in Early Philippines and Among the Cultural Minorities, op. cit., 194–95. Trying to simplify the descrip- tion from all the linguistic issues, rather than to attempt to repeat all the defi nitions, I choose to use in this paper either baylan/babaylan or catalonan to include all the signifi ers for the Animist shaman/priestess. 82 | Women in Context
their women counterparts. Hence they were called asog by the Visayan and bayog by the Tagalog and sometimes also by the Visayan, both words meaning “eff eminate,” or “wom- anish.” Because of his scarcity, the bayog, was much revered and sought aft er. Within the Animist rituals, a more general terminology that seems to be used throughout the Philippines is based on the signifi er for the spirit anito (meaning both the sacred object to which the oblations of the shaman are directed and the ceremony itself in which the anito is worshipped), including mag-anito (the action of calling upon one’s ancestor or ancestors) and anitero/a, (the Animist shaman, usually female). Most of these words relating to shamanistic practices are still current, although not used very much. Why were the religious ministers women rather than men? Some minority cultural communities such as the Mandaya,5 who still have priestesses serving them, off er a plau- sible explanation. Th ey assert that women are more appealing and persuasive towards the gods and evil spirits who are mostly male. Women also dance more gracefully in a religion where dancing is a vital form of worship. It should take an aff able woman, and not another man, to appease and persuade the gods to grant favours, or the bad spirit to leave a possessed person or refrain from performing their harmful acts. Dazzling dance coupled with courteous language could bring down the divine curses.6 Teresita Infante, in her extremely well documented book referring to the feminine presiders over Animist ceremonies states: Th e generality of the women claim the ability to establish contact with the supernatural powers by actual possession or when in a trance. And the realiza- tion of having such an ability comes to many of them in dreams, visions, or when in a state of physical or emotional instability. In other words, the claim of most of them to the offi ce is the “call” they have received in dreams, visions or moments of instability. Father Merino remarks that this is why in many ethnic groups, there are more women shamans than men; for women are more emo- tional than men and therefore are more prone to hear the “calls” and are more easily worked up into trances and fi ts of possession.7 Th e babaylan’s or catalonan’s calling (tawag) was usually announced by a mysterious illness such as a seizure from which she then fully recovered. Th e babaylan were oft en women of menopausal age (although married and with children): only the assistants were younger. Th is is because it took a long time before a babaylan or catalonan could learn all the reli-
5. Th e Mandayas are a group of non-Christian, non-Islamic tribes living in Eastern Mindanao, Philippines. Earlier accounts indicate that the Mandaya represented one of the most powerful tribes in these areas. Mandaya means “Inhabitants of the Uplands.” Culturally, the Mandayas have retained their basic social, religious, and politi- cal organizations along with their traditional material craft s. Th e Mandaya religious structure centres on an elabo- rated hierarchy of spirits (anito) and a group of female mediums (balyan) who generally function as the interpreter of the supernatural to the natural environment. 6. Cf. L. Santiago, To Love and to Suff er, Th e Development of the Religious Congregations for Women in the Spanish Philippines, 1565–1898 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2005), 5–17. 7. T.R. Infante, Th e Woman in Early Philippines and Among the Cultural Minorities, op. cit., 195. women and religions: philippines | 83 gious, cultural and medical knowledge of their respective ethno linguistic groups. Th e younger functionaries were trained through apprenticeship by a senior priestess who was usually a relative or friend whom they succeeded upon death. Th e babaylans were not identifi ed with an organized religious group. Rather they went on their own aft er a certain period of training or instruction under a well-known babaylan who was herself independent. Nevertheless, there was a loose organization of ministers headed by a high priestess, or sonat, who held infl uence over the whole barangay8 or allied domains. Th e sonat was the most experienced and eff ective healer in the locality and her rank was equivalent to that of a bishop.9
Describing the Babaylan Practices Th e pre-Hispanic indigenous religious ceremonies were intertwined with healing and communal well being. Th e babaylans performed a variety of functions for the community that included craft ing amulets and charms, rituals for the dead, setting out food for the spirits, the treatment of children’s illnesses, hysteria, or the insanity of women. Th rough songs and poetry, they would observe adoration and appeasement of the gods and special petitions and thanksgiving to the gods of the spirit world as represented by their anitos. No permanent temples were built by the ministers. Th eir ceremonies, known as pandot and mag-anito, were celebrated on an impressive rock, in the supplicant’s home, a cave, a river or, most especially, a grove where the balete, the tree of the gods of the Malays, lorded over. Zeus Salazar, describing exhaustively the status of babaylan–catalonan in each impor- tant stage of Filipino national past epochs, emphasizes how during ancient times, “the babaylan was part of a socioeconomic structure which revolved around three main per- sonalities—the datu, the panday and the babaylan or catalonan.” 10 While the datu or prin- cipalia11 was responsible for political government, for military duties and even the entire economy of the barangay (i.e. commerce and agriculture), the panday (blacksmith) was a specialist in welding iron, really skilled in making tools, utensils, military instruments or agricultural implements in the economy itself. Th e third specialist was the babaylan herself. Th e babaylan was interesting, because she was the central personality in ancient Philippine society in the fi elds
8. Th e barangay was the smallest, the basic political and economic unit among socio-political groups from the smallest town to the largest kingdom or sultanate. 9. L. Santiago, To Love and to Suff er, Th e Development of the Religious Congregations for Women in the Spanish Philippines, 1565–1898, op. cit., 7–8. Cf. also C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 89. 10. Z. Salazar, “Th e Babaylan in Philippine History,” P.D. Tapales, ed., Women’s Role in Philippine’s History: Selected Essays (Quezon City: University Centre for Women’s Studies, University of the Philippines, 1996), 211. On this matter cf. also C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 89–94. 11. Datu was the chieft ain. Principalia or principales refers to upper classes among the Filipinos, including the hereditary cabezas de barangay, the elected offi ce holders and people of means. 84 | Women in Context
of culture, religion and medicine and all kinds of theoretical knowledge about the phenomenon of nature. In other words the babaylan was a proto-scientist because of her specialization about man and God.12 Th e season for planting and harvesting started and ended with the leadership of the babaylan or catalonan, hand in hand with the datu. In pre-contact societies, the babaylans held equivalent status to warriors, suggesting that the warriors were the fi ghters in the corporal realm and the babaylans in the spiritual realm and that they complemented each other.13 Th e babaylan also took charge of the mythology and cultural heritage of the barangay itself. Th e oral recounting of the traditional stories of the ancestors—pejoratively labelled “lies and fables” by the Spanish chroniclers—was an important tool of cultural reinforce- ment in the lives of indigenous people across the archipelago. She did not just memorize a whole epic, the entire music and other stories and poems, she also developed them (including music), teaching them all to other babaylans coming aft er her, to the next gen- eration of her socio-cultural group. However, the babaylan was not only a literary fi gure; her wisdom connected her func- tion to an entire psychology, taking care of the entire medical knowledge of society from each barangay to even the whole town or the entire community. Certainly the unique fi gure of the babaylan–catalonan in pre-Christian Philippines, enjoyed prestigious status in society and could well be considered a community leader, somebody who provided stability to the community’s social welfare. She was the priestess who held the community united. She was the medic and consoler, somebody who served, gift ed in healing the spirit and the body.
The Babaylan During the Spanish Domination Spain brought Christianity and Western Civilization with its patriarchal society to the Philippines. Th e same misogynistic trend that was present in Catholicism was, of course, brought to the Philippines as we can read in this instruction to parish priests in the colony, quoted by Mananzan: Woman is the most monstrous animal in the whole of nature, bad tempered and worse spoken. To have this animal in the house is asking for trouble… Not only should the parish priest of Indians abstain from employing any woman in his house, but he should not allow them to enter it, even if they are only paying a call.14
12. Z. Salazar, “Th e Babaylan in Philippine History,” op. cit., 213. 13. Marion Pastor Roces quoted by C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 93. 14. Casimiro Diaz quoted in M.J. Mananzan, Woman and Religion (Manila: St. Scholastica’s College,1988), 8. women and religions: philippines | 85
Rather than enhance indigenous women’s already high status, Spanish colonization brought with it ideas, customs and beliefs that were going to greatly twist the Animist traditions and religious practices, together with the role of women in the native com- munities. From the beginning of the confrontation between Animism and Catholicism, a new worldview was introduced to the Filipino people—a worldview that in relation to sexual pleasure, women’s bodies and women’s position in society contrasted diametrically with the conceptual foundation of Animist Filipino Peoples.15 Th e negation of the powerful infl uence of the babaylans was one of the primary concerns of the Catholic missionaries who represented them as agents of evil. Carolyn Brewer speaks of a process of “linguistic annihilation of the priestess”16 carried out by the Spaniards to eliminate Animist religion and any resistance to the introduction of Catholicism. In the words of the European-recorded eyewitness accounts of the activities of the women shamans they were labelled as bruja (witch, sorceress, hag, whore), along with hechicera (sorceress, enchantress or witch doctor), moving through a series of renam- ing—from “priests” who “are as a general women” to “priestesses” who “invoke and call upon the Devil” and who “sacrifi ce usually a hog… in order that the Devil may come and talk with them.”17 Within the global context of the witchcraft phenomenon in Europe, the renaming the babaylans to the negative metaphors of “sorceress of the devil,” “infernal women,” and likewise, was a very easy way for the Spaniards to obscure, obliterate and misrepresent even further the role and importance of the babaylans, ridiculing, negating them authority and making them anonymous. Th e wrong and the subsequent damage that this renaming did to the women in question is inestimable… Th ese esteemed and valued women in indigenous society were renamed by either adding pejorative adjectives: mala mujer (evil woman); estas malas mujeres (these evil women); esta mala hembra tuvo tal habilidad de representar perfectamente el papel de Satanas (this evil female had such cunning as to represent perfectly the role of Satan); mujer infernal (infernal woman); mujer endiablada (devilish woman); las viejas mentirosas (the deceitful old women); aquellas medusas infernales (these infernal medusas); or their role was denigrated: unas verdaderas pitonisas del espiritu infernal (some veritable sorceresses of the infernal spirit).18
15. Ibid., 8. 16. C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 84. 17. Ibid., 84–7. 18. Ibid., 94. Running the risk of being accused of generalization, I think it could be said that most of the Spanish clerics, for all the good things they might have contributed to the formation of Philippine society, remain the culprit (the major suspects) for the sad state of aff airs of Filipino women over the last centuries, both in society and religion. Th ey drew heavily on negative representations of women from the biblical texts to undermine the strength, power and authority of women in general and shaman women in particular. 86 | Women in Context
Negating both the indigenous signifi er babaylan and the women to whom the signifi er referred entailed the negation of an entire cultural and religious realm. By insisting that all animist rituals were projected at the devil and entirely satanic in nature, the Spaniards eventually linked the religious practitioners, babaylan with demonology—thus eroding the vital and positive aspects of their work and knowledge in their communities. Not content with maligning the shamans in words, the missionaries were also most diligent in attempting to destroy and rid the archipelago of the anitos and the revered objects which the babaylans used during their rituals. To eliminate any opposition that directly or indirectly challenged Catholicism, the male Spanish priests attempted to replace indigenous myths and activities with sermons, biblical adaptations, catechism, songs and drama productions through which they were able to usurp babaylans’ power and authority and to reconstruct women’s place in society according to the patterns good-bad woman, body=evil while soul=good. Indeed, the Spanish Catholic clerics did not spare any eff ort to mould the Filipino women to the image and likeness of their Spanish women, and the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary was introduced to demolish the good reputation of the women babaylan in particular and to complete women’s domestication in general. To this end, confession, self-fl agellation and disciplina were some of the others tools introduced by the Spaniards to reconstruct a new vision about sexuality, fi delity and marriage.19 With the introduction of the Catholic worldview of that time, there was an undeniable diminution in the status of indigenous women and their self-perception was dramatically altered. Central to the contest between Animism and Catholicism was the introduction of the notion of “miracle” and “intercession of the saints”—both crucial in the takeover of rituals central to life, including fertility, birth, illness and death. And both the miracles and the images of the saints were further damaging to the authority of the babaylans. Any syncretism was considered heretical and actively discouraged by the missionaries. Th e appropriation of the traditional healing role of the babaylans by the missionaries, the opening of hospitals, along with the shift in spiritual allegiance of the people, had profound economic consequences for the shamans since “the gold and other valuables… formerly off ered to the gods through the catalones are now given to the church in gratitude to God for giving them the light of the faith.”20 To provide a new Christian role model for women called to spiritual or religious life one order of nuns was eventually set up in Manila. Animist women had instead to invent survival skills for themselves to enable them to cope with what it meant to be a “good” Christian woman. What is unquestionable is that the coming of the Spaniards served to disrupt the
19. Cf. M.R. Ferraris, From Beaterio to Congregation. A Brief History of the Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary (Manila, 1975), 10. 20. Repetti, quoted by C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 116. women and religions: philippines | 87
traditional balance of power and the corresponding gender relationships within the cultural and religious realm of pre-Spanish Filipino community. With the negation of the offi ce of baylan, the power she had accumulated would have been made available to both the headman/male convert and the male Spanish priest—thus compromising the infl uence of the babaylan with a corresponding elevation of the status of some indigenous men and Catholic male religious.21
Conflict and Resistance With Luciano Santiago we need to ask ourselves: What happened to the enormous and essentially irrepressible spiritual energy and creativity of Filipino priestesses aft er the conquest? Two lines of develop- ment can be made out in answering the crucial question. Th e fi rst was the covert continuation of their religious activities in both central and distant areas in the islands, which have in fact endured until to this day. Th e second was the apparent sublimation of their amazing vigour into the highest form of spiritual expression available to them in the new religion—that of a beata or nun.22 Since evangelizing was measured by the acceptance of baptism, in the early years of colo- nization, the clerics mistakenly assumed that once baptized the neophytes had turned their backs on their idolatrous practices. Nevertheless, although basically successful, the Spanish priests were unable to completely stamp out their cult. Th ey experienced resis- tance to their evangelization: not all indigenous individuals accepted baptism gladly, and the traditional technique of converting the headman, datu or principalia, and having the whole village follow was not always successful. Within colonial society, there were babaylans who could not accept the new world view, the new church, the new religion, the new ways. Many babaylans proved to be stub- born in this respect, not only refusing baptism for themselves, but counselling, against the wishes of the male leaders who had oft en been chosen arbitrarily by the Spaniards, or indigenous men happy to step into the roles that women’s reduced status left vacant. Th e colonizers, sometimes, severely underestimated the power and infl uence of the women shamans who worked in partnership with male warriors. Some of the babaylans became revolutionaries or established groups, which became messianic organizations as time went on. Most rebellions in Philippines’ history were started by a babaylan in cooperation with a datu, although many of these revolts failed.23 More than a century of unrelenting evangelization failed to eliminate Animist practice
21. C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 93. 22. L. Santiago, To Love and to Suff er, Th e Development of the Religious Congregations for Women in the Spanish Philippines, 1565–1898, op. cit., 17–8. 23. Ibid., 18. See also Z. Salazar, “Th e Babaylan in Philippine History,” op. cit., 217. 88 | Women in Context
and the religion of the ancestors, and reports of resistance to Catholicism were recounted. In fact, Animist rituals were being carried on, although secretly, under the very noses of the missionaries. A case in point—indeed a noteworthy example—is found in what Carolyn Brewer calls the Bolinao Manuscript, aft er the town of the same name in the province of Zambales, one of the earliest provinces created during the Spanish rule.24 An inquisition-like inquiry was made into the activities of a network of priestesses in Zambales, which were held up for reprobation by the archbishop of Manila, Felipe Pardo. Th e Bolinao Manuscript comprises a unique record of 236 Dominican interviews with suspected catalonans, most of whom were elderly women. Occurring between 1679 and 1684, the interrogations provide a rare insight into the way some female shamans create a space for themselves to preserve their traditional practices in the face of increasing oppo- sition from Catholicism. In addition, the records of the inquiry provide valuable details of the practices and paraphernalia associated with Animism, supplying clear evidence of the persistence of mag-anito ceremonies. More than a hundred years aft er the Spanish had established themselves in Manila, the Bolinao material shows the extent of anito involve- ment in all aspects of human activity, whether off ering a cure for aching knees or bringing on the rains without which crops would fail. Th e manuscript also reveals something of the interactions between individual cata- lonan and their group bonding as daughters, mothers and grandmothers. While pointing to the transmission of Animist secrets across generations, the material shows that the catalonans of Bolinao worked communally, exchanging ritual knowledge and borrowing instruments such as earthenware pots, fans and textiles from each other. Furthermore, describing how high class Zambales men and boys collaborated with the Spaniards to banish the shaman women and eradicate their infl uence, Carolyn Brewer reconstructs indigenous gender relationships, in the process of being fractured by inquisitorial processes. One can catch a glimpse of the rift s which must have developed within families and kinship groups as sons and husbands disclosed the activities of female catalonans, located sacred shrines and surrendered to the friars the ritual instruments of Animist worship. Another way to read this manuscript is as a holy confrontation—a story of abandonment and adherence: abandonment as some Zambales surrendered their belief in anito for the monotheistic God of all Creation, and adherence as other resisted the new belief system and clung tenaciously to Animist tradi- tion and culture… And in every instance, the particular conjunctions of forces resulted in existing gender relations being fractured and reconstructed to the point where asymmetrical gender relationships were constituted and intensi- fi ed resulting in the situation where women—catalonans, wives, grandmothers,
24. Th is matter is at length described in C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 143–87. women and religions: philippines | 89
mothers and daughters—were subjugated to men at every level, by Hispano- Catholic fathers (priests), principales, biological fathers, husbands, sons and grandsons.25
Conflict and Acceptance Th e second answer to Santiago’s above quoted question, on the other hand, leads us to observe how the babaylans or catalonans could penetrate the colonial world and become part of it. In time, religion gave Filipino women, who were becoming increasingly disre- garded in community life, the sense of belonging to a colonial community. From another perspective, religion—again—became essential to many women’s lives. Women fi gured prominently in the work and lives of the Spanish friars, too. Th ose babay- lans who became part of the colonial society, also became part of the church, religious women in charge of professions, women who marched at the head of processions, women taking care of fl ower off erings to the altar and sometimes women in charge of procuring maidens to serve as assistants of the priests in activities around the altar and, by chance, in other places. By the late sixteenth century, Order of Tertiaries26 or Confraternities that involved both women and men were common additions to an emergent Christian life- style in the archipelago. In spite of the extremely negative view of the colonizers concerning priestesses—their competitors in the religious fi eld—and notwithstanding their strong suspicion towards woman in general, the missionaries themselves were astonished27 at the emergence of, as well as the assistance accorded them by outstanding Filipino women and beatas.28 Th e end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the new one saw the rise of this type of religious person among women in the Philippines, becoming the seeds of future religious Congregations. Th ese women were given to prayer, the reading of spiritual books, fasting
25. Ibid., 183. 26. Th e Catholic Church had created a special place for women religious within a three-layered stratifi ed struc- ture of religious order. Th e First order, consisted of ordained priests and lay brothers (only men); the Second was reserved for contemplative nuns (only women) and the Th ird (which itself involves three more types of member- ship) or Tertiaries was for lay people (women and men) who lived in their own houses but participated to a certain extent in the obligations and spiritual benefi ts of the Order. 27. “Instead of singing the ancient and profane songs of their pagan cult, (the youth) sang sacred hymns render- ing into verse the Mysteries of the Faith… One day… the Jesuit minister went out to observe them more closely. He realized that the young woman who led the singing was putting in it all the materials of the sermon, which he had preached to them earlier in the day. Th e priest felt no slight admiration for the facility with which she had grasped and blended such loft y mysteries and concepts without omitting anything of importance, which he had thought would be diffi cult for her to do.” Colin, quoted by L. Santiago, To Love and to Suff er, Th e Development of the Religious Congregations for Women in the Spanish Philippines, 1565–1898, op. cit., 32–3. 28. Th e word beata, seems to have had a usage and connotation of its own in the Philippines. It is referred to a devout or pious woman, who lives according to the Th ird Rule of religious orders, either outside of a monastery or in her own house, professes and lives in seclusion, occupying herself with prayers and works of charity. Th e word will be used to designate the member of the beaterio, the house or communities of beatas. Cf. M.R. Ferraris, From Beaterio to Congregation. A Brief History of the Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary, op. cit., 11–5. 90 | Women in Context
and the use of instruments of penance. Th ey lived lives of outstanding piety confound- ing the claim that the natives were unfi t for religious life.29 Clearly, the native women’s spiritual role and energy, together with their religious aspirations, was being harnessed and redirected into the new model of religious life available to them in the new religion. Luciano Santiago expands on this affi rming that Th e “average” woman believer might have been contented at the most to serve the Church, individually or as part of a group, in various ways at the parish level. But those who would have been the priestesses in the old order would probably have found an appropriate channel for their quest for completion and integrity in the diff erent types and phases of the so-called Th ird Order to which they would have had a calling, or tawag. In other words the Filipino beata and nun during the Spanish period would have probably been the priestesses in ancient times had not the Spaniards evangelized the Philippines.30 In any case, a century aft er Magellan fi rst sighted Cebu, an order of nuns was eventually set up in Manila. “Let the gentiles understand that if they have women dedicated to their false gods, the Christians also have women dedicated to the true God.”31 And in 1621, Mother Jeronima de la Asunción, then aged 65 but still feisty, arrived in Manila, from her Poor Clare community in Toledo, Spain, opening the gates of religious life for women in the Philippines. We could see in her a sort of nemesis for the male religious authority of the colony and its attitude towards indigenous women and their involvement in religion. In fact, Jeronima demanded, against male Franciscan advice that her order of discalced nuns observe the privilegium paupertatis fi rst rule of poverty—to which her Spanish-based order was bound, living solely by alms and without domestic help. Further, she refused to accept the received wisdom that the natives were without the mental and spiritual capacity for religious life. In fact, the admission of native applicants to the monasteries would become a very sensitive issue for some time still to come. Instead Mother Jeronima argued that if God was calling a girl to religious life, she could not stop her because of colour, education, blood or nobility. Th e Provincial of the Franciscans in Manila—who considered her a disobedient and ambitious woman—read her challenges to his authority as insubordination, and Jeronima was removed from offi ce as abbess. Aft er appealing, her stand was eventually vindicated and Jeronima was reinstated as abbess of the community, a position she held until her death in 1630.32
29. C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 117. While the Church initially prohibited the full admission of indias into Filipino converts, notwithstanding the objection of many female congregations themselves, a 1697 royal order decreed native Filipinas of pure blood eligible for con- vents, thereby granting the possiblity of full Filipino sisterhood. 30. L. Santiago, To Love and to Suff er, Th e Development of the Religious Congregations for Women in the Spanish Philippines, 1565–1898, op. cit., 23. 31. Fr. Navas de Valle, in C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 119. 32. C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 117–19. women and religions: philippines | 91
Until the last decades of the nineteenth century, most of the monasteries still stood fi rm on the exclusion of Indias and Chinese mestizas as fully-fl edged members. It took all the courage and determination of the enormous and essentially irrepressible spiri- tual energy and creativity of Filipino women to discern the fi rst realizations of Filipino Women Congregations. Th ey can be seen as an actualization of the tawag (calling) of the Pilipino women to the spiritual realm and the concrete practices that the new religion introduced by the Spaniards, would ask them; an accomplishment achieved in a more and more androcentric world. For the sake of brevity I quote two exceptional examples which describe this phenomenon. a) It was well into the eighteenth century, that a Filipina, Ignacia del Espiritu Santo, was able to found an institution especially for indigenous women: the Beaterio de la Compañia de Jesus (1726). Under the spiritual direction of the Jesuits, it was the fi rst major religious house for Filipino women. Its constitution limited its membership to “indias, or mestizas and daughters of Chinese mestizas or sangley.”33 However, a Spanish applicant may also be admitted with a two-thirds majority vote of the professed sisters. It was the fi rst Filipino community to accomplish self-governance through elections by secret bal- lot. It is also the second oldest enduring religious community for native women in Asia. Moreover it is the only religious institute for women in any of the Spanish colonies, which originated independently from any of the great religious Orders. According to Santiago, “Mother Ignacia embodied the optimal blending of three magnanimous traditions in her background: the spiritual leadership of women in the Malay culture, the distinction of ‘virtuous and chaste women’ in Chinese annals since time immemorial, and the monas- tic tradition of Christian women.”34 Th e Beaterio de la Compañia de Jesus was also the only religious community that rendered services, through the Red Cross, to the Revolutionary Government and the First Philippine Republic (1898–1900). b) Th e unique foundation of the Beaterio de San Sebastian de Calumpang (1719), showed the probable evolution of the pre-Hispanic Filipino priestesses into beatas and then into a religious community. More than any other beaterio, it refl ected the fi rst three stages in the history of Congregations for women in the Philippine Islands: the transitional stage from priestesses to beatas, the eremitic stage, and the communal stage. It was founded by Malay Filipinas, the blood sisters Talangpaz y Pamintuan of Calumpit, Bulacan—a province situated in the country’s Central Luzon Region, north of Manila. Th e two sisters also belonged to the ancient Filipino nobility. Th e Talangpaz clan apparently counted catalonans in their maternal line. Th eir surname means “rock or boulder” and signifi es the house they built on rock. It is the oldest enduring beaterio, or non contemplative com- munity, for women, now called the Congregation of the Augustinian Recollect Sisters. It
33. M.R. Ferraris, From Beaterio to Congregation. A Brief History of the Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary, op. cit., 15. 34. L. Santiago, To Love and to Suff er, Th e Development of the Religious Congregations for Women in the Spanish Philippines, 1565–1898, op. cit., 207–12. 92 | Women in Context
is also the third continuing Congregation for native women in Asia aft er the Amantes de la Croix (Vietnam) and the Beaterio de la Compañia. All in all, seventeen religious communities for women were formed during the three centuries of Spanish rule in the Philippines. Eleven of them were local foundations and six were foreign or international Congregations.
Conclusion In contrast to most histories of evangelization in the Philippines (mostly written by males and/or clerics), Carolyn Brewer, one of the main sources for this essay, from her feminist perspective describes the history of the role of women in religion in the Philippines, through expressions such as “dangerous memories,” “holy confrontation,” “cultural geno- cide,” “linguistic annihilation process” and so on. Moreover reading this paper one could think that insuffi cient attention has been given to the positive aspects of the evangelizing process, as for example the opportunity off ered to women to gain some kind of educa- tion. Undeniably, from the beginning of the Spanish encounter with indigenous societies, “women shamans were faced with a triple negative. Th eir status as women was degraded, their role as religious practitioners was usurped—with a corresponding loss of status and income—and they were vilifi ed as evil seductresses of the devil.”35 It was much more an “imposition” process rather than a “localization” one; this occurred because of imported doctrines and beliefs in which most women’s lives were irrevocably changed—without anymore having to take into consideration the awkward status in religious leadership—to fi t the Hispanic-Catholic pattern of mother, wife and daughter. Th e blueprint for the marginalization of Animist religion and its spiritual leaders, together with the pronounced restructuring process of indigenous ideas concerning gender, including the relationships of women and men, was replicated and refi ned by successive generations of explorers, colonial administrators and missionaries. At present, in most of the many societies and ethnic groups in the Philippines, those we call “tribes” or “cultural communitiesthe babaylan’s role still remains, with one exception perhaps for those in areas like the Cordilleras who have had very close contact with Christianity. In fact, in the cults of Mt. Banahaw, not to mention the ma-aram tradition of Panay and native Bicolano, healing practices, ancient medical lore and religious knowledge are like- wise being safeguarded and continued in the activities of faith healers, where the majority are still women. It has been said that becoming and being babaylan is an inherent quality of the Filipino woman because this is a quality which liberates them, enhancing the effi cacy of their Filipino religious expertise dating back to a time when women were more equal to men. Likewise, the intellectual, cultural and religious heritage of the women babaylan, is nowadays conveyed in many others ways, through pro-women organizations, institu-
35. C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 191. women and religions: philippines | 93 tions, including (some of) those Catholic Consecrated religious women, ang mga madreng babaylan (the sisters babaylan…)—an expression that perhaps draws together two histori- cally distinct and oft en confl ictive religious traditions that should be integrated in a com- munity lifestyle that is truly Filipino, truly contextualized in history and truly Christian; i.e. accepted within and not against a woman’s cultural and religious heritage.
bibliography
Brewer, Carolyn 2004 Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685. Aldershot: Ashgate. Claussen, Heather 2001 Unconventional Sisterhood: Feminist Catholic Nuns in the Philippines. Ann Arbor: Th e University of Michigan Press. Eviota, Uy Elizabeth 1993 Th e Political Economy of Gender. Women and the Sexual Division of Labour in the Philippines. London and New Jersey: Zen Books. Ferraris, Maria Rita 1975 From Beaterio to Congregation. A Brief History of the Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary. Manila. Infante, Teresita 1969 Th e Woman in Early Philippines and Among the Cultural Minorities. Manila: University of Santo Tomas. Mananzan, Mary John, ed. 1988 Woman and Religion. Manila: St. Scholastica’s College. Salazar, Zeus 1996 “Th e Babaylan in Philippine History.” P.D. Tapales, ed., Women’s Role in Philippine’s History: Selected Essays. Quezon City: University Centre for Women’s Studies, University of the Philippines, 52–72 and 209–222. Santiago, Luciano 2005 To Love and to Suff er, Th e Development of the Religious Congregations for Women in the Spanish Philippines, 1565–1898. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Taiwan
Fabrizio Tosolini
efore describing the roles that women play in the major religious traditions of China,1 it is neces- Bsary to point out a basic perception that Chinese culture shares with many other cultures: women are ritually pol- luting and unclean. “In Chinese society women are regarded as both ritually unclean and dangerously powerful, and they are barred from certain activities because of the harm they threaten to infl ict
1. In Taiwan, registration statistics suggest that of the total population (about 23 million), approximately 5,486,000 (23.9) are Buddhist; 4,546,000 (19.8) are considered to be Daoist; 887,000 (3.9) follow Yi Guan Dao; 605,000 (2.6) are Protestant; 298,000 (1.3) are Roman Catholic; 260,000 (1.1) follow Tian Di Jiao (Heaven Emperor Religion); 200,000 (0.9) follow Tian De Jiao (Heaven Virtue Religion); 187,000 (0.8) follow Li-ism; 53,000 (0.2) are Sunni Muslim; 31,500 (0.1) follow Hai zi Dao (Innocent Child Religion); and 30,000 (0.1) follow Tian Li Jiao (Heaven Reason Religion). In addition approximately 16,000 persons are adher- ents of the Baha’i Faith; 12,500 follow Confucianism. Almost 14 of the population are believed to be atheist. In addition to practicing another religion, many persons also follow a collection of beliefs that are deeply ingrained in Chinese culture, and that can be referred to as “traditional Chinese folk religion.” Th ese beliefs include, but are not limited to, Shamanism, ancestor worship, magic, ghosts and other spirits, women and religions: Taiwan | 95 to others.”2 Th e reason for this is the bodily effl uvia associated exclusively with them: menstrual blood and post-partum discharge. Th ese are perceived as signs of disorder, as “matters out of place.” Th ings the Chinese consider unclean threaten the order of or are a result of disorder in the family or in the human body. Disorder here has two specifi c meanings: anything that pierces the boundaries of these two entities is unclean, whether it is something that enters or something that leaves; anything that tends to undermine the tenets of order, any external threat to orderly entities is unclean.3 Such a crossing of boundaries may take place at birth, when somebody dies, or when a woman marries and leaves her natal family to enter another one. It is embodied by the spirits of the deceased without descendants, who become wandering and hungry ghosts. Th ey are “the dirtiest of all spirits. Th ey come wandering around with missing heads or limbs, covered with fi lth and dressed in rags.”4 Th ese spirits personify social disorder: excluded from society, they destroy order wherever they can: in the body they cause illness, in the family quarrels. Gods, like men who always remain within family boundaries, are pure because of their association with social order, which they create and protect. “Th ey are the source of all the things a ghost lacks: descendants, wealth and peace.”5 Precautions must be taken with women6 because their association with the crossing of boundaries makes them unclean and potential/ powerful sources of uncleanness. What is surprising about such a perception is its absoluteness and ineluctability. It is primordial and immediate. Uncleanness is unavoidable, a necessary part of human and aspects of Animism. Observers have estimated that as much as 80 of the population believes in some form of traditional folk religion. While in Taiwan religious affi liation is free, for Mainland China is less easy to know about the real consistence of religious groups, especially folk religion, Daoism and Buddhism. Confucianism seems to be revived by the ruling Party as an apt way to ensure social stability and harmony. 2. E. Martin Ahern, “Th e Power and Pollution of Chinese Women,” M. Wolf and R. Witke, eds.,Women in Chinese Society (Taipei: Caves Books 1983), 169. 3. Ibid., 183. Cf. also G. Seaman, “Th e Sexual Politics of Karmic Retribution,” E. Martin Ahern and H. Gates, eds., Th e Anthropology of Taiwanese Society (Taipei: SMC Publishing, 1997), 382–4: “Th e basic political unit in Chinese society is traditionally depicted as a band of brothers… A group of determined men… can build an empire if they remain true to each other. Loyalty is the supreme political virtue… If women present a threat to the male sodalities that wield political and economic power, it is no surprise that the very presence of women in some ritual contexts is enough to shatter the positive power of divinity and change the god’s benevolence into vengeful despite.” Th e perception of women as potentially disruptive of order also shows why the yin-yang symbol is not an adequate representation of the male-female relationship: indeed, the change of form cannot be portrayed as the interaction of two forms, which are exactly the same, except for the color. Th e yin-yang symbol is only a male-styled representation of male-female relationship. 4. Quoted in E. Martin Ahern, “Th e Power and Pollution of Chinese Women,” op. cit., 184. 5. Ibid., 184. 6. During pregnancy there is a set of prohibitions concerning the behavior of the future mother; aft er birth, she is bound to spend about one month in a segregated place, under a particular diet, in order to be purifi ed of the birth uncleanness. Some Taiwan hospitals have special rooms for the purpose. 96 | Women in Context
(bodily and family) life, just like women are integral part of everyone’s life. However, although rites exist to protect or purify from pollution, the source of pollution itself, the infi nite yin-yielding feminine body seems to be prey forever to the most unlucky fate. Some villagers believe that “women who have borne children (or, some say, who die in childbirth) are punished in the underworld for having produced polluting substances.”7 Such women endure awful torments, to no end: Th e soul groans, yes, cries out in agony. As its eyes anxiously dart all around it sees only blood. It eats only blood clots; it drinks only blood fl uid. It is not the fresh blood of animals, but inevitably foul vaginal blood and fl uid. Th e soul can- not rest in the dreadful torment that it endures. Incessantly it groans and cries, but no friendly spirit approaches to help it. All good spirits shun the soul of a woman who has died in childbed.8 Is there any hope for them? Funeral rites in China are oft en highly dramatized, with professional actors per- forming as Buddhist saints and mourners incorporated in appropriated roles. In women’s funerals, the drama—cum—ritual called “Breaking of the Blood Bowl” can take place: it is an adaptation of the story of the descent of the god Mu-lian (目連) into hell to save his mother. A set is built representing the fortress of hell where his mother’s soul is imprisoned, and a bowl of wine, dyed red, is placed in the fortress to symbolize the pool of blood in which she is drowning. Aft er the actor who plays the part of Mu-lian vanquishes the jailers of hell (who would keep the woman’s soul imprisoned), the bowl of red wine is portioned out to the children of the dead woman. Each of them drinks, wipes the bowl clean, then presents it to Mu-lian for a fi nal purifi cation. Indeed, it is highly suggestive that in some Chinese dialects the word for “blood bowl” (hueq-phun 血盆) also means “placenta.”9
Folk Religion: A Hierarchy of Gods-Worshippers While it is not clear whether the above mentioned traditions are still at work in the liv- ing memory of common people, they help understand the status and roles assigned to women in traditional religion’s rituals.
7. Ibid., 190. 8. Ibid. 9. G. Seaman, “Th e Sexual Politics of Karmic Retribution,” op. cit., 388–89. Worth noticing is the reason off ered for such a rite: “What brings a man to swallow the symbolic remains of his birth? He may have feelings of pity for women along with feelings of gratitude to his own mother. But he also has a self-interested motive arising from the workings of karmic retribution (giap-po 業報): if he does not make amends for the pain he has caused to his mother at his birth, he will be forced to live with this wrong in his future lives. Th us, he drinks the blood of his birth to free himself (and his mother) from future karmic confl ict.” women and religions: Taiwan | 97
Since there is a hierarchy of gods connected with degrees of purity, and females stand at the lowest level in matters of ritual cleanness, women are not qualifi ed to participate in rites directed to the higher deities. “Women cannot achieve for themselves the benefi ts that a regular relationship with the gods can bring. As a result, they must depend on men to act as their representatives or intermediaries in most important religious mat- ters.”10 Th erefore, “when the higher gods are worshipped on special festival occasions, it is usually men who perform the act of worship.”11 Th is holds true even when the rites are directed to female goddesses,12 more closely related to women’s interests: males still take precedence in performing them. When it comes to lower-class gods,13 women are free to take the lead. Th e same exception is made when addressing the residents in the world of the dead: when communication with the nether world is sought, women can either be observers or act as mediums. Spirits of the dead and their world are unclean; hence women, also periodically unclean, may appropriately enter into contact with them. Indeed, in some parts of China practitioners who specialize in raising the souls of the dead are invari- ably women.14 Women also deal with the gui, the hungry souls, in the hope of averting the harm they can cause to the living. As a result, women may fi nd themselves in charge of the altar of family and clan ancestors, at times off ering libations to people with whom they have no kinship connections. Aside from these limitations, Chinese women move with a relative degree of freedom within the traditional religious system, given that Chinese folk religion is loosely structured and off ers space for individual creativity.
10. Ibid., 384. 11. E. Martin Ahern, “Th e Power and Pollution of Chinese Women,” op. cit., 181. 12. Perhaps the most famous goddess in Chinese folk religion is Ma Zu (馬祖). She has many names and titles, including: “Motherly Matriarch,” “Kuan Yin of the Southern Sea,” and “Empress of Heaven (Tian Hou).” Although some experts feel she may be a version of the older goddess Kuan Yin, Mazu is deeply rooted in the hearts of her people, especially coastal areas in the East, and is best known as the “Goddess of the Sea.” In folk tradition it is believed that, when somebody is facing great diffi culty, he can call her by the name “Mazu” and she will immediately come to his rescue. If, however, She is addressed as the “Empress of Heaven,” she will have to take time to put on her fi ne clothing and will be delayed in coming to the aid. Th e veneration for Mazu originated with the deifi cation of a young woman named Lin Mo Niang (born on a small island in the straits of Taiwan around 960 ad) who had performed numerous miracles during her short life. A kind-hearted girl with a vast knowledge of Chinese medicine, she was known as a healer, curing the sick while teaching people how to prevent illness and injury. Many of the miracles she performed involved quelling storms at sea, so that she is known as the protector of all seafaring people. Th e entourage surrounding her statue in the annual processionals that celebrate her birth traditionally includes guards costumed as ancient soldiers, and thirty-six martial artists carrying special weapons. Tens of thousands make the eight-day pilgrimage to the oldest temple of Mazu in Taiwan each year. Countless other treks and festivals are held on her birthday throughout the coastal regions where the goddess Mazu is still revered. 13. Ibid., 182: “‘Little low goddesses’ like the Bed Mother or Cu-si Niu-niu are oft en beseeched to bring sons or to cure a sickly child; their close association with childbirth makes them less clean than the other gods. Th ese god- desses are worshiped regularly by most women in their own homes or at special altars in the back corners of the temples, but there are no public festivals in their honor.” 14. Ibid. Besides these cases, however, the practices involved in seeking contact with gods are reserved to males. Cf. G. Seaman, “Th e Sexual Politics of Karmic Retribution,” op. cit., 384–85. 98 | Women in Context
Confucian Thought: Society, Family and Women Seclusion Th e above insights can help us better understand women’s place in other Chinese reli- gious traditions. Seen against this anthropological background, Confucian doctrines on women’s expected behavior and their long-lasting historical infl uence on Chinese culture, may be interpreted as attempts to rationalize, even harness, disruptive taboo-like feelings concerning women. Th e female potential for disrupting Confucian order becomes an ethical problem, thus leaving the shadowy realm of mythological thought and entering the fi eld of social roles and education. Known to all are the key moments in Chinese his- tory in which Confucian thought grew in infl uence, to the point of becoming the offi cial imperial ideology.15 During the Han dynasty Dong Zhongshu (195?–105? bc) persuaded the Han Emperor, Wu-di (140–87 bc), to switch allegiance and state support from Daoism to Confucianism. Confucian scriptures became the ideological basis for training government offi cials. And, to further develop and clarify the relevance of Confucian thought to government, Dong Zhongshu wrote his magnum opus, the Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn Annals, which incorporated in a systematic way, for the fi rst time, the theory of yin and yang into an emerging Confucian synthesis. Th e rigid application of the yin (female)-yang (male) rubric to each gender led to the repression of women in Confucian thought and practice. Given that Dong Zhongshu was prime minister and able to implement his ideas throughout the Chinese society of his time, the resulting politicization of his Confucian synthesis provided the conservative inertia which, over the centuries, would draw Confucianism consistently toward support- ing stability, hierarchical order, and the status quo. Yang takes the lead; yin acts in concert. Th e male acts; the female follows. Another important Han-dynasty text, the Lessons for Women (Nüjie), written by Ban Zhao (45–114 ce) ostensibly for her daughters, instructed how to live proper Confucian lives as wives and mothers. Ban Zhao almost entirely accepted the prevailing views con- cerning women’s proper roles; they should be silent, hard-working, and compliant. She stressed the complementarity and equal importance of the male and female roles accord- ing to yin-yang theory, but also accepted the dominance of the yang-male. Her only depar- ture from the standard male versions of this orthodoxy was insisting on the necessity to educate girls and women, thus enabling them to become a junzi or “noble person,” when the prevailing view was that a junzi was presumptively male. Th e infl uence of politicized Confucianism resumed again in the Song dynasty (960– 1279). Th e great systematizer of the time was Zhu Xi (1130–1200), whose thought heavily depended on his predecessor Cheng Yi (1033–1107). Both of these fi gures are frequently depicted as culpable for the suppression of Chinese women freedom over the last mil-
15. Th e following historical report is taken from: J.A. Adler, Daughter/Wife/Mother or Sage/Immortal/Bodhisattva? Women in the Teaching of Chinese Religions.
Buddhist Ambiguity Entering China from India by way of Afghanistan and the Silk Road at the beginning of the fi rst millennium ce, Buddhism at fi rst was solely the religion of foreign (male) monks. But it attracted a substantial number of women as it gradually spread among Chinese populations. Buddhist nunneries provided alternative vocations not only for the women who chose not to marry and widows, but also for the women who felt limited by Confucian social restrictions once their children had grown up. Buddhism off ered greater possibilities to women in China. One of the most important Buddhist deities, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokitesvara (Guan Yin in Chinese), essentially became female in China, refl ecting its enormous appeal among women.16 Women went on pilgrimages to Buddhist temples, retreated to nunneries, sometimes
16. Guan Yin (Guān Yīn 觀音) is the bodhisattva of compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists, usually as a female. She is also known as the Chinese Bodhisattva of Compassion. It is generally accepted that Guan Yin originated as the Sanskrit Avalokitesvara, which is her male form. Another version suggests she originated from the Taoist Immortal Ci Hang Zhen Ren (慈航真人). Commonly known in the West as the Goddess of Mercy, Guan Yin is also revered by Chinese Taoists as an Immortal. Th e name Guan Yin is short for Guānshì Yīn, 觀世音 which means “Observing the Sounds (or Cries) of the World.” Her representations of the bodhisattva in China prior to the Song Dynasty (960–1279) were masculine in appearance. Images which later displayed attributes of both genders are believed to be in accordance with the Lotus Sutra, where Avalokitesvara has the supernatural power of assuming any form required to relieve suff ering, and also has the power to grant children (possibly relating to the fact that in this Sutra—unlike in others—both men and women are believed to have ability to achieve enlightenment). Because this bodhisattva is considered the personifi cation of compassion and kindness, a mother-goddess and patron of mothers 100 | Women in Context
gave public lectures, and led temple groups. According to the Lives of the Nuns (Bi Qiu Nü Zhuan 比丘尼傳)17, women entered the monastic life anywhere from the very young age of fi ve or six to age seventy. Th ose who took up monastic life as children remained nov- ices until able to receive the full obligation, ordinarily at age 20. Any woman who entered monastic life had to have permission from the man who had authority over her, whether father, husband, or son. Th ere were probably as many reasons to become a nun as there were nuns, but general motives can be identifi ed. Ideally, one joined because of religious aspirations. One felt a desire to live in an environment within which to observe the precepts of Buddhism and to discipline oneself to the rigors of convent life, to choose the best place to cultivate medita- tion with the hope of enlightenment. Many nuns certainly followed such hopes into the convent. For women, however, the convent also provided a refuge from the vicissitudes of life, such as an unwelcome marriage, fl ight from war, homelessness, lack of protection, or frustrated intellectual ambitions. Fift y-three of the sixty-fi ve biographies documented in the Bi Qiu Nü Zhuan mention the woman’s ability to read and write. Traditional Chinese society did not encourage literacy among women, and education for girls was ordinarily restricted to the domestic arts. Th erefore, the very high rate of literacy among this select group of nuns is note- worthy. It suggests that some women may have gone into the monastic life to be able to follow scholarly pursuits, a vocation that might otherwise have been denied. It also sug- gests that many of them had upper-class backgrounds. Th eir high status is also indicated by the fact that frequently the woman’s family name and original place of residence, and at times even the offi cial positions of male ancestors, are known. Th e woman’s easy con- course with high government offi cials, nobility, and members of the royal family, includ- ing the emperors themselves, also suggests that they were moving among their own kind. Th rough teaching and preaching, nuns spread the word of the Buddha far and wide, their sincerity bringing forth a response from hundreds. Th e persecution of 845 signaled the end of the Golden Age of Chinese Buddhism and of the opportunities it had opened for women. From then on, Buddhism was to alternate times of renaissance with epochs of disfavor, depending on the ruling dynasties. Th e last two centuries comprised diffi cult periods, as Buddhism got caught up in the struggle
and seamen, the representation in China was further interpreted in an all-female form around the twelft h century. In the modern period, Guan Yin is most oft en represented as a beautiful, white-robed woman, a depiction which derives from the earlier Pandaravasini form. She is revered because of her unconditional love, compassion and mercy and is regarded by many as the protector of women and children. By this association she is also seen as a fertility goddess capable of granting children. She is also seen as the champion of the unfortunate, the sick, the disabled, the poor, and those in trouble. Some coastal and river areas of China regard her as the protector of fi shermen, sailors, and generally people who are out at sea. Due to her association with the legend of the Great Flood where she sent down a dog fi lled with rice grains in its tail aft er the fl ood, she is worshipped as a rice goddess. In some quarters, especially among business people and traders, she is looked upon as a Goddess of Luck and Fortune. In recent years there have been claims of her being the protector of air travelers. 17. Th e work was completed in 516 by the Buddhist monk Bao Chang (寶唱) and reports the lives of 65 Chinese nuns. women and religions: Taiwan | 101 between reformists—revolutionaries and tradition. During this time, however, some great fi gures sowed the seeds of a new development that has blossomed, following the Chinese occupation of Tibet, in Taiwan, under more favorable political conditions. Th e most remarkable thing about Taiwanese Buddhism is the entrepreneurial spirit that ani- mates monks, and most noticeably, nuns. Th is is true in many fi elds, including social relief: the main example of which is the CiJi (慈濟) Compassion Relief Association, founded by a Buddhist nun, Master Zheng Yan, and supported by a capillary network of volunteers, the majority of whom are women. Taiwanese Buddhism, although offi cially established only aft er 1949, has drawn the atten- tion of the Buddhist community worldwide, as the “heaven of Buddhist nuns.” Taiwan has become the heartland of the Mahayana monastic world, not only because of its open environment conducive to the development of Buddhist doctrine, practice, and autonomous monastic communities, but in particular, Taiwan has become a center for female Buddhist novitiates, Asian and non- Asian, from all Buddhist traditions (Th eravadin, Tibetan, Zen) to receive train- ing and full ordination which does not exist elsewhere, not even in India, due to male monastic opposition over the centuries.18 Th ere are many reasons why young women join the monasteries in Taiwan at present. Some are reminiscent of those reported in the Bi Qiu Nü Zhuan;19 others refl ect the infl u- ence Taiwanese nuns exert on their society, especially at the level of culture. Besides the more visible, socially engaged communities, there are numerous smaller monasteries, many in central and southern Taiwan, outside of major cities, that still attract some young women to join. Th ese mon- asteries, oft en with nuns over 50 years of age in central and southern Taiwan, stress the contemplative life; their nuns rarely venture out into society unless they are called to perform traditional Buddhist rituals such as for funerals and the mourning period.20 New religious movements, oft en with a Buddhist or a syncretistic background,21 which actively involve lay people, also attract women. Some of these movements have been
18. E.A. DeVido, Th e Infi nite Worlds of Taiwan’s Buddhist Nuns.
founded by women; in many of them women play important roles. Albeit favorable pres- ent conditions, the problems associated with traditional Buddhist thought concerning women’s life still surface in Taiwan.22 According to the Blood Bowl Sutra (慈悲血盆懺),23 a text the doctrines of which stand midway between traditional Buddhism and folk reli- gion, women can escape even less than men the mortal world because they face the Five Obstacles (the desire of the eyes, of the ears, of smelling, tasting, hate in the heart) and the fi lth and evil around them. In their joints there are fi ve hundred worms, responsible for their restlessness; in their sexual organs there are the eighty thousand yin worms, each with twelve heads and twelve mouths, feeding on raw blood, which they exude and vomit each month. At the end, since they have off ered polluted sacrifi ces to the gods (they cannot avoid doing this, given the omnipresence of women’s blood, washed away and dis- persed in fi elds, water and wells), the malevolent demons of hell will torture them to no end. Th e view of the Blood Bowl Sutra is buttressed by the Buddhist teaching: a woman can attain nirvana only aft er being reborn as a man. So, at the end, all the eff orts of women to self-cultivate and to open new paths in Buddhism still have to face the burdens of a doctrine that does not do them justice. According to a recent dissertation,24 in order to overcome the bad karma that hinders their ability to attain buddhahood, Buddhist nuns rely on resources of the Buddhist and Chinese tradition which make gender depend less on sex than on the roles undertaken during one’s lifetime. Taiwanese Buddhist nuns believe that by taking on the role of men, identifying themselves as men, and acting like men, they will physically become men. By means of their accomplishments they can show that, although they have women’s bodies, their fundamental nature is masculine. A male body is perceived as reward for spiritual advancement and good karma; these nuns expect that as they advance spiritually, their bodies will become like men’s bodies, an achievement that nevertheless confi rms the fun- damental ambiguity of Buddhist doctrine concerning gender diff erences.
Daoism and Women In 2,500 years of history, Daoism has related to women in a number of diff erent ways.25 It
22. Ibid.: “In Buddhist scripture and monastic practice, on the one hand, there are such beliefs as ‘all can reach enlightenment,’ ‘in Buddhahood, there is no gender’… Yet, besides negative descriptions of women’s bad karma and various weaknesses and inclinations to sin that bar them from reaching enlightenment, there are also strictures such as: Monks are required to abide by 250 precepts, while nuns must obey 348; male Masters can take both male and female disciples, but female masters only female.” 23. Apparently a purely Chinese rite (no Indian original is known), performed only at the funerals of women. G. Seaman, “Th e Sexual Politics of Karmic Retribution,” op. cit., 385–92. 24. H.K. Crane, Th e Masculinization of Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns Abstract at
26. Th e word means “the north part of the hill,” therefore: “shady,” “hidden, secret.” In Daoist philosophy it signifi es the negative or feminine principle, whereas yang (“south side of a hill,” “bright,” “sun”) signifi es the positive, solar, masculine principle. 27. Daoists called the act of sex “Th e battle of stealing and strengthening” (W. Douglas, Th e Art of the Bedchamber: Th e Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics including Women’s Solo Meditation Texts. Albany: State University of New York, 1992, 11), thus indicating that its purpose was that of strengthening male’s qi through “stealing” part of the yin essence from the woman. In the context of Daoist doctrines, sexual union was ritualized; nevertheless women were considered as objects (the intercourse with many diff erent women between the age of 15 and 19 was required, women who should not know the meaning of the practice), in function of attaining immortality. Cf. A. Di Nola, “Taoismo.” A. Di Nola, ed., Enciclopedia delle Religioni (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1973), vol. 5, cols. 1609–641, cols. 1633–634. 28. Qi, the Chinese word for life energy, is the force within bodies and within the universe that engenders life. Th e word itself has many translations, such as energy, air, breath, wind, or vital essence. Th ere are 49 cultures around the world that understand the concept of qi in one form or another, e.g.: Ki (Japanese), Prana (Sanskrit), Lung (Tibetan). 104 | Women in Context
part of the yin power, women’s sexual power can be exploited by men, but also used to control others and to create energetic cycles in accordance with the Dao. Since women represent half of the cosmic powers, they have the ability to run house- holds, manage aff airs, supervise palaces, and take on major responsibilities. Like men, women too can reach the highest levels of education and write loft y poems, they can be in charge of the sacred scriptures, teach sons and give advice to elders and rulers. Women can attain magical powers just as well as men, and in some cases even surpass them; they can reach immortality29 and serve as teachers and revealers of scriptures; they can undergo full ordination and occupy high priestly ranks and serve as abbots of com- munities. Th e women described in Daoist literature are competent and confi dent, strong characters that will do whatever is necessary to fulfi ll their destiny in the Dao and thereby enhance the harmony of the cosmos. In order to achieve these goals, however, it is necessary for women to disentangle themselves from family and society; in some cases this is a smooth process, even desired by their families, but most of the time it is a diffi cult path. In contrast to the common Chinese understanding of women as intrinsically con- nected to men and family values, Daoist women defi ne themselves through others only in a secondary way. Th eir primary identity comes from creating a relationship both nar- rower and wider than family and society: by concerning themselves with their own bod- ies and with the greater universe of the Dao. Th e two, of course, coincide in the Daoist vision, where the gods of the stars reside also in the body, and where the cultivation of bodily qi leads to complete control over self and nature. Daoist women are more inward- looking than their counterparts, either because they are inherently gift ed for the religious life or because they are so disillusioned and frustrated with mainstream life that they turn to the Dao. Th e turning to the Dao, then, is always primarily a turning away from the out- side world of relationships and towards the inner world of monthly cycles, energy fl ow, meditations, and ecstatic visions. Th rough this turning-away, moreover, Daoist women achieve a competence and independence far beyond their counterparts. Th ey engage in celestial visions and journey to the heavens above; they reach ordination ranks and gain magical and ritual powers.
29. Among the feminine deities in Taoist Pantheon there is the Queen Mother of the West (Xīwángmŭ 西王 母), who is the ruler of the western paradise and goddess of immortality. She is charged with overseeing the wall of heaven and leading women to unending life. Originally (Zhou Dynasty), she was a ferocious goddess with the teeth of a tiger, who sent plagues down upon the world. Aft er she was adopted into the Taoist pantheon, she was transformed into the goddess of life and immortality. Th e Queen Mother of the West lives with white cranes and red phoenixes in a golden palace by a lake, where she grows fragrant peaches among which there is one kind that can grant immortality. Among the Eight Immortals, one is a woman, He Xiangu (何仙姑), born in Guangdong. When she was about 14 or 15, a divine personage appeared to her in a dream and instructed her to eat powdered mica, in order that her body might become etherealized and immune from death. So she swallowed it, and also vowed to remain a virgin. She used to fl it just like a creature with wings. Every day at dawn she sallied forth, to return at dusk, bringing back mountain fruits she had gathered for her mother. Later on by slow degrees she gave up taking ordinary food. Th e Empress Wu dispatched a messenger to summon her to attend at the palace, but on the way there, she disappeared. women and religions: Taiwan | 105
For women in Daoism, the distinction between yin and yang, inner and outer, is not between male and female, society and family. It has shift ed to family and body, submis- sion to others and dominance over oneself, outer obedience and inner determination, ethical demands and religious urges. What was yin before, the inner circle of the fam- ily, is yang now—the family as the outer sphere in contrast to the cosmic body within. Obedience and submission, yin virtues and positive traits in mainstream culture, similarly have shift ed to being yang attitudes of betrayal to the true values of yin—dominance over the self and determination in the Dao. Th e Daoist path, therefore, moves the yin-yang, inner-outer dichotomy of Chinese mainstream society into a new set of yin-yang, inner- outer values, making women more yin, more inner, more focused on themselves. In this respect, then, women are the ideal practitioners of Daoism, realizing their cosmic nature of yin by moving closer towards the inner circle of the Dao. While in India and the West the body is seen as an obstacle to salvation and the purity of the soul, and sexuality is the most pronounced force and hardest to tame within the body, in Daoism the body is the basis for transformation, and sexual energy is highly val- ued as the one form of qi that can be actively aroused and consciously felt at the beginning of the path. Th us celibacy in Daoism was predicated on the retention, inner circulation, and refi nement of “essence” (jing 經) and the avoidance of sexual intercourse was not to subdue the body but, on the contrary, to enhance its inner strength and cosmic connec- tion. In Daoism women were admired for their inherent power of yin, a power that men wished to refi ne and cultivate, and for their natural ability of pregnancy, a state that men needed to attain in a spiritual way while pursuing immortality. Th e most polluting and most off ensive substances and states of a woman’s body in mainstream society and Buddhism—her menstrual blood and the birth of a child—in Daoism come to be key factors in the cultivation of immortality: blood as the female form of jing and thus the equivalent of semen; the birth of the embryo as the ultimate liberation of the spirit from the constraints of this world. Th e more positive vision of woman notwithstanding, the seclusion, even opposition of Daoism to social life, and the ambiguities present in the vision and experience of the place of women, especially in the sexual fi eld, are factors which in the past have led to the recurring accusations of quietism, anarchism and amoralism, and still leave room to questions about the perception of woman’s diff erence and relationship to man, ques- tions that invest the whole world of Chinese religions and their vision of the feminine. In Chinese culture, women’s diff erence is perceived with fear, and either cast in the realm of ritual uncleanness, from where it can never be really rescued, or harnessed in the frame of rules of social behavior, which envisage an ideal but unfulfi lled woman, closed in the space of family virtues. Th e price women have to pay in order to be allowed to express all the richness of their personalities is the disentanglement from the normal life of family and society and the entry in a diff erent world, be it that of Buddhist monasteries of that of inner alchemy in 106 | Women in Context
the pursuit of Daoist immortality. In both sets of situations, it is male pursuit of a satisfac- tory interpretation/settling of the diff erence that dictates the patterns into which women are to fi nd their (im)proper place.
bibliography
Adler, Joseph 2006 Daughter/Wife/Mother or Sage/Immortal/Bodhisattva? Women in the Teaching of Chinese Religions.
Sergio Targa
Th e main challenge facing the Catholic Church in Bangladesh is to put into practice daily the teachings of the Church, not only in spiritual life, but also in society, where there is injustice, oppression, especially of women, and inequality among the Catholics of diff erent origins.
Archbishop Michael Rozario1
he Catholic Church in Bangladesh dates its pres- ence from the sixteenth century. Its dimensions Tthough are quite contained. Out of a population of 140 million the Catholic Church gathers a fl ock of no more than 300,000 people. Yet the Church’s public face is dispropor- tionately highly visible in what many consider the best educa- tional and health care institutions of the country. Th is generally appreciated social presence does not however refl ect an equally important role or incidence of the Church in political decision-
1. Quoted in Indian Catholic Website, Asian Church News. Second Archbishop Passes Away,
making processes. Apparently the Catholic Church in Bangladesh suff ers from the com- plex of being a minority which basically confi nes it to a ghetto-like status and discourages any decisive public stance on matters of wider social or common good. Th e question of women may be one such matter. Despite its rich theological teach- ing and understanding the Church seems unable to make its voice heard in today’s Bangladeshi society. For that matter, even in the internal forum the Catholic Church appears too enmeshed in both its own patriarchal misconceptions and in those of the culture in which it has been implanted. Th e present paper attempts a phenomenological reading of women’s situation in the Catholic Church. Preference will, therefore, be given not to theological statements but to the actual experience of women within the Church. Before entering the subject though, I wish to openly acknowledge that this paper has had a diffi cult birth. In fact, there is very little written on the topic so that most of the information and thoughts gathered here come from personal conversations with women within the Catholic Church. Even here, however, I encountered several diffi culties. Most of the nuns I had contacted politely refused to talk on the subject. And even when the respondents did actually talk, they did not give me the freedom to report clearly names of people and cases they were involved in. Th is reluctance to talk and this self-imposed censorship are themselves the signs of a problem whose dimensions are diffi cult to grasp. I suspect that what I will be writing represents only the tip of an iceberg. Apparently the Catholic Church in Bangladesh does not even acknowledge the existence of a “women question” within its own boundaries. Denial is oft en its attitude. However, in the Catholic Church too women suff er. Perhaps they suff er even more than their sisters in other religious communities. Belonging to religious and oft en ethnic minorities, Catholic women suff er twice because of a superim- posed culture of silence, as the nuns I mentioned above sorrowfully remind us. Eventually we will conclude that to be a woman in Bangladesh is indeed a diffi cult endeavour no matter what her religious affi liation. If a patriarchal predisposition is part and parcel of Catholic teaching everywhere in the world, “in the case of Bangladesh, the position of Christian women due to paternalist bias has as much to do with antiquated legal provisions as with canonical attitudes.”2 In the system of personal law governing the private sphere of life of Christians in Bangladesh, women are discriminated against by legislation oft en more than a century old. Th e latter comprises, among others, Th e Divorce Act (1869), Th e Christian Marriage Act (1872), Th e Guardians and Wards Act (1872), Th e Married Women Property Act (1874) and Th e Succession Act (1925).3 Th ese laws apply to all Christians, Catholic and Protestant alike. On top of this the Catholic community is regulated internally by the Code of Canon Law. Sometimes there arise confl icts between Canon Law and the civil legislation mentioned
2. F. Pereira, Th e Fractured Scales: Th e Search for a Uniform Personal Code (Calcutta: Mandira Sen for stree 2002), 70. 3. See Ain O Salish Kendro, “Kristan Paribarik Ain,” Ainer Kotha (Dhaka: Dvitio Sonskoron, 2004), 2. women and christianity: bangladesh | 111 above. However, because of a clear demarcation between state and Church laws, individ- ual Catholics are left free to perform their duties and uphold their rights under state law. In these cases Canon Law eventually ends up being a matter of personal conscience. Divorce is one such instance. While for Catholics marriage, being a sacrament, can- not be undone, civil law instead recognises this possibility. Civil law, however, is highly discriminatory against women. While a man can apply for divorce in any court of law by claiming and proving his wife’s unfaithfulness, the same is not true for women. Women to apply for divorce need to prove together with their husbands’ adulterous behaviour other things as well, such as conversion to another religion, desertion for 4 years, violence and threat to life, marriage with another woman etc.4 As far as property legislation is concerned Christian women are better off than their Muslim or Hindu sisters. In cases of favourable divorce women are also entitled to an alimony established by the court which, however, cannot exceed one fi ft h of the former husband’s total property. Th is is their right unless and until they contract a second mar- riage. In terms of inheritance boys and girls maintain the same rights on their parents’ properties. And so do wives on the property of their deceased husbands. In case of divorce guardianship of minor children is generally given to the fathers. However, the good of the children plays an important role in these cases.5 While the constitution of the country guarantees and upholds the equality of all its citizens,6 women in Bangladesh fi nd themselves in a situation of “de jure equality, de facto discrimination.”7 Th e gender gap in divorce legislation is a case in point. Obviously, when one thinks that the piece of legislation we are referring to is 128 years old, one may just point to the need of bringing it up to date. Unfortunately, the smallness of the Christian community and the lack of political representation in the legislature, are perhaps two of the reasons behind the stagnation and staleness surrounding Christian personal law.8 Besides, the more than ambiguous role of the Catholic Church in the matter, greatly adds to the stagnation referred to. While offi cially the Church does not oppose any move to update the said legislation, in practice it does nothing. What is more, it continuously procrastinates on decisions creating at the same time obstacles on the paths of those who are trying to do something about the situation. Since it is the majority Christian commu- nity, the Catholic Church by just boycotting meetings organised by other organisations and Protestant churches holds the power of perpetuating the status quo. Th e Ain O Salish Kendro (ask), i.e. Law and Arbitration Centre, a leading human rights organisation in Bangladesh, is spearheading a movement calling for the reformation of personal law
4. See P. D’Costa, Dainondin Jibone Ain Sahaieka (Law Use in Daily Life). (Dhaka:Heaven and Holy Prokashon, 1998), 51–2. (In Bengali). 5. See Ain O Salish Kendro, “Kristan Paribarik Ain,” op. cit., 6–10. Th ese pages detail who gets what according to Christian personal law in Bangladesh. 6. See Th e Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, art. 28 (Dhaka, 2000), 8. 7. F. Pereira, Th e Fractured Scales: Th e Search for a Uniform Personal Code, op. cit., 69. 8. Ibid., 70. 112 | Women in Context
and for the adoption of a Uniform Personal Code. Only in 2001 did it manage to bring a bishop of the Catholic Church to a workshop on the subject.9 Despite that, the attempts of ask to table the question with and in the Catholic Church did not spare it from the unof- fi cial and misplaced label of Christan Bibaho Bhangar Agency (Agency for the Breaking of Christian Marriages) current in some Catholic circles of the capital. In other fi elds, however, the Catholic Church, although a very small minority in the social context of Bangladesh, has demonstrated its clout. Th is happened some years ago when it successfully opposed a government move to give the Catholic Church an ngo status. And this happens any time the interests of the Church as an institution are threatened.10 Unfortunately, this courage is not employed in more substantial questions. While on the one hand, the Church in its offi cial rhetoric does acknowledge a “women question,” as did the late Archbishop of Dhaka in the words reported in the opening of this paper, on the other hand, the Church does not seem to be ready to acknowledge the same question within its boundaries and do something about it. Th is ambiguity and perhaps schizophrenic attitude of the Church comes out clearly in the day-to-day life of Christians. Th is is the space in which the de facto discrimination mentioned above manifests itself fully. Women in Bangladesh may, indeed, maintain their right to equality, but the crude reality is that because of poverty, illiteracy and powerlessness in general, courts of law are simply beyond the reach of ordinary women. What these latter know is just the “constitution” of tradition and socially accepted customs and roles, and this is true of Catholic women as well. Even in cases in which Christian women could have recourse to a court, more oft en than not they would refuse the possibility. In fact such recourse may be fraught with negative consequences for the women themselves. Apart from the common threats to their life and security by disgruntled husbands and relatives, they are likely to face a kind of unoffi cial ostracism and boycott by the Christian community itself. Christian women obtaining divorce from any court of law must be prepared to go through a psychological ordeal which sometimes may assume the contours of straight- forward mental torture. Such a woman will fi rst of all be likened to a prostitute. In the common imagination, a woman who rejects her husband cannot but have at least some relationship with another man. No matter how good or worthy that woman is she will remain stigmatised for the rest of her days. In such a situation even the strongest among women cannot but bow down to the continuous and relentless pressure of her own community. In the Catholic Church this stigmatisation may also be reinforced by its theological stance on the indis- solubility of marriage. Th us, together with societal pressure a divorcee woman may have to deal with a sense of induced religious guilt. In this respect, the priests in charge of the Christian communities either positively exclude any possibility of pastoral care or sup-
9. Ibid., 71. 10. For instance, the Church appears to be quite vocal whenever its property rights on land are threatened. women and christianity: bangladesh | 113 port for such women or are too afraid to confront their community’s patriarchal frame- work and eventually choose to remain silent. To stand by a woman of this sort more oft en than not means in fact to have a share in her fate and in the amount of “niceties” said of her. Th at we are confronting a patriarchal bias here is proved by the fact that when it is a man who divorces his wife, nothing or very little of the above happens. In cases of conjugal disputes the normal strategy of Catholic priests caring for Christian communities is to counsel the couple and fi nd a compromise solution. Evidently, the ulti- mate aim here is to try and save the sacramental bond at all costs. Oft en this becomes possible by exerting undue religious pressure on women. Th e dispute is consequently oft en faced by priests from a paternalistic and pietistic perspective. Women should look to the good of the children, should forgive and should endure even the unendurable in the name of Christian love. If in so doing women consign themselves to an earthly hell is of secondary importance to pastors who seem only too happy to have saved the sacra- ment and, tacitly, the patriarchal power relations within their community. It is noticeable that the rhetoric employed by these priests is not that diff erent from the cultural ideal of the good, submissive and chaste wife of Bengali tradition. No surprise then that the suicide of married women, unfortunately, is not the exclusive prerogative of Hindu and Muslim communities! Indeed the Catholic traditional stress on moral values and family tradition does not help the Bangladeshi Church to fi nd a way forward either. Even with its more updated ecclesial perspective of acculturation and respect for local culture and customs, the Church risks identifying the family tradition and moral values of the culture it has been implanted in with the family tradition and moral values of Christian faith. Th is misplacement of cultural trust, I believe, nullifi es the newness of the Christian message. As a consequence, the Church which should be prophetic and thus dysfunctional to any constituted social order ends up by being completely functional to the status quo and to the discrimination against women embedded within it. Th e Church’s reluctance to take concrete steps to reform Christian personal law may be a result of that. Th e same may be said also of the Church’s unwillingness to apply its own already existing legislation to marital disputes. It is known that while the Church does not recognise the viability of divorce, it does establish a series of norms according to which a marriage may be declared null and void. Canon 1084, for instance, establishes that perpetual sexual impotence antecedent to marriage by one of the two spouses invalidates the marriage.11 Unfortunately this clearly defi ned norm seems not to apply to Bangladeshi Catholics. In 1994 while posted as assistant priest in Bhabarpara parish in Meherpur district, I had to deal with a case of this sort. Aft er an extensive enquiry and aft er fi lling up forms aft er forms in order to facilitate the case of a Catholic girl whose marriage was apparently vitiated by the sexual impotence of the husband, the Khulna Diocesan Tribunal whose activation requires the
11. Th e Code of Canon Law (Bangalore:Collins Publisher, 1983), 193. 114 | Women in Context
local bishop’s approval, refused even to take the matter into consideration. At that time I even involved the then Apostolic Nuncio to Bangladesh, Mgr. Bernardini, whose kind intervention actually forced the then local bishop of Khulna, Mgr. Michael D’Rozario, to contact me just to explain that the case was not substantiated enough to call for a judge- ment of the ecclesiastical tribunal. Th is happened in 1994, but unfortunately the attitude has not changed since. A few days ago I came to know of another Catholic couple in which a young woman asked for the annulment of her marriage aft er becoming aware of her husband’s sexual impotence. In this case, the husband himself had admitted to his problem. Nevertheless, what seemed to be a very straightforward case, to date has not found a solution.12 Th e authority of their local Church somehow denies the application of a canonically sanc- tioned right. I do not know the offi cial reasons behind this denial. What I know, however, is that in the case I had to deal with in 1994 the then bishop told me that “the Church could not aff ord to open a dangerous door.” I suspect that this might be the same reason behind this latter case as well. Perhaps at the basis of what I have called the schizophrenic attitude of the Church towards women there is the fear of losing its institutional consistency. However, values, be it the indissolubility of marriage or anything else, cannot be imposed by force. Th e Church may show their beauty and educate people to recognise them. It certainly can- not replace the conscience of Christians with its own. Th is would cause the Church to consider and treat its own Christians, women among them, as minor children in constant need of supervision. It seems that the Church, having lost the primacy it once had in public life because of intervening socio-economic changes in society at large and more particularly within its own membership,13 sees family and private life as the fi eld in which it may fi ght its last battle for supremacy. In this the Church is not much diff erent from the attitude of militant Islam and the same Bangladeshi state. All three play out their political struggle on women’s bodies by policing them.14 Th is is all the more sad when we think that most of the liturgical, pastoral, caring, educational etc. work of and in the Church is carried out by women themselves. An uncommonly outspoken sister, Sr. Asha, told me that whatever nuns do in the
12. Th e privacy of the couple involved and the ongoing proceedings of the case do not allow me to be more detailed and precise. 13. Nowadays, although the discourse cannot be generalised, a good number of Christians may actually claim to have reached a degree of economic, social and educational emancipation oft en far above that of the average Catholic priest. 14. It is interesting to notice that during the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (icpd) and the 1995 Women’s Conference in Beijing (cedaw) the Catholic Church allied itself with some Muslim delegations to foster its own conservative women agenda. Th is by itself would question the recent theory of ‘clash of civilisations’ which sees the Christian West opposed to the Muslim world by defi nition. See J.H. Bayes and N. Tohidi, eds., Globalization, Gender, and Religion: the Politics of Women’s Rights in Catholic and Muslim Contexts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). Th e book has been excellently reviewed by M. Mahmood in Middle East Policy,
Church does not receive the same recognition as that of priests. It is as if sisters’ work is always, by defi nition, second class.15 In 2004 the Bangladeshi Catholic Church could rely on the work and strength of 1,059 sisters and 257 priests nationwide.16 Unfortunately, this army of nuns is positively excluded from any decision making process. Th ey do not take decisions, can not take decisions. Th ey are the mere executors of others’ decisions. Sr. Asha explained that this is because of the Church’s hierarchical nature, which however, she was quick to add, was uncritically derived and absorbed from the local culture.17 Th e same idea was reiterated by another respondent: “Priests come fi rst; nuns are just second class citizens in the Church.”18 As such they are expected to dutifully perform; and among the duties of sisters many priests would certainly list cleaning, washing and cooking for them. Th ese, indeed, are the womanly jobs older sisters are more willing to perform, less so the younger ones. Contrary to my expectations I was informed by a reliable source that for many sisters the greatest diffi culty in their religious life is represented by the discourse on obedience, one of the three religious vows. Th is obviously links up well with what is said above about hierarchy in the Church. Without entering into the theological intricacies of the debate on the hierarchical nature of the Church, in this context I only wish to point out a number of phenom- enological considerations pertinent to the situation in Bangladesh. It is obvious that in a culture highly charged with hierarchical values like that of Bangladesh and of the Indian subcontinent in general, the patriarchal bias inscribed in an institution which is exclusively male-centred, cannot but manifest itself in its full nefarious consequences. In addition, the lack of socio-cultural analysis and critique cannot but blind the Church to its accepting not only as natural but also as somewhat divine the submission and passiv- ity of women to the order that be. Priests, then, in their formation years are brainwashed into believing that their priesthood sets them apart by constituting them as sacred objects well above ordinary people, members of a new and modern caste. On the other hand, sisters are brainwashed into accepting their subordinate status. In this case, obedience masks and perpetuates submission. Sisters generally speaking are not formed to freedom, and their education is more oft en than not centred on fear. What is more, the patriarchal attitude of both society and Church combine to neuter their femininity, somehow con- sidered a risk and a danger. Communities of nuns who should live freer than their married counterparts eventu- ally end up living a life of seclusion and sometime even reclusion similar to that of their purdah observing sisters in the secular world. One example among many. While research- ing this paper I contacted a sister in order to have her views. At fi rst she was afraid of what her nuns would say about my calling her over the telephone. Th en aft er calming her, she
15. Sr. Asha, personal communication, Dhaka 23–4–2007. 16. See statistics at
thought for a while and said that before talking to me she had fi rst to ask authorization from her superior. Aft er a couple of days she contacted me over the phone. She was in a hurry. In fact taking advantage of a momentary absence of her superior, she had run to the nearby shop to call me, without permission. I was lucky enough that her superior allowed her to talk on the subject I wanted! However, I wonder what happened to the outspoken, intelligent and self-assertive girl I once knew. I wonder what will happen to this woman once thrown into pastoral activity. Most of the time sisters have occasions to relate only to religious people and priests who consider them as sort of subordinate helpers and the recipients of their tottering aff ectivity. Th is becomes possible because sisters and priests have more opportunities to meet up and because of the basic trust and dependence, induced by culture and fos- tered by formation, which sisters feel towards the male priest. I leave to psychoanalysts to establish how much of the culturally determined relationship between husband and wife creeps in here. Sr. Asha herself referred with annoyance to the shameless attitude of some priests who directly proposition sisters. Th is behaviour, which would amount to a crime in society, is the result, according to her, of an excessive exaltation of priesthood which deludes priests to a sense of a sort of personal omnipotence. I would also add that propositioning a sister may be reinforced and encouraged by the cultural ideation of women as ordhanghini, “something” which fi nds completeness only within a relationship with men. In these cases, which I hope are limited, priests are perhaps convinced that they are satisfying the sisters’ intrinsic needs more than their own. On the other hand, the faulty formation provided in many sisters’ houses causes some sisters to convince themselves of their intrinsically negative feminine nature and so easily fall prey to aff ec- tion starved priests. Th e results of all this can be easily imagined. Some sisters come to embody patriarchy by castrating their womanhood and rendering themselves incapable of healthy human relationships. Some others confi ne themselves to a life of contradic- tions and subterfuges. Frequent transferrals become an easy way to control dissent and deviating behaviour. Th e attitude of Church authorities is also not always up to expected and necessary standards. Apparently, the attitude of people in authority in cases of “accidents” is to minimise and cover up as quickly as possible. And generally speaking, priests’ mischiefs are more readily forgivable than those of sisters’. I remember that a good number of years ago a case of this nature rocked the Church. A sister was impregnated by a priest. Th e fi rst reaction of authorities then was to tell the priest to remain as such and to send the sister and relative baby to India where they could have lived a life of their choosing.19 Fortunately, the two people involved were wise enough to reject the proposal and are now happily leading their conjugal life in Bangladesh. Once again the good of the institution came fi rst and before the good of individuals. And once again the indissolubility of a sacrament was deemed more important than the life of two creatures.
19. For respect of privacy, I am not at liberty to further detail the case. women and christianity: bangladesh | 117
Obviously, in a context in which priests and sisters rehearse and reproduce socially accepted and culturally established gender roles, there is little hope for changing women’s status in the Catholic Church. Nothing new can come out of it. A respondent assimilated the status of nuns in the Catholic Church to “a marching situation.” Like a well trained battalion sisters are paraded here and there. Th ey make a lot of sound, but they do not move an inch from the place on which they are standing. Th e image in fact is not that far from reality. In important liturgical celebrations, particularly where bishops are present, scores of sisters turn up. Th ey look beautiful in the multicoloured and immaculate dresses of their respective religious families. Unfortunately, in the actual life of the Church they oft en represent only this nice parading ornamentation. Th ere is certainly another consideration to be made here. Th e situation of passive sub- mission many sisters fi nd themselves in may also be determined by the socio-economic background these Christian women come from. Oft en originating from poor Christian families, sisters fi nd in the religious life a way to escape from a future life of economic constraints.20 In this respect, it is no guarded secret that poor parents are quite happy to have a daughter following a religious vocation. In such situations, in fact, parents would avoid marriage expenditures, including dowry, and may even hope that in the future the said daughter might be able fi nancially to help the family. Th is kind of entrapment imposed once again on women, results in the creation of sisters whose personal will and intelligence are annihilated and put at the service of silent submission, to the family fi rst to the congregation later. If we then consider that until only recently most sisters were scarcely educated, the overall picture becomes clearer. In a strongly patriarchal system uneducated sisters do not stand a chance to successfully deal with today’s world and confront male supremacy. Happily, the trend of recent years sees more and more sisters attending higher studies. Th is will certainly improve their standing within the Church. Th e road leading to women’s emancipation in both the Church and society is still without a clearly discernible destination. Th e obstacles on the way are enormous and seemingly unsurpassable. However, women, sisters among them, must fi nd the cour- age to assert themselves not only in their own interests but in the interests of the whole Catholic Church in Bangladesh. Women do suff er in the Catholic Church; but, though unaware, so do their male counterparts. Christian women cannot any longer sit idly wait- ing for an emancipation which does not come. Th ey must take their destiny in their own hands and strongly claim the respect and dignity they are entitled to as human beings. Nobody will do this in their stead. In so doing women will not only free themselves, but will also liberate males from the self-imposed shackles of patriarchy. Beyond patriarchy lies a realm of unexplored possibilities for both men and women. As Sr. Asha strongly asserts: bishops are not important here, women are. Th ey must thus
20. Th e reader must be aware that I am not judging here the authenticity of sisters’ religious vocation. 118 | Women in Context
be informed and knowledgeable about their issues and rights and be ready to fend for themselves. Th e only culture the Church should foster is “Christ-culture.” Unfortunately, right now many sisters and many Christian women appear to be more patriarchal than the patriarchs themselves. Sadly, much of the suff erings infl icted on “deviating” and cou- rageous women come from women themselves. For the Church as a whole the words of Archbishop Rozario quoted at the head of this paper remain as a challenge and as a path for the future if it wants to be true to itself and to its Master.
Bibliography
Ain O Salish, Kendro 2004 “Kristan Paribarik Ain.” Ainer Kotha, Dhaka: Dvitio Sonskoron, 1–11. (In Bengali). Bayes, Jane H. and Nayereh, Tohidi 2001 Globalization, Gender, and Religion: the Politics of Women’s Rights in Catholic and Muslim Contexts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. D’Costa, Paul 1998 Dainondin Jibone Ain Sahaieka (Law Use in Daily Life). Dhaka: Heaven and Holy Prokashon. (In Bengali). Demographic Statistics of the Catholic Church 2004
Tiziano Tosolini
he comments of Inoue Tetsujirō (1855–1944) may be read as part of the collective controversy Tover whether Christianity was compatible with Japanese culture and society that took place at the dawn of the Meiji era. Dean of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tokyo and a diligent critic of any political, social, or religious innovation that threatened to undermine and contaminate his fi rm faith in the Japanese spirit, Inoue considered Christianity, a transcendental religion that taught universal compassion, incom- patible with the “this-worldly” spirit of Japan based on uncondi- tioned loyalty to the Emperor. He contrasted Christianity with what he saw as superior teachings of Buddhism, a superiority confi rmed, among other things, by its profession of the inequality of men and women and by its affi nities to Shintō polytheism. As the historian of Buddhist ideas Tamura Yoshirō writes:
Inoue Tetsujirō claimed that although some transcen- dental tendencies could be observed in Buddhism, it 120 | Women in Context
also taught such doctrines as the Four Objects of Gratitude (shi on; there are various enumerations, but most include service to the parents, teachers, and the nation’s rulers) and thus was not un-Japanese in spirit. He also pointed out that Buddhism asserted the inferiority of women to men and that it recognized a plurality of deities, as did the ancient Japanese myths. Christianity, on the other hand, taught the equality of the sexes and was monotheistic, two principles that could fi nd no home in Japan.1 Th ese refl ections on Inoue’s ideas are curious for several reasons, not the least of which is the judgment that Christians are intrinsically disloyal and unreliable because of their apparent lack of high esteem for the Emperor. But the most striking part of all is the fact that the alleged superiority of Buddhism over Christianity, a superiority that made Buddhism extremely docile and suited to being absorbed inconspicuously into Japanese culture, could be seen in the acceptance of the disparity of roles and rights between men and women. Christianity, on the contrary, had a more benevolent and egalitarian attitude toward relationships between men and women; it took a less discriminatory and sectar- ian view. As a matter of fact, Inoue’s critical remarks can be and oft en have been used to point out how Christianity has been one of the few religious movements that aimed at spreading its message to all strata of the population. Since its arrival to Japan in the sixteenth century, Christianity found supporters and sympathizers in all social classes, fi nding a particularly favorable welcome among women. As proof of this fact, one thinks, for instance of Hosokawa Tama (1563–1600), the daughter of a feudal lord (daimyō). Hosokawa converted to Christianity in 1578 and took the name of Gracia. She was sub- sequently killed by her husband’s servant so that she would not fall into the hands of her husband’s political rivals. Or again, regarding the spread of Christianity among the peasants, one recalls the many women who participanted in the bloody rebellion that took place in Shimabara (1637–1638), in which more than 37,000 Christian were killed in what was to be the last great mobilization of the arm forces of the Tokugawa shugunate (1603–1867). Moreover, when Christianity was offi cially reintroduced to Japan in the 1870’s, women from many diff erent backgrounds benefi ted from the comparatively pro- gressive education they received in the mission schools. Some of these Christian women went on to become prominent educators themselves: Tsuda Umeko (1864–1929) founded the Joshi Eigaku Juku (Women’s English School, now Tsuda College) in 1900 to promote the study of the English language and a model of education respectful of individuality. Kawai Michi (1877–1953) who established the Christian Keisen Girl’s School in 1929 on the high idealism that war would disappear if only misunderstandings and prejudice could be removed by adherence to Christian faith and an appreciation of others. Hani Motoko (1873–1957), a journalist and Christian socialist, founded the school Jiyu Gakuen and
1. Y. Tamura, Japanese Buddhism: A Cultural History (Tokyo: Kosei Publishing Co., 2005), 164. women and christianity: Japan | 121 instituted the circle Tomo no kai (Group of Friends) and the monthly magazine Fujin no tomo (Women’s Friend), through which she spread her ideas about the education of children and the belief that women could earn a meaningful place in modern society by making individual contributions. Along these innovations in the fi eld of education we should also mention the various movements inspired by Christianity that struggled to improve the social condition of women and to free them from the diverse kinds of oppression in which the male-oriented ideology of the time had isolated and imprisoned them. We may recall in this regard Kishida Toshiko (1864–1901), who was baptized around 1884, the very year she published the tract I Tell You, My Fellow Sisters. In it she refuted the common argument that “men are strong and women are weak, and therefore they cannot be taken as equals,” by claim- ing that if the allusion was to diff erences in physical strength, it refl ects nothing but the tacit barbarism of the speakers. Th e only diff erence among individuals that mattered, Kishida held, was between the educated and the uneducated. Yajima Kajiko (1833–1925) was the fi rst president of the Tokyo Women’s Reform Society, founded in 1886, and of the Japan Christian Women’s Society, founded seven years later, both of which mark the start- ing point of the women’s movement for emancipation and recognition of rights as human beings in modern Japan.2 Th e positive infl uence of Christianity on the status of women and the numerous ideas of emancipation that found room to breathe and express themselves within that religious milieu should not lead us to suppose that these ideas resulted in a transformation of the basic social dynamics and rigid hierarchical structure of Japanese society. Th ere are two reasons for this. First, Christianity is no more than a small corner of Japan’s rich and varied religious scene. Second, the idea of the liberation of women, aside from being con- sidered a foreign import, is rarely present in the discourse and customs of the Christian community itself.3 In support of this fact, one need only skim through the results of a research on the status of women and changes in the Japanese Church conducted on a sample of 341 women (128 Japanese laywomen and 213 sisters of various religious commu- nities) sponsored by the Association of Major Superiors of Women in Japan.4 Th e answers this research provided in its attempt to monitor the actual situation of women within the Christian community and to indicate some of the priorities that women see for the
2. On these and many other relevant fi gures in Japan’s educational and social fi elds, see S. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: Th e Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983); C. Mulhern, Heroic With Grace: Legendary Women of Japan (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1991); M. Fujieda, “Japan’s First Phase of Feminism,” K. Fujimura and A. Kameda, eds., Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future (New York: Th e Feminist Press, 1995), 323–38. 3. Th elle seconds this critique: “Have the churches adapted themselves to the established social patterns rather than being instructed by their Christian faith? Perhaps they need to be liberated from the comfortable captivity in Japanese society.” See N. Th elle, “Women in Society and Religion,” Japanese Religions 12/4 (1983): 55. 4. Th e text we are referring to can be found in Committee of Sisters sponsored by Association of Major Superiors of Women in Japan, “Women and Changing Church Structures in Japan,” Japan Missionary Bulletin 40/1 (1986): 23–32. 122 | Women in Context
Japanese Church, shed some light on the disparity between the real, though at times hid- den, aspirations of women and the reality of the parishes in which they live their faith. Th e fi rst important fact emerging from the survey is that the participation and involvement of women, both lay and religious, in decision-making at the parish level is largely confi ned to church maintenance, bazaar found-raising, church cleaning, and fl ower arrangement. Only a small percentage of laywomen (13) and nuns (34) were actively involved in religious education. Once one moves outside the parish circle to consider women’s part in decision-making at the diocesan, national, and Asian level, the fi gures decrease dramatically. In fact fully 70 of the women interviewed did not even reply to these questions in the survey. As for the opinion and the involvement of women in specifi c ministries (Lectorate, Eucharistic ministry, liturgical director), 37 of the lay- women and 45 of the sisters said that they value these roles but that when it comes to the connection between women’s present status in the Church and the ministries of women related to the Word and liturgical celebration, the numbers decrease considerably. Finally, to the question of what eff ect the male dominance of theological refl ection and the hierarchy had on the daily life of women in the Church, 22 of the laywomen and 30 of the sisters thought it had a positive eff ect on women’s lives, while those seeing the eff ect as being negative were 20 for laywomen and 10 for sisters. Th ese fi gures do not mean that women consider their situation within the Church optimal and in no need of change. On the contrary, they clearly identify their position with the twofold evangelical role of Martha and Mary: gladly off ering to the Church the feminine gift s and charisms that they bring to engagement in social welfare (with special emphasis on work for justice in helping the handicapped, the poor, and the marginalized), in the work of education, in the promotion of human values, as well as in supporting the Church through the prayer and the contemplative life. What they fi nd problematic, however, is the prejudice that keeps women within the Church at the level of obedient servants to decisions taken without consulting them, as persons whose opinions and suggestions deserve little or no consideration. What they ask is that they be given space to experience themselves as creative and innovative, space where the ordinary male leadership cannot squelch their vision of a Christian community, space to exercise their feminine identity as a precious and indis- pensable gift . Among the various priorities they wish to see supported and promoted within the Church are the fostering of a Christian community in which they may be respected as people and treated in a non-discriminatory way; the chance to immerse themselves in the study of theology and Scripture in order to better understand how Jesus viewed womanhood and to share their faith to the full; the off er to participate more fully in the ministries accessible to them; the establishment of a greater collaboration among Christian laywomen and sisters in order to explore new ways of cooperation on a diocesan and national level; an active role in contributing to the solution of critical issues that call for coordinated action among women (for example, sexual tourism, the plight of Asian women imported to Japan for sex-related business and prostitution). women and christianity: Japan | 123
Th e priorities just enumerated cannot be considered, nowadays, as mere desires that are hardly ever fulfi lled, or odd fantasies that cannot be realized. Th ey are needs that Christian women have to actualize. Two reasons come to the fore here, only apparently at odds with one another: on the one hand, Christian communities, along with their priests, are ageing more rapidly than the population at large; on the other, there is a marked growth in the numbers of non-autochthonous Christians. According to a 2005 report of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, there were 1,667 priests in the country with an average age of 61. Of them, 611 (or 37) were over the age of 70. Only 435 were less than 50 years old. Th e number of baptisms of men and male children in the previous year was 3,127, while that of women and female children came to 4,101; the number of male catechu- mens was 1,467, and that of female catechumens was 3,844.5 Th ere were 3,633 Christian deceased, but this number is bound to increase dramatically with the passing of the many who were baptized at the end of World War II when becoming a Christian was almost fashionable or another sign of the superiority of the Western world. In short, these fi gures and statistics on the Japanese Christians show that most of the baptized who express an interest in the Christian communities are women. It seems inevitable that in the near future women will have to be relied on for the direction, organization, and propagation of the Church in Japan. But it is the second factor, the growth of non-autochthonous Christians, that repre- sents the greater and more immediate challenge for the Japanese Church. In the year 2006, for the fi rst time in history the number of Catholics in Japan passed the 1 million mark. Th e reason lies in the fact that 600,000 of these Christians are young immigrants coming from such Catholic countries as the Philippines, Brazil, and Peru. So far, the response of the Church in Japan has been fairly good. Many priests have learned to at least celebrate the Sacraments in Portuguese, Spanish, or English. Parishes have opened their facilities to the immigrants. Yet there is no escaping the fact that this massive infl ow of Christian believers will sooner or later modify the structure and identity of the Japanese Church. Th e lively and participatory style of their liturgies is very diff erent from the simpler and more reserved Japanese ones. Th e frank and open relationship that these people expect of their parish priests is very diff erent from that of the Japanese, whose primary concern seems to be one of not bothering him. Th e image of religion of these immigrants, as having to do with their daily lives, ill accords with the Japanese expectation that religion be kept to Sundays and special occasions. If the infl ux of immigrants holds steady at its present pace and the government does not take measures to stem it, there are two possible scenarios in store for the Church. On the one hand, as Japanese Christians come to feel more and more alienated from their home parishes and fi nd themselves immersed in a Christian community that they no longer recognize as their own, they may pressure for a parallel Church structure of their own, independent of the non-autochthonous one. On the other hand, the Japanese bishops, clergy, and laity may come to realize that the local
5. “Statistics of the Catholic Church in Japan, 2005,” Th e Japan Mission Journal 4 (2006): 284–87. 124 | Women in Context
Church has become multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, and that the time has come for the Japanese Church to rid itself of its image of an insular and secluded Church and assume a more open and missionary attitude. If they choose to do so, they will also realize that the survival of the Church in Japan can be sought not by treating the alterity of those who reach its shores as a problem to be solved but by embracing it as an occasion to rediscover its own universality and sense of brotherhood with all. It is here, in this second scenario, that Christian women will be able to make an essential contribution, since they have already known in their own lives and at the hands of their own people what these immigrants undergo daily in terms of discrimination, disparity, and injustice. Th ey are no strangers to the familiar raucous and commanding voices of a leadership who has no other arguments to off er than the appeal to tradition as they choose to remember it. Th ey know what it is to have their criticisms rebuked as if it were a sign of their inferiority rather than of the hidden feelings of inferiority of those who suppress disagreement. Will these Christian women be able to communicate and spread the message that it is not the fact of belonging to a certain culture that determines a faith and a reason, but that faith and reason have reasons that transcend their own cul- ture? Much of the future of Christianity in Japan will depend on the intensity and vivac- ity with which women will succeed in answering this question, on the resoluteness with which they will strive to silence those who, like Inoue Tetsujirō, are still victims of their own prejudices and slaves to the supposed immutability of their past.
Bibliography
Committee of Sisters sponsored by Women Major Superiors’ Association in Japan 1986 “Women and Changing Church Structures in Japan.” Japan Missionary Bulletin 40/1, 23–32. Editorial Staff 1975 “Women in Church and Society.” Japan Missionary Bulletin, 29/4. Furuya Yasuo 1997 A History of Japanese Th eology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Mase-Hasegawa Emi 2004 Spirit of Christ Inculturated. A Th eological Th eme Implicit in Shusaku Endo’s Literary Work. Lund: Lund University. Mulhern Chieko, Irie 1991 Heroic With Grace: Legendary Women of Japan. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Mullins, Mark 2006 “Japanese Christianity.” P. Swanson and C. Chilson, eds., Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 115–28. women and christianity: Japan | 125
Sievers, Sharon 1983 Flowers in Salt: Th e Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tamura Yoshiro 2005 Japanese Buddhism. A Cultural History. Tokyo: Kosei Publishing Co. Thelle, Notto 1983 “Women in Society and Religion.” Japanese Religions (12/4): 38–55. Watanabe Mine 1991 “Women’s Issues.” Y. Kumazawa and D. Swain, eds., Christianity in Japan, 1971–90: Successor to Th e Japan Christian Yearbook. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan (Th e Christian Literature Society of Japan), 30–42. Philippines
Eugenio Pulcini
he impression is inevitably confi rmed that the female presence in the Filipino Catholic Church Tby far surpasses the male presence, for example, taking part in the Sunday masses, in preparatory parish feast day meetings; in the Christian formation programmes of char- ismatic or familial movements; in the catechetical school of the Archdiocese of Manila; in the recitation of the rosary in some of the block-rosary groups, in youth group meetings, in more for- mal meetings like the Pastoral Parish Council: normally, all these movements, groups, associations are male-led, even if the female presence is mostly in the majority and of a very infl uential nature. On the other hand we need look no further than the offi cial general statistics of the Filipino Church: there are 7,500 priests (including religious) and more than 12,000 religious sisters. Th e only area where more male than female presence can be noted is on the diocesan level, during gatherings of priests (!) and on the parish level, during the Lay ministers of the Eucharist meetings, women and christianity: philippines | 127 the latter ministry barred to women through a circular letter of Card. Sin with the more or less manifest intention to prevent women from taking over completely the ministries in the local community, at the expense of men whose participation in church activities is rather poor. Indeed, Catholic practice in the modern-day Philippines is highly gendered based. Still, despite the greater power male presbyters have as priests and bishops within the church, it is notable the contrast between the dwindling male interest in this vocation and the stronger interest of women in taking up commitments in the Church and even in the vocation to religious life. Why such diff erences in the numbers game? In part, the answer lies in the fact that women in the Philippines are culturally confi gured as the “guardians of morality:” women who attend church are understood to be doing so not only for their personal salvation but also for that of their families. Besides, a brief overview reminding us of the history of women and religion in the Philippines—as reported in our second paper in this book—might help us to better understand the present situation. Most pre-Hispanic Philippine tribes granted spiritual authority to female priestesses or babaylanes, who mediated between humans and the Spirit world through anitos: “Perhaps partly due to such tradition of female religio-moral expertise and guardianship, many Filipinas of the time began to develop a strong interest in the new, Christian, forms of worship.”1 As we wrote, during the Spanish regime babaylan lost their high status in society as the women themselves lost theirs. Most of them were relegated to helping in the church, to taking care of children and their households, to minding small businesses, refl ecting the Spaniard’s view of the role of women. Be that as it may, women fi gured prominently in the work and lives of the Spanish friars and missionaries who targeted them, in par- ticular, in their evangelizing work. Friars concentrated their initial missionary eff orts on chiefs, women and children—partly for a practical reason: Filipino men were recruited for outside work and were oft en absent from the villages, which meant that the clergy did not have as sustained an infl uence on them as they did on the women. “In addition, given their own presuppositions concerning the role of mothers in socialization, the Spanish may well have focused their eff orts on women in hopes of expanding church infl uence over future generations.”2 In fact enduring Filipina concern with spirituality coincided with Spanish assumptions about women as ideally virginal and matronly and meekly obedient to the word of God, albeit the Church prohibited until the end of the seventeenth century the full admission of indias into Filipino convents on the grounds of impurity and incompetence. However, given the relatively small number of Spanish religious, the involvement of indigenous individuals, especially women, loyal to the evangelizing project was crucial to the success of the overall colonizing endeavour. While the works of the babaylans had
1. H.L. Claussen, Unconventional Sisterhood: Feminist Catholic Nuns in the Philippines (Ann Arbor: Th e University of Michigan Press, 2001), 17. 2. Ibid. 128 | Women in Context
been as channels to the spiritual realm, the Catholic Tertiaries worked under sacerdotal authority to catechize the indios. In this work the babaylans, aft er conversion to Christianity, rendered great assistance to the missionaries in the teaching of the Catholic doctrine and were given minor leadership roles. Women’s religious aspirations were accommodated rather belatedly by their acceptance into convents: thus, the babaylanes gave way to beatas and the cloistering of women came hand in hand with the Spanish notion of education for women; education fi lled with numerous limitations on, and prohibitions against what colonial and Filipino women might or might not do.
Marian Tradition in the Filipino Church I think it is important to take a brief look at this noted characteristic of the Filipino reli- giosity which can perhaps help us to understand the role of women today within the local Church. Th e history of the Church in the Philippines is permeated by the presence of Mary. It could be even argued that the exclusive model off ered to the indigenous women, was the Blessed Virgin Mary in the image of the handmaid of the Lord, and by analogy the approved behaviour of passivity, timidity, docility and compliance that typifi ed “the good woman.” Needless to say, the Virgin Mary continues to exert enormous infl uence in both the religiosity of Filipino peoples, the role of women in the Church and society, with the corresponding notions of “good” and “bad” woman that are associated with her veneration.3 Th e idea is oft en premised that for Filipinos, devotion to Mary is the most striking characteristic that can be observed of their Catholic piety. Deep in every Filipino heart and enshrined in every Filipino home is the image of Mary as the object of veneration. Th e countless shrines of Mary in the country and the throng of devotees who fl ock to them to pay homage and plead for favours testify to a nation’s singular aff ection to her. Th is devotion is one of the strongest factors that keeps alive the faith of the Filipino. Oft en, no-Catholic Christian disapproves of the exaggerated attention to the Mother of Christ. What the Reformers of the sixteenth century voiced in protest as abuse in Catholic Marian devotion and piety seems to be as much an issue today as it was then. Furthermore, if anything, the Philippine Protestant criticism of Marian devotions has increased Catholic enthusiasm for it multiplying the eff orts to preserve Mary’s exalted status. Who is Mary for the Filipino? What is the most favourite Filipino image of Mary? Th ere is no doubt that we are a matriarchal society. Our natural warmth, kind- ness and sweetness with our earthly mothers are easily transferred to our heav- enly mother: the Blessed Virgin Mary. We call her “Mama” Mary as an expres- sion of our child-mother relationship… She always had a role in our faith in her
3. C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 194. women and christianity: philippines | 129
Son… Th is honour is probably similar to the place given to Filipino mothers who always have a role in the life of their children.4 Mary is Ang Mahal na Birhen. She is the model of womanhood whose purity and chastity are worth of emulation. Being Ina ng Diyos (Mother of God) and Inang Maawain (Merciful Mother), Ina ng Laging Saklolo (Mother of Perpetual Help), she is projected as a mother who has a keen eye for the needs of a particular situation and shares in the search for its solution: a mother who is always there to aid. Th e Blessed Virgin Mary arrived in the Philippines in all her various images, derived as they were from an already rich tradition shaped by the imagination of many genera- tions of Christians, though her compassionate maternal authority was defi nitively the fi rst trait of the Blessed Virgin Mary the Spaniards proclaimed in their evangelization of the archipelago.5 Moreover the matriarchal characteristics of the Filipino culture help to welcome her and to make of her the Mahal na Ina who, up until the present time, is brought to the highest plateau of devotion by large crowds of Filipinos. Th e Holy Rosary with its guiding prayer “Ave Maria” (Hail Mary) and the Immaculate Conception could be considered two of the most compelling representations of the devo- tion to Mama Mary, used by the missionaries since their arrival in the Philippines. What is signifi cant about the Ave Maria is that it is Mary as woman and mother (both qualities with which indigenous women could identify) who is revered as having special qualities among women and the spiritual realm. In the Ave Maria, virginity is not mentioned as a quality central to Mary’s blessedness… Given that there was no positive concept for “virginity” in the pre-contact archipelago, it is my contention that it was both the “special” woman of the Rosary and the mythological importance of the family in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception that initially led to Mary becoming so important to indigenous Filipinos; a people for whom the female babaylan provided their spiritual needs and for whom the matrilineal line of descent was considered as important as that of the patriliney.6 Th e occasional imagen of a Mary as a coloured and/or Asian woman would also be more readily identifi able to the indigenous people rather than the traditional white, fi ne-fea- tured depictions that graced churches and grottoes throughout Europe.7 While there is strong evidence that Mary is still a religious symbol of enduring power
4. Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, Filipino Way to Holiness. Pastoral Letter on Filipino Spirituality (Makati: Word and Life Publications, 1999), 48–9. Cf. also 33–6. 5. Cf. M.A. Barcelona and C. Estepa, Ynang Maria. A Celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Philippines. (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc., 2004). Th is is a popular work, written by lay people, which describes all the principal images of the Philippine Madonna. It presents 36 images divided up into three sections: “Yna ng Aparisyon” (Mother of Apparitions), “Yna ng dambana” (Mother of the Altar/Shrine) and “Yna ng Panata” (Mother of Extreme Devotion). 6. C. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685, op. cit., 45–7. 7. S. Vengco, “Mary Among the Goddesses,” Landas. Journal of Loyola School of Th eology, Special Marian Issue 2005 (19/1): 119–40. 130 | Women in Context
in the Filipino Catholic tradition, she remains an ambiguous one, especially for women, for the passive docility has been projected on to her. Statues oft en present her as defer- ential and demure, submissive and timid, with eyes downcast and resigned expression; traditional theology has presented a sort of “dehydrated Mary.”8 She needs to be liberated from some of the images into which she has been formed. Refl ecting on worship within the Philippine Church to the Madonna, one important challenging question is: How can one distinguish the Mary of the Gospels from the Mary of some popular devotions? Th e simple Catholic woman, especially the poor and deprived, seek in Mary a mother who can solve all problems, a strength which enables them to interpret life, to experience the love of God in their lives, to feel accompanied and not abandoned, and to continue to hope, no matter how bad the circumstances and tragedies of their lives. At the level of popular devotion, the enormous veneration still pouring out toward Mary, expresses itself in the multiplication of prayers, relics, novenas, shrines, feasts and narrations of miraculous cures, promoting a magical idea of Mary who, despite herself, oft en outshines Jesus and—occasionally—even God the Father! Women and men alike express their devotion to the Blessed Virgin wearing medals (like that of Our lady of the Miraculous Medal), scapulars (like that of the Virgin of Mt. Carmel), or the cincture (like that of the Virgin of Consolation). In recent times, when much refl ection has been given to the question of the dignity of women’s rights in the diff erent areas of civil society and the Church, the women’s movement—and its religious corresponding feminist theology—have off ered the greatest critique of traditional Marian images and devotions, arguing that patriarchal Mariology idealizes one woman to the detriment of all others. “But alone of all her sex she pleased the Lord:”9 setting Mary apart from the rest of women suggests that she is acceptable because she did not share the corruption that was inevitably attached to the female condi- tion. Th at is, to perpetuate the grave ancient Gnostic mistake according to which woman, in order to save herself, must cease to be a woman and must become a man. However it cannot be denied that Marian Tradition has had positive eff ects on both men and women also in the Philippines. Along the history of the last centuries, it helped to keep somewhat the “feminizing” element in an otherwise wholly male-dominated religion. “She has kept the image of woman central to the process of salvation: devotion to the compassionate Mother of Mercy who embodied God’s love expressed a need for a religious experience of the feminine in the divine, an experience not available through the understanding of God at that time.”10 Moreover, Mary is being discovered as the Church’s model in re-embodying the love of God in various times and cultures and the Church
8. K. Coyle, “Mary, Embodiment of Love,” Landas. Journal of Loyola School of Th eology, Special Marian Issue 2005 (19/1): 37. 9. Caelius Sedulius’ verse, quoted by K. Coyle, “Mary, Embodiment of Love,” op. cit., 54. 10. Ibid., 47. women and christianity: philippines | 131 is constantly turning to her—the fi rst disciple of the Lord—to meet the ever-changing aspects of Christian discipleship.
Feminism in the Filipino Church Nowadays, what is the role of feminism in the Filipino Catholic Church? Is it still rel- evant? In truth, it doesn’t seem that the feminist movement has had a strong impact on the everyday life of the Church in the Philippines. Pro-male prejudice has been so deeply rooted in Filipino society and Church that women themselves have ended up succumbing to it. While feminism is in actuality an ambiguous, unstable, and variable tag, the term is loaded with negative connotations for many Filipinos, Catholic or not. In fact, men and women alike perceive the ideology of feminist orientation as too radical and incongruous with a Filipino tradition and threatening to family values.
Th e popular image of the feminist in the Philippines is that of an aggressive… sexually promiscuous, anti-man, lesbian, and, again, westernized woman har- bouring unreasonable hate for and resentment towards males. Although such representation is misrepresentative… such misconceptions continue to generate widespread social aversion to feminism.11 Accordingly, feminism is viewed with deep suspicion in the Philippines. Even some reli- gious sisters working toward women’s rights make it clear that they don’t really want to be called “feminist.” Indeed, in the Philippines, more oft en than not, being tagged feminist is apt to do more damage than good. Associating themselves with the term would, those sisters feel, impede their chances of getting people to attend to the sorts of change they are trying to advocate. Th e religious sisters themselves understand their own commitments to women’s rights issue as always fundamentally religious in character and derivation.12
Religious women Regarding religious women, the Filipino Catholic Church, by and large, still holds a rather conservative view of them. Filipina religious sisterhood has been largely ignored, perhaps partly due to the mistaken assumption that these women are both boring and culturally insignifi cant, and partly as well because women remain marginalized within the offi cial Church hierarchy. It must be said that, on the one hand, this is not the only responsibility of the priests as such. Apart from those women who have defi ed their “domestication” and in spite of the growth of the women’s movement even among church women, many religious sisters
11. H.L. Claussen, Unconventional Sisterhood: Feminist Catholic Nuns in the Philippines, op. cit., 182 and 223. 12. Ibid., 224–5. 132 | Women in Context
have internalized and conformed to the patriarchal and authoritarian patterns Church and society have assigned to them. Many Institutes mind more their own “business” or remain still too much cloistered, avoiding engaging themselves in fuller collaboration in the total work of the Church, as some local priests would put it. For instance, it is not common to see a religious sister attending a Pastoral Parish Council meeting, even if in that Parish there might be three or four communities present. Conversely, in spite of the lack of “legal” authority, religious women have a vital role in the Church and are considered as signifi cant social actors. In the Philippines, many of them enjoy credibility among the faithful which surpasses even that of the priests. Recently they have become more aware of themselves as women concerned with the “woman question,” becoming conscientized and active in groups and people’s organizations, in solidarity with the struggles of the poor and oppressed. Institutes like Religious of the Good Shepherd or the Missionaries Benedictines Sisters and many others are actively engaged in social work, women’s rights movement, with farmers in the provinces, with overseas contract workers, with Filipina prostitutes. Moreover, Manileño female religious Institutes maintain innumerable hospitals, dispen- saries, child welfare centres, homes for the aged, special centres for social education and parish-based social service centres. More than an outright discrimination against religious women, we notice a strong lack of sensitivity on the side of the hierarchy towards them, to call and involve them in the diff erent levels of multi-sectoral pastoral planning. In spite of the fact that religious and lay women are the most active in Church service, functions and activities, they are deprived of participation in the major decision-making processes. Th e ecclesial structures are still very much hierarchical and clerical, and women have no part in either. “Father, it’s all about power. Isn’t it?” one sister told me. On a personal note, beyond the maternal orientation of the Filipino culture and the internal doctrinal elements of the Church, I believe that this is the case today.
Conclusion History shows that major religions of the world have a dubious record with regard to women. Religion has been used to perpetuate the inferior position of women, and it is known that all major religions are still guilty of discriminating against women in varying degrees today. Sad to say, the Catholic religion is no exception. In the same line, we could state that whether oppressive or liberating, positive or negative, there is no doubt about the tremendous eff ect of religion on women. In the Philippines, where Catholics reach about the 80 of the whole population, much of women’s self and social image is derived from religious values. Th e “ecclesiasti- cal patriarchalization” of the evangelization process—an irreversible process?—led to the exclusion of women from church offi ces, even if for a long time they have been in so many ways the body and soul of the daily activity of the Church and her evangelization women and christianity: philippines | 133 apostolate (for instance in catechesis). Th e women are given minor roles in the liturgy13 but they shoulder the more burdensome preparations behind the scenes and the “creating order” out of the chaos aft er each celebration, notwithstanding that in terms of numbers they are always by far superior to men. In the words of the Filipino Bishops: “Filipina women have borne more than their share of the burden of the Church’s evangelizing and liberating mission… In Church activities, the concern is not the lack of participation of women but rather the relative inactivity of men.”14 As a matter of fact, the presence of women is so strong and evident “in Church surroundings” that some would worry at observing their considerable infl u- ence on liturgy and catechesis. De iure the power belongs to the parish priest—they say—, however, de facto, women have it. Th is power is infl uenced by the “the legion of women” surrounding him. It is becoming more and more evident that women are setting the tone, running the liturgy and the parish life. Some even dare to comment, troubled by the thought: “Is there an ongoing process of feminization of Christian life and celebration?” Will we eventually see a “feminization” of the Filipino Catholic Church? As we wrote in the fi rst article that “a growing awareness that there are no ‘women’s rights’ as such but that they are integral to the human rights of the whole of humanity is strongly materializing,” so the same is to be said for the Church: it is about the charac- teristics and responsibility of every baptized person in the community, woman or man alike. Specifi cally, we need to address the question of whether the increasing involvement of women is happening just out of necessity (i.e. there are no men around in the Church) or whether the eff orts of women to engage in Church activities are out of responsibility, that is out of the rights and duty of each Christian as a baptized member. Women empowerment in the still highly clerical Filipino Church should follow the logic of lay empowerment, rooted in the baptismal traits! Maybe, we are still in a very much patriarchal-male led Church which is moving too slowly on this aspect. To empower women is not to grant them a favour, conceding some responsibilities to them, but to underline clearly that they are eff ective members of the Christian community. Christian discipleship is not limited to men and the laity is never meant to have only a passive function. It is then not a question of whether women want to be equal with men. When people insist that men and women should play complementary roles or perform complemen- tary functions in the Church, we need fi rst to be sure that the equal dignity as persons is asserted. In truth, there is no fruitful complementarity without a respectful equality. When we speak of complementary roles, we have to make sure people do not mean
13. Recently, our parish priest was discussing about the Cubao Diocesan policy—one of the fi ve dioceses of Metro Manila— which has reminded all the parishes that only males should be altar servers preventing a few par- ish priests who were implementing the new policy of having girls and boys as altar servers during the celebration of the Eucharist. Th e reasons are basically the same to prevent women from receiving the Extraordinary Ministry of the Eucharist. 14. Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (Manila: Pauline Publishing House, 1992), 132, n. 386. 134 | Women in Context
that men take the leadership roles and functions, while women assume the subsidiary ones; that men make the decisions and women implement them. Th e complementarity that respects equality means both men and women should share in decision-making in matters that aff ect them both and the whole community. As long as men dominate the Church, Church women have the added responsibility to make people aware of this dis- crepancy between equality and complementarity. Complementarity is acceptable only if it respects equality. Indeed, at the present time the role of women in the Filipino Church is there, relevant from any point of view. “We wish, we hope for an even greater involvement of women in the Church, under the light of Marian discipleship, being grateful and receptive to the changes that are happening, avoiding all mechanisms of power, retaliation or competi- tion, mistrust and defensive opposition, within a relational approach,” was the comment of a Filipino priest with whom I was sharing these insights. “In a spirit of fi delity, the Church must let go of cultural attitudes that prevent the liberating action of Jesus for women… (and) promote their participation in her internal structures, convinced that the God-created potentials of women will positively contribute to the life of the Church.”15 All this concretely means that women should be present not only in the world of work or in the organization of society; but also in Church’s life having access to positions of responsibility which allow them to inspire and to promote the Christian life of the community, with their charism and capabilities. Female religious, in particular, are in a prime position to infl uence gender norms also in the Filipino Catholic Church, precisely because, to many Filipinos, religious sisterhood still represents traditional feminine vir- tue. Th ey can show how femininity is more than simply an attribute of the female sex, but designates indeed the fundamental human capacity to live for the other and because of the other, without prejudice to the advancement of women’s rights in society and in the church, correcting also the side which views men as enemies to be overcome. From that point of view, it can be said that feminism (in the Church) is something necessitated by modern times and conditions in the Philippines, rather than as an eternal principle. Th e Philippines considers itself “the land of Mary.” One of the ways Catholicism has contributed to the subordination of women, especially in the Church, is by its portrayal of Mary through the ages (see above). Th rough the long history of the Christian tradition, no one single image of Mary emerged, but rather every age has unconsciously formed its image of her according to its own ideal of holiness and discipleship.16 It is in folk piety rather than in scholarly refl ection that the multiplication of Mary’s faces and the diver- sifi cation of images of Mary has taken place, developing a far richer tapestry of devotion
15. Ibid., 168, n. 490. 16. “At each new historical moment for Christians, the mystery of Mary unveils a diff erent facet, one that can deeply touch the needs of the poor and believing people… and places women in active participation on an equal basis with men… Th is perspective is not yet something achieved in our era, but it is being announced strongly and vigorously, and it brings life for the future.” In I. Gebara and M.C. Bingermer quoted by K. Coyle, “Mary, Embodiment of Love,” op. cit., 53. women and christianity: philippines | 135 compared to what the theology of the Word or a catechetical course has ever been able to do. Marian devotion among Filipinos bears the character of a culture that is strongly maternal in orientation. Th us, Mary is known here as ina—the vernacular for “Mother”… Th e people gravitate toward her as any child in a Filipino household would toward its Ina, who is the ilaw ng tahanan (light of the home, or she who brings radiance to the home), for the slightest need or complaint. Th e quality of this love and devotion to Mary as Surrogate Mother has a strength with few parallels.17 Taking into account the profound shift in the consciousness of women, many questions could be raised here: How does the fi gure of Mary serve as the reference point in the light of the evangelical task of Filipino people? Does the devotion to Mama Mary give meaning and off er inspiration in the work for conscientization and social justice today? Can we sit- uate the Christian Filipino’s images of Mary in the urgent task of liberating women from male domination as well as being in solidarity with the Filipino people’s struggle? Shall She have to remain the Inang maaawin people have put on the altar of glories to whom we go as the source of perpetual succour? Isn’t women’s responsibility to foster a re-portrayal of Mary that is closer to the Gospel, as women Scripture scholars are uncovering through a more inclusive interpretation of the Scriptures? For too long, Mary has been depicted principally as “virgin” and “mother”—rarely as “disciple.” Likewise there has been little stress on Mary as “woman” until very recently. For Jesus himself, physical motherhood, important as it is, is not the basis of his own mother’s greatness (cf. Mt 12:49–50). Mary then remains a model for all Christians, not so much of motherhood, but of faith and discipleship. And since discipleship is not limited to women, these refl ections are actually applicable to both men and women in the Church. We wish to see a progressive shift in intensity from the stereo-typed images of Mary drawn from popular Marian piety to the Mary of the Scriptures. She must be envisioned then as an autonomous person, responsive and receptive, courageous and creative, intelligent and apostolic. She cannot be separated from those women and men who placed their hope in Jesus who, transcending the established norms of his own cul- ture, treated women with openness, acceptance and great-heartedness, and made them disciples and apostolae apostolorum of his resurrection! People who seek deep commitment in service to the Kingdom can draw much inspi- ration from the Mary of the Scriptures, so to state that Mary is not an impossible model in the Philippine context of injustice today. Women, overcoming what alienates people one from another, could persuade the Filipino Church to continue to set up pastoral and social programs to meet the needs of thousands of women subjected to every kind of
17. Cf. M.A. Barcelona and C. Estepa, Ynang Maria. A Celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Philippines, op. cit., xi. 136 | Women in Context
abuse. In this painful struggle for full humanity, new ministries have to be explored; min- istries with and on behalf of women who need support and defence, presence, solidarity and friendship. Moreover the needs in the Philippines are countless. Finally, and in the same line, I would like to mention a group of women—actually millions—who are spending their life outside of the Philippines, most of them working as domestic helpers. Th e emotional costs of this situation for them and their families are heavy: anxiety, helplessness, guilt and loneliness for mothers and sadness and loss of emotional bonds for their children. Th ese women are not simply victims of globalization, but actors in their own destinies; women empowered enough to leave their country and families behind in a search for better lives. In their hardship, wherever they go, many of them carry the strength of their faith, their devotions and their fondness to Mama Mary, to whom they are most aff ectionate. Filipino women working abroad, have come to realize that they are not only out there to work but that they bring something else with them: not only their professional skills, but also their care for life; not only their deep sensitivity but also their faith. It is certainly a traditional faith, perhaps even more devotional than doctrinal, but emotionally rooted and solid, which has turned them into a new kind of missionary in the on-going global- ization process. I have listened many times, directly and from the tales of others, to the witness of how countless of these women have become instruments of evangelization, real and true missionaries who have brought the families they have served or the children cared for back to God. In fact, in their job abroad, they spend more time with the children of the household where they work than the parents of the childrend do; and many times they are loved more by the children than the parents themselves. Th eir attachment to and faith witness have allowed them to become the path which has opened the lives of many families once again to God’s presence. Many of these women, with their relatives and countrymen, are the main animators of local Christian communities and celebrations, at least in those countries where they are allowed to live out their Christian faith. Without soft ening the harshness of their oft en overwhelming and sometimes violent daily life, and avoiding using faith language as a coping mechanism for dreadful realities, it is confi rmed—through them—that it is women, in the end, who possess a singular capacity to persevere in adversity, to keep life going even in extreme situations, to hold tenaciously to the future, as attested by history past and present. Th is distinctive feature has been benefi cial and can be felt as a force which has shaped the lives of many genera- tions, right up to our own. To this great, immense feminine “tradition” all over the world, the Church owes a debt which can never be repaid. Filipino domestic helpers’ life stories, fi lled with strength and pain, resourcefulness and faith, portrays Mary’s Magnifi cat, proclaimed in solidarity with God’s plan to bring about the reign of God, whose intent is to heal, redeem and liberate. Th eir life stories off er a perspective for perseverance, and set a defi nite agenda of what has to change in the world and in the Church. women and christianity: philippines | 137 bibliography
Barcelona, Mary Anne and Estepa, Consuelo 2004 Ynang Maria. A Celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Philippines. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc. Brewer, Carolyn 2004 Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685. Aldershot: Ashgate. Buhay, Hilda 1988 “Who is Mary?” M.J. Mananzan, ed., Woman and Religion. Manila: St. Scholastica’s College, 59–63. Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines 1992 Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines. Manila: Pauline Publishing House. 1999 Filipino Way to Holiness. Pastoral Letter on Filipino Spirituality. Makati: Word and Life Publications. Claussen, Heather L. 2001 Unconventional Sisterhood: Feminist Catholic Nuns in the Philippines. Ann Arbor: Th e University of Michigan Press. Coyle, Kathleen 2005 “Mary, Embodiment of Love.” Landas. Journal of Loyola School of Th eology, Special Marian Issue 19/1: 36–56. 2005 “Scriptural Foundation for a Th eology of Mary.” Landas. Journal of Loyola School of Th eology, Special Marian Issue 19/1: 1–18. Fabella, Virginia 1987 “Mission of Women in the Church in Asia: Role and Position.” M.J. Mananzan, ed., Essays on Women. Manila: St. Scholastica’s College, 137–48. Mananzan, Mary John, ed. 1988 Woman and Religion. Manila: St. Scholastica’s College. Vengco, Sabino 2005 “Mary Among the Goddesses.” Landas. Journal of Loyola School of Th eology, Special Marian Issue 19/1: 119–40. Taiwan
Fabrizio Tosolini
he Christian history of China seems to be as old as Christianity itself, given the economic exchanges Tbetween the Han and the Roman Empire.1 Yet nothing certain is known about the Christian presence in China before the so-called Nestorian Mission during the Tang Dynasty. Nestorian monks went to China from Syria; they founded many churches throughout the country with imperial support. Th e few
1. A South Indian tradition attributes to the Apostle Th omas, or to some of his disciples, the fi rst evangelization of China. Roman trade with India fl ourished in the fi rst century ad. In ad 47, the Hippalus wind was discovered facilitating a direct voyage from Aden to the South Western coast in 40 days. Muziris (Kodungallur) and Nelcyndis or Nelkanda (near Kollam) in South India, are mentioned as fl ourish- ing ports, in the writings of Pliny (23–79 ad). Pliny also referred to the fl ourishing trade in spices, pearls, diamonds and silk between Rome and Southern India in the early centuries of the Christian era. According to tradition, St. Th omas landed in Kodungallur in ad 52, in the company of a Jewish merchant, Hebban. Th ere were Jewish colonies in Kodungallur since ancient times and Jews continued to reside in Kerala. Th e Christians (or Nazareens) of Southern India continued to keep their links to the Churches in Mesopotamia and Persia and to their tradition. women and christianity: taiwan | 139 remaining documents of that period show the presence of monastic communities, appar- ently composed only of men. However, among the not so numerous Chinese Christian families there must have been some female believers.2 Th e Franciscan mission during the Yuan Dynasty was not isolated. It was in the path of many foreign merchants, some of whom were women and some Christian. Th e Bishop Gerald of Cremona reports that in nowadays Quanzhou (Fujian) a rich Armenian woman had a superb church built and endowed with adequate subsidies. Th e church then became a cathedral.3 A tombstone found in Yangzhou, about one hundred km North-East of Nanjing, has the fi rst Chinese engraving of Our Lady. It is the tomb- stone of a girl, Catherine, daughter of Dominic of Viglione, a merchant from Genoa.4 When Jesuit Fr. Ruggeri and Fr. Ricci returned to Zhaoqing in 1583, Fr. Ruggieri resumed contact with the young catechumen whom he had entrusted with the altar he had left behind. Th e girl had placed it in a very convenient place, and written two char- acters above it: Tian Zhu (天主). Th e thorny issue of the Chinese translation of the Name of God had already found a solution, at the hands of a girl catechumen.5 Th e wife and daughters of Yang Tingyun (baptized in 1611, one of the “Th ree Great Pillars of Chinese Catholicism”6) helped support the charity which Yang had founded to assist and educate the poor. When the fi rst Jesuit missionaries entered China—as in most epochs of Chinese civilization—it was not proper for men to talk with women. Only Buddhist monks were allowed to converse with females and give them advice. Because the Jesuits had chosen for themselves the identity of Confucian literati, they were practically forbidden any contact with feminine audiences. Th ey found an invaluable help for the apostolate with women in the granddaughter of Xu Guangqi, Candida Xu (1607–1680). Instructed in the faith since her early years, she was married to a rich man, to whom she gave three sons and fi ve daughters. Before her husband died, she succeeded in having him baptized. She took care of the religious education of her family and asked the girls to greet the Jesuit Fathers, so they would become familiar fi gures and face less diffi culties going to confes- sion. She gathered around herself devout women and instructed them to visit the sick, talk of the mysteries of the faith, invite the Fathers to anoint the sick. In order to help the poor, she transformed her house into a silk embroidery atelier; with the support of her father she helped built many churches around Shanghai, including the place where the Sheshan Marian shrine is now located. She actively supported the Associations founded
2. M. Nicolini-Zani, La via radiosa per l’Oriente (Bose: Edizioni Qiqajon 2006), 113–23. 3. Cf. J. Charbonnier, Histoire des Chrétiens de Chine (Paris: Desclée and Bégédis, 1992), 64. 4. Ibid., 67. 5. Tian Zhu (Lord of Heaven) is the Catholic translation of the name of God, while Christians use either the generic Shen (deity, spirit 神), or Shang Di (Ruler/Emperor of above 上帝). Th e Catholics are known in China as TianZhu Jiao (the teaching of the Lord of Heaven 天主教), while Christians are known as JiDu Jiao (the teaching of Jesus 基督教). 6. Th e other two being Xu Guangqi and Li Zhicao, cf. J. Charbonnier, Histoire des Chrétiens de Chine, op. cit., 109–20. 140 | Women in Context
by the Jesuits for children, catechesis and doctrinal studies. She asked the Fathers to translate books and write prayers for the women who could not easily leave their homes, and distributed them personally among the ladies she knew. She accompanied her son Basil, an imperial inspector, in his travels in order to take care of the Church in many provinces; she had two Jesuits sent to Wuhan and churches built by her son in Chengdu, Chongqing, Kaifeng. She helped the Fathers during the persecution of 1666. When her son’s faith weakened and he seemingly returned to Buddhist teachings, she destroyed the book he had written and ordered him to confess and follow a suitable penance. Beggars literally assailed her house, where she served them personally. She taught women how to baptize children near death, rescued abandoned baby-girls and founded a home where they could be taken care of, receive instruction and baptism. When she met some blind fortune tellers, she provided for their immediate needs, instructed them in the faith and told them not to cheat other people, but to announce the Gospel instead. Th ey were professional ballad singers and chanted the story of Jesus to the poor in their rhythmic style. Candida Xu is an extraordinary example of service to spreading the Gospel in China. She is by no means an exception. Like her, many Christian women off ered an invaluable support to the growth of the Church along the centuries. Th e seclusion of women in Chinese society turned their world into a fi eld of action where faithful women had exclu- sive competence, a situation that has not substantially changed as yet. In the day-by-day, door-to door work of interpersonal relationship women are the real missionary force of the Catholic Church. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Jesuit missionaries succeeded in baptizing not only some eunuchs, but also about fi ft y of the highest dames of the Imperial court; and this, despite the impossibility of having contact with them. A baptized eunuch provided for the women’s spiritual formation. Th ey had a chapel dedicated to Our Lady where they prayed and received instruction. Some of them took vows of chastity and risked falling into disgrace by not participating in the rites of the court. Th ey helped the missionaries with off erings and became apostles among the other dames of the court. During the last fl ight of the Ming family aft er the conquest of Beijing at the hands of the Manchu, the Empress Dowager (the offi cial wife of the late emperor), the mother and the wife of the present emperor received baptism. Even the son of the emperor was baptized (his bap- tism name was Constantine), shortly aft er his birth. When the Dominicans started their missionary work in Fujian in 1631, they were blessed by the conversion of Andrew Hong and his wife, Th erese, who helped them and supported them in their trials. Andrew joined the Th ird Order of St. Dominic, which had about sixteen women at the time. Th e Dominican mission found great help in a kind of secular Order, the Virgins, which complemented the ministry of catechists. Th e catechists took care of the instruc- tion of men, the Virgins that of women and children. Th ese two parallel ministries developed from similar geographical and historical circumstances, the popular and pro- women and christianity: taiwan | 141 vincial environment, in a context of persecution. Th e cradle of this experience was the Spanish Dominican mission in Fujian during the seventeenth century. Th e missionaries of the Missions Étrangères de Paris took some of the Dominican methods to the Western Provinces (Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou), the Vincentians and Jesuits took them to the provinces of the Centre and North China. In Fujian the Virgins, belonging to the Th ird Dominican Order, led secluded lives in their parents’ homes, dedicating themselves to prayer, obedience and manual work. Th eir apostolic work was limited to their family environment. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Fr. Jean Martin Moye mep, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of Providence in France, entrusted the Virgins with apostolic tasks, among which were the baptism of dying babies and the instruction and catechesis of girls. Th e rules written for the Virgins in Sichuan lasted more than a century, giving direc- tion to many saintly women who off ered their lives for Christ and the Church.7 Th e fi gure of the Virgin who, in a voluntary and individual basis, works for the Church, although in the most diverse ways, is still somehow in place, both in China and Taiwan. Th eir services were of great, if not invaluable, importance in assuring the presence of the Christian mes- sage in everyday life. Together with the Vincentians, the Daughters of Charity entered China in the fi rst half of the nineteenth century. Th ey took special care of social services, schools for girls, orphanages, hospitals, visits to families. Other Orders of Sisters came to China from dif- ferent parts of the world to join their missionary work. Bishops founded Diocesan Sisters Orders using their model, so that at the beginning of the twentieth century almost every Chinese diocese had its own Religious Family, tens of thousands of Chinese Sisters, partly heirs of the Virgins of the past, who with great enthusiasm off ered their contribution to the task of evangelizing and building communities. To become a nun was a challenge, the choice of a diffi cult and risky life, given the practically uninterrupted persecution of the Church since the sixteenth century. Th ese young girls had to adapt to diff erent cultural rules and mindset. Nevertheless they fl ocked to the novitiates. Th rough religious life many Chinese women found a much more eff ective way to fulfi ll themselves, diff erent from what was expected from ordinary girls in villages. During the tragedies of the twentieth century (the revolution that ended the Qing Dynasty, the civil war that followed, the Communist and Guomindang struggles for
7. Some among them suff ered martyrdom and are now counted among the Chinese Saints. Worthy of special notice is the fi gure of St. Agatha Lin Zhao (1817–1858), a Chinese girl who exercised her apostolate among the Miao minority. During her trial, when the magistrate asked her what she, a Han, was doing among the Miao, and why she had not married before and indulged in immoral behavior (such as going around preaching and not staying at home as she would be expected to do), she boldly answered that in China they erected arches to honor the young widows who did not remarry. Th e magistrate, enraged by the fact that a woman had stood up to him, condemned her to death and had her executed. Th en, when they discovered that she was really virgin, the magistrate had to apologize. In general, it is worth noticing that Christian faith gives women great inner freedom, so that in working for the Gospel they fi nd ways that are both new and respectful of tradition. 142 | Women in Context
power, the Japanese invasion and war, the Communist victory, the Great Leap Ahead and famine that followed, the Cultural Revolution), Chinese sisters provided a secure haven for the faith of entire communities. Th eir Orders, beeing of diocesan right and rarely linked with international Religious Families, shouldered all the brunt of persecution as foreigners were compelled to leave the country; when left alone, they could only rely on themselves, sometimes without any help from the few remaining priests. Despite many constraints, the Chinese sisters managed to sustain their Religious Families, which are fl ourishing once again in China. China is at present one of the few places in the world where feminine vocations to consecrated life are numerous. Th e choice of religious life is oft en made before 20, the age at which girls get married. To pres- ent, whenever the Church struggles with inner divisions, it is them who, when visiting families and talking to people, face the confusion, solitude, helplessness and try to solve Christians’ faith problems; they try to support the faith, off er hope, unravel entangled situations. Without them, the Church in China would be much more dispersed and unsteady in her faithfulness. Th e history of Taiwan is somewhat diff erent from the history of China. Until the retreat of Chiang Kai Sek, Taiwanese Catholics were very few in number, and mostly settled in the South.8 Th e Taiwanese Mission was entrusted to the Dominicans, who were using the traditional methods they also employed in Fujian. In a very short time the island was fl ooded with Chinese and foreign bishops, priest and nuns from all sorts of religious families, secular priests and lay people, most of them already skilled in Chinese missionary activity. Hence the sudden and impressive growth of the Catholic Church and establishment of many social works, in which nuns played their usual important role. Th ere were also a good number of local vocations to consecrated life, and even the foundation of an aboriginal order in Hualien, the Sisters of St. Martha. Cultural changes and challenges, a decreasing number of priests and nuns, the expec- tation, especially among the secular clergy, of a quick return to the Mainland, the impact of Vatican II on the traditional way of living Christian faith, and increasing social activ- ism of the State and all kinds of charities, pressed for a new quality of Church’s life and presence in Taiwan. Women were also part of this renewal. Indeed, women still are at the core of Christian communities, in terms of presence, personal commitment, service. Th ey are animated by a strong missionary spirit, and sincerely try, oft en for a lifetime, to win over to Christ their families. Th ey also fi nd organized ways to embody the Christian spirit of service in the midst of society.
8. Th e fi rst missionaries in Taiwan were the Dominicans, who followed the Spanish settlements in the Northern parts of the island. Between 1626 and 1642 (when they were expelled by the Dutch), there were 4000 aboriginal converts. In the 1860’s the Spanish Dominicans returned; they converted 1300 people, and established an orphanage in GaoXiong. During the Japanese rule (1895–1945) the Church grew to 8000 and was able to carry out some social initiatives in medical care, education and social relief. Cf. E.A. DeVido, “Th e Catholic Church and Social Work in Taiwan,” eRenlaiMagazine October 10, 2006.
Yet, with all this commitment, female vocations to the consecrated life are scarce in Taiwan 9 and many Orders face great diffi culties, specially the local ones. Something in religious life is no longer appealing to young women. Th is has nothing to do with the works of diff erent Orders or the perceived need for self-immolation, because many women are really sacrifi cing their lives at the service of those in need. Maybe what women want is to keep in their hands the freedom to be their own masters in whatever they do for the Church. Th us, in diff erent socio-cultural circumstances, in diff erent forms, the seventeenth century Virgins are re-surfacing in Taiwan. Christian missionary activity to China dates back to the beginnings of the nineteenth century, well aft er Catholics arrived. At the outset, it was the wives of pastors who tried to contact Chinese women and spread the gospel among them. Soon aft er, on both sides of the Atlantic, female mission boards were organized, commissioning single women to go to China.10 Th e increasing number of female missionaries11 gave the Protestant mission a special profi le: not only did they shoulder the task of working with Chinese women, but they also called attention to the importance of women’s issues, such as foot-binding, home confi nement, illiteracy, submission to males. As before with Catholics, home seclu- sion was a key factor shaping the female fi eld of action, at home they had to rely on their own resources and fi nd opportunities to express their richness. Like the Virgins in the Catholic Church, Chinese Bible women were soon employed, in increasing numbers. Women missionaries devoted themselves to visiting families, creating schools and boarding schools for girls, off ering medical services, evangelizing and teaching the Bible. With time, Colleges for women were also founded, at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1890 there were 33 female physicians in 15 Chinese cities, who were active in the health care services. Most of them were coming from the US, where Medicine depart- ments had already started enrolling women.12 While medical services were easily accepted and appreciated, it was in the fi eld of edu- cation that the pupils surprised teachers most: they appreciated so much the new freedom foreigners talked about that they started making use of it beyond any expectation. During the May Fourth Movement,13 girls were demonstrating on the streets, against the advice of their teachers.
9. In fact, Taiwanese special vocations, both male and female, are above the average of Western Churches. 10. P.-L. Kwok, Chinese Women and Christianity 1860–1927 (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1992), 8. 11. Single women missionaries working in China: 17 in 1866; 63 in 1876; 316 in 1890; together with the wives of the missionaries, they outnumbered men (707 to 589); 1081 in 1907 (missionary wives: 1148; Bible women: 894); 1818 in 1917 (missionary wives: 1819; Bible women: 2579). Cf. Ibid., 19, 81. 12. Ibid., 7–18. 13. Th e May Fourth Movement (wŭ sì yùn dòng 五四運動) was an anti-imperialist, cultural, and political move- ment in early modern China. Beginning on May 4, 1919, it marked the upsurge of Chinese nationalism, and a re- evaluation of Chinese cultural institutions, such as Confucianism. Th e movement grew out of dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles settlement, termed the Shandong Problem. Coming out of the New Culture Movement, the end result was a drastic change in society that fueled the birth of the Communist Party of China. Cf.
Although in China society women’s place was considerably lower than males’ in leadership matters, in female communities women performed many pastoral func- tions and became role models of pastoral service for other women. With time, women started struggling for ecclesiastical recognition and power, and for the indigenization of the Church. In addition to providing social services schools and hospitals, Christians strongly infl uenced Chinese social reforms, especially with reference to women’s rights. Two associations can be mentioned here: the wctu (Woman’s Christian Temperance Union), which also spread in China (1883), and the ywca (Young Women’s Christian Association), which grew to become the largest women’s organization of the country.14 Although criticized by radical students under Marxist infl uence in the 1920’s, the years of anti-Christian movement, for being too Westernized, the Communist Party later acknowledged the ywca pioneering work among female workers.15 Communism also brought havoc among Christians, fi rst through persecution, then through the Th ree-Self Patriotic Movement and the China Christian Council,16 which tried to subdue the Churches and place them under the control of Party leadership. Evangelic communities proved to be even more resilient than Catholics, so that now in China there are more than 70 million believers, loosely structured in small congregations which are very active.17 Women, who invest their increased self-consciousness and skills at the service of faith, are playing a key role among them. In certain respect, the Taiwanese Christian experience is much more similar to that of China than that of Catholics. Two centuries aft er the founding of the fi rst Christian mis- sion under the Dutch (1624–1662),18 around the 1860s, some Presbyterian missionaries
14. P.-L. Kwok, Chinese Women and Christianity 1860–1927, op. cit., 126. 15. Ibid., 132. 16. Th e Th ree-Self Patriotic Movement or tspm and the China Christian Council or ccc are two government- sanctioned (“patriotic”) Christian organizations in the People’s Republic of China. Th ese together form the only legal (registered) Protestant Church in mainland China. Th ere are large numbers of Chinese house churches in China which are outside of the registered organizations. Together, the tspm and ccc claim a total of between 9.8 million to 13.5 million Protestant Christians in China (while their total number is between 60 and 70 millions). Th e two associations claim that Christianity in China is “post-denominational” and Protestant denominations prevalent in other parts of the world have no place in China. Christians are said to congregate on Sunday each week in service, implementing the principle of mutual respect. Th e tspm and ccc are viewed with suspicion and distrust by some Christians both within and outside China. Some claim the tspm to be a tool of the Communist Party of China to control and regulate the expression of Christianity. As a result, many groups refuse to deal with the tspm or ccc and there exists a large unregistered House Church movement in China with some claiming that it serves the large majority of Protestant Christians in China. Th ere has also been allegations of regular and systematic persecution against Christians associated with the House Church movement and other unregistered Christian organizations in China. 17. J. Allen, “Th e Uphill Journey of Catholicism in China,” National Catholic Reporter, 2007, 43/33, argues that by mid-century 200 million Chinese may comprise the world’s largest concentration of Christian; the growth rate (about ten thousand new Chinese Christians each day) is impressive; the Chinese Christian Churches may well be the haven of democracy in China, as well as of the never yet dreamed-of missionary enterprise of carrying the gospel westwards to Muslim lands, eventually reaching Jerusalem. 18. In 1624, the Dutch East India Company, headquartered in Batavia, Java, established the fi rst European-style government ever on the soil of Taiwan, and inaugurated the modern political history of Taiwan. Th ey did not just women and christianity: taiwan | 145 arrived at the island.19 While doing social works, they made serious attempts to adapt to the culture of both the Chinese-descent (Hoklo and Hakka) and Aboriginal populations. As a result, Christianity spread in Taiwan years before the Catholic Church grew. Aft er 1945, groups started separating along ethnic and political lines: Catholics found their way into the newly immigrated Chinese communities; Christians shared the aspirations and fate of the Taiwanese, among whom they spread; the Aborigines belonged almost equally to both groups. As in China, foreign women were involved in missionary activ- ity at Taiwan, contributing to the improvement of women’s condition and to increased self-awareness. Given the looser structure of Protestant churches, the large number of Christian missionary women, the more receptive presence of democratic attitudes and the indigenization of Christian congregations, women’s roles in the life Christian com- munities are not too diff erent from men’s. Christian groups in Taiwan are very active at all levels, sometimes prompting feelings of inferiority among Catholics and imitation attempts. Th is is true also for women, who fi nd in their Christian counterparts models from whom to learn at least enthusiasm and spirit of initiative. Th e relation between biblical teachings and male-female relationships is a problem that both Catholics and Christians still face in China. Th e history of the Churches in China shows abundantly how precious women’s contribution has been in every respect. At the same time it shows the new seeds sown by Christian faith in the Chinese cultural and religious terrain, which women particularly appreciate: basic parity in status with men, respect for a personal faith experience, the possibility of attaining the highest degree of holiness—the fi gure of Mary plays a key role in this and underlines the absolute need of feminine charisms for spreading the gospel. Th roughout Chinese history there are examples of female believers who go beyond the roles assigned to them by tradition; whenever their contributions fi nd respect and encouragement, many new enrichment opportunities are off ered to the whole society. However, men and women are still treated diff erently in the Catholic and Christian communities of both Taiwan and China. Up to the early twentieth century, for example, Catholic churches had two distinct aulae, built at a 90 degrees angle, one for men, the other for women, so that during Mass and common prayers they could not see each other. Th e altar was at the intersection of the two aulae, so that both groups could follow the liturgies. Such accommodation respected traditional customs, while reaffi rming for believers the possibility and duty to attend common celebrations. collect taxes, but also tried to convert to Christianity the native Formosans, who enjoyed a friendly relationship with the Dutch, and learned the Dutch language. Some aborigines still retain their Dutch Bibles even today. 19. Dr James Maxwell of Britain, arrived in 1865, and Dr George Leslie Mackay of Canada, arrived in 1872, planted the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. Presbyterians have historically been active in promoting the use of the local vernacular Taiwanese, of human rights and democracy both during the Japanese colonial period, as well as aft er the transfer of Taiwan to the Republic of China. As such, the church has been somewhat associated with the Taiwan independence movement. Th e pct has also been a consistent and conspicuous proponent of Aboriginal Rights. 146 | Women in Context
More important, even decisive, is the issue of authority faced by both Catholic and Christian Churches. Male and elderly dominance, a key feature in Chinese, as in other civilizations,20 still fi nds its way into Church life. It can be found in the way parish priests take their decisions, or ask for services or cooperation; in how Sisters’ opinions are taken into consideration when elaborating pastoral plans; in the way women’s views are val- ued and their works supported; in the place assigned to children and youngsters. In all these issues, what is at stake is less a redistribution of authority than a higher awareness of the source of authority in the Church. A fact that bears directly on the faith in the Resurrection: if Christ is believed to be the Living Lord, active in the Church through his Spirit, then every member of the Church, according to his/her role and charism, should strive to recognize what He wants from them in particular moments of their lives. When Jesus is recognized as the real source of authority, not in the general sense, but for the immediate decisions to be taken, then all the contributions fi nd their proper value, as tiles in a mosaic. At this point there is no more talk of patterns of dominance or submission, of polarization of roles, of cultural constraints; rather the talk is about the richness of Christ discovered through the sharing of everybody’s self-eff acing love.
bibliography
Allen, John 2007 “Th e Uphill Journey of Catholicism in China.” National Catholic Reporter, 43/33. Charbonnier, Jean 1992 Histoire des Chretiens de Chine. Paris: Desclee et Begedis. DeVido, Elise Anne 2006 “Th e Catholic Church and Social Work in Taiwan.” eRenlaiMagazine October 10, 2006.
20. In June 2007, the daughter of the President of Taiwan openly expressed anger against her father-in-law, who allegedly lured his son into illegal fi nancial practices, as a result of which both of them were condemned to seven years in jail. Her public protest against an elder shook Taiwanese public opinion and many asked themselves where such important values as fi lial piety had gone. Conclusion E. Pulcini, F. Tosolini, T. Tosolini
. he juxtaposition of the analyses of the situation of women in Bangladesh, Japan, Th e Philippines Tand China-Taiwan, by itself off ers plenty of scope for comparisons and possible interpretive proposals. From a historical perspective, it becomes rather clear that the social stratifi cation responsible for a submissive role of women was not the original situation of at least some of the cultures examined. In the millenary history of China, this was connected with the adoption of Confucianism as the set of ethical laws at the basis of the state structure; in Japan it happened under the combined infl ux of Shinto religion and of the spreading of Confucian doc- trines imported from China; in both milieus Buddhism did not substantially change such a stratifi cation, it only off ered some additional possibilities to women inside the mainframe of com- monly accepted values. In Bangladesh, Hindu religion and then the missionary spreading of Islam joined together to create a 150 | Women in Context
situation that up until today appears gridlocked, with no prospects in sight for a change in the immediate future. Strangely enough, what transformed the original situation in the Philippines was the arrival of Christianity, imported by the Spanish conquerors. Christian faith, (or better, the tradition in which faith was embedded), which in China (and also in Japan) off ered women a way for new possibilities of self-realization, in contrast in the Philippines became a powerful tool in view of curbing women’s original social and reli- gious prestige; women could play other roles, still of importance, inside the new religion; but in a diff erent overarching frame of authority. In the four cases a connecting thread can be observed between the process of mod- ernization and globalization on the one hand, and a drive toward a set of new values and behavioural patterns in the relationship between men and women and the place and roles of women in society in general. Th e progressive structuring of centralized political power coupled with a patriarchal society, closely related to agriculture and village life, place women in a defi nitive set of subordinated roles where they are necessary functional elements for the continuation of the system. Th e process of shift ing towards industri- alization and life in the urban environment introduces into the experience of women a whole set of new venues of self realization, connected with the possibility of economic independence in the here and now. However, this can be said only in general, because in China and Japan, where indus- trialization took place at a faster pace than in Th e Philippines and in Bangladesh, the process did not involve a stable change in the situation of women. Rather, other factors, such as Nationalistic doctrines or Communist ideology turned out to be very powerful sources of infl uence in shaping society’s expectations of women, in the same way as, more recently, the media continually creates new models of “modern day” women which are subordinated to the needs of the globalized market. Th ese remarks require to be integrated with other elements: at present, political agen- cies seem to regain control (if ever they had lost it) over the process of shaping social values and expectations—again, we can say, in view of the interests of some particular groups. If in Bangladesh male dominance has never really been challenged, in China the renaissance of Confucianism as state doctrine will probably aff ect the social gains women made under the previous trends of the Communist regime; while in Japan and Taiwan women are both enjoying and paying the price of some improvements in their social status and self-awareness, in the Philippines women continue to struggle to fi nd some remedies to the defi ciencies of state policies. In all cases, women will be quick in profi ting from every opportunity opened to them, while at the same time not being in the condition of substantially infl uencing the trends for which they will probably always be the ones who pay the heaviest price. At this point it could be asked: What changes did Christianity bring about with regard to the conditions of women in society and in the Church? When, for example in the case of the Philippines, Christianity enters a culture as an institutionalized religion and accompanies and supports a political structure, this same religion tends to transplant the conclusion | 151 same inherent male-dominated power structure, inducing a process of marginalization with respect to the place women hold in society and in Church itself. A similar pattern can be seen also in Bangladesh, though for the opposite reason. It seems that here the Church runs the risk of accommodating itself uncritically to the local culture. In doing so, it is likewise perpetuating the traditional patriarchal structure, with the same discriminatory and unjust practices, renouncing the responsibility of giving wit- ness to the message of the Gospel which should facilitate the liberation of women. Be that as it may, even where Christianity is a minority phenomenon, women have contributed to the history of evangelization as much as (if not more than) men and more oft en than not, they did so in much more diffi cult conditions. Th is study leads the reader to discover how many times the ways of evangelizing of missionaries, have been understood and put into practice within traditional cultural standards, at times glorifying “the union of the cross and the sword,” at others assuming uncritically the elements of power, injustice and discrimination by allowing them to spoil the inspiration and liberating message of the Gospel. Th e fact that women’s dignity has oft en been unacknowledged and their prerogatives misrepresented, relegating them to the margins of society and Church, has also been caused by the evangelization work itself, which inevitably has resulted in an impoverishment of humanity. For one of the unavoidable conclusions of this study is that it is here, in the quasi- revelatory awareness about who women really are in themselves—and not about who they were made to mime, impersonate or forced to become—that new visions and per- spectives about their condition and identity will emerge. It is by listening to their stories of oppression and desire of liberation that we will come to the realization that traditions, socio-political stratifi cations and religious systems are not only the invisible fences pro- tecting old cultures and sacred interpretations of the world, but they could also become the frightening enclosures of pain and the daunting walls of repression. It is by opening our eyes to the silent and almost imperceptible revolution accompanying daughters’ determination not to follow in the footsteps of their mothers or not to respond unthink- ingly to the usual requests posed by their societies that we discover how most of these women are in search for something new, something diff erent, something really meaning- ful for their life. Sometimes the blind narrowness of their culture or the secret aspira- tions emerging from their lives are, paradoxically, unveiled through the impersonal and anonymous demands of globalization. Original lifestyles, novel ideas and initiatives can certainly promise liberation and emancipation from undesired situations, but only rarely do these recipes for success have the power to set women free for something which could made them real protagonists of their histories, veritable authors of their dreams and faith. Th e evanescent promise which globalization off ers to women looks very suspiciously like a refi ned and sophisticated technique for a much worse and subtle discrimination and debasement of women’s dignity and pride: nothing will remain of those who sold their souls to the ephemeral and inconsistent smile of such an illusion. Moreover this situation in which women let themselves be tempted to bargain who 152 | Women in Context
they are in search for something they are not, should alarm the missionary to the fact that what women really want is to catch a glimpse of that life and love which shapes their existence and fi lls their experience with new purpose and meaning. Beyond the all too sterile and convenient talk of rights and duties, gender and roles, social mores and immemorial traditions, what we always fi nd Asian women searching for is respect for their bodies, reverence for their ideas and intuitions, understanding of their deep sense of the divine, astonishment for their grace, admiration for their sensitivity. What all these women silently demand is that kind of respect that is not born out of principles, abstract declarations, aseptic constitutions and conceptual rules but rather from out of that kind of human esteem that draws its meaning from the simplicity of life itself and from the sacredness of a loving God. It is in this encounter with the feminine other, with the one that struggles to regain a paradise lost or to discover a new land of peace and serenity that the missionary may come to off er a message in which women can fi nd themselves re-created and diff erent. A message in which the superimposed cultural etiquettes give way to a creative and more sincere relationship with the other, words of love that prompt in women the courage to change an otherwise grey and insignifi cant horizon, expressions of compassion and kind- ness which help them nurture their children to respect and love everyone for who they are, not for what others would like them to be or to become through preordained codes of behaviour or unwarranted sets of rules. It is in this holy space of distance and proxim- ity with all these women who have managed to achieve a deep knowledge of themselves and of their feelings, that evangelizers will once again realize how the message of Christ has a truly liberating eff ect, an outcome that reaches far beyond any egalitarian social position, any classless economic achievement, any democratic political triumph. For all of these can only be the result of a discourse that proclaims from and through experience the unconditional love of God, they can only be the outcome of a spiritual encounter with the extraordinary mysteriousness inscribed in the face of the other. In the invisibility of this woman’s face, in the refl ection hovering on the dark liquidity of her eyes looking at me, I fi nd myself already addressed and challenged, already sum- moned and compelled to respond to her, to be there responsible for her, sometimes to demand from others respect for her even without her asking. In the exchange of the eyes, in the Invisible that passes through the gaze, I know that what makes this woman truly unique is the love with which God loves her, it is that incredible and tangible love with which she fi nds herself capable of love and on the way to the solitary journey through the oft en uncharted territories of new relationships, revelations, challenges and choices. For what makes this woman truly unique is that Love with which she fi nds herself loved before she could even begin to love the One who already was with her since the begin- ning of time and stayed with her through all her suff ering and pain, affl ictions which she hopes, in the end, will fi nally disappear in the shadow of a fugitive tear. Cumulative Index Abu Said, Gajipuri 65, 70 Blacker, Carmen 76–7 Aborigines 56, 142, 145 Bodhisattva 74, 98–9, 106 Acculturation 5, 65, 113 Body 50, 53, 58, 74–5, 84, 86, 95–6, 102, 104–6, 132 Adler, Joseph 106, Brahmans 62 Afroza, Begum 19 Brewer, Carolyn 85, 88, 92–3, 137 Ain O Salish, Kendra 10, 15, 19–20, 110–1, 118 Bride-service 32 Al-Qaida 66 Bruja 85 Allen, John 144, 146 Buddha 73–4, 100 Amanur, Aman 14, 19 Buddhahood 73–4, 102 Animism 5, 33, 79–82, 85–8, 92, 95 Buddhism 22, 51, 62, 71, 73–5, 77–8, 95, 94, 99–102, Anitero 82 105, 119–20, 125, 139–40, 149 Anyaprakash 61, 69 Buhay, Hilda 137 Asia 3–4, 10, 15, 20, 45, 57, 64, 80, 91–92, 137 Bulacan 36, 91 Asog 82 Calligraphy 26 Associations 36–7, 126, 139, 144 Caregivers 42, 56 Atheist 9, 94 Caste 17, 20, 63–4, 67, 115 Atmashuddhi 67 Catalonan 81–4, 88 Avalokitesvara 99 Catechesis 133, 140–1 Azad, Humayun 9, 19 Catholic 5, 34, 39, 41, 81, 85–7, 89, 93–4, 109–15, Babae lang 81 117–8, 123, 126–34, 137, 139–40, 142–6 Babaylan 81–4, 86–7, 92–3, 127, 129 Catholicism 79–81, 83–8, 90, 92–3, 128–9, 134, 137, Balete 83 139, 144, 146 Barangay 83–4 Charbonnier, Jean 139, 146 Barlow, Tani 58 Children 10, 16, 19, 24–7, 32, 34–5, 41–3, 45, 50, 53, Bayes, Jane 114, 118 55–6, 67, 69, 74, 77, 82–3, 96, 99–101, 111, 113–4, 121, Bayog 82 123, 127, 129, 136, 140, 146, 152 Beatas 89, 91, 128 Chilson, Clark 75, 77, 124 Beaterio 86, 89, 91–93 Christ 124, 128, 141–2, 146, 152 Begum, Rokeya 61, 69 Christianity 3–5, 65, 84, 92, 107, 119–21, 124–5, 128, Beichman, Janine 27 138, 143–6, 150–1 Bhagavadgita 64 Church 4, 34–5, 37, 86–7, 89–90, 109–18, 121–4, Bhakti 64 126–8, 130–7, 139–46, 150–1 Bhusvami 64 Claussen, Heather 93, 127, 131, 137 Bishops 117, 123, 127, 129, 133, 137, 141–42 Communist 52–3, 141–4, 150 156 | Women in Context
Complementarity 33, 45, 98, 133–4 Feminism 24, 28, 39, 57, 77, 121, 131, 134 Confl ict 15, 41, 76, 79–80, 87, 89, 96 Ferraris, Maria Rita 86, 89, 91, 93 Confucianism 22–3, 49–52, 56, 58, 71, 73, 75–6, 94–5, Fertility 31, 63–4, 72, 86, 100 98–9, 103, 139, 143, 149–50 Foot binding 51–2 Confucius 51, 99 Friars 34–5, 81, 88–9, 127 Congregation 62, 86, 89, 91–3, 117, 141 Fu-tao 75 Conquistadores 80 hulam, Murshid 61, 65, 69 Coyle, Kathleen 130, 134, 137 G Gitiara, Nasreen 18–9 Crane, Hillary Kathleen 102, 106 Globalization 136, 150–1 Croll, Elisabeth 57 God 31, 65–6, 68, 73, 84, 86, 88, 90, 95–6, 127, 129–30, Croucher, Sheila 57 136, 139, 152 D’Costa, Paul 67–69, 111, 118 Goddesses 9, 62, 97, 129, 137 Dōgen 74–75 Gospel 135, 140–1, 143–5, 151 Daimyō 120 Gui 97 Daoism 95, 98, 102–103, 105–106 ameeda, Hossain 11, 20. Datu 83–4, 87 H Daughter 22, 35, 75, 92, 98, 106, 117, 120, 139, 146 Hakka 52, 145 Demonology 86 Han 49, 52, 54, 98, 138, 141 Dependence 11, 13, 63, 116 Hastings, Ann 28 Development 10, 14–5, 18–9, 24, 26, 39–43, 45–7, 57, Hausmann, Ricardo 10, 14, 19 61, 71, 82–3, 87, 89–91, 93, 101, 114 Heaven 65, 67, 97, 101, 104, 139 DeVido, Elise Anne 101, 106, 142, 146 Hechicera 85 Devil 85–6, 92 Henderson, Gail 57 DeVos, George 58 Henjō-Nansi 78 Ding, Ling 53 Heqin 49 Discipleship 131, 133–5 Hindu 17, 62–3, 65, 67, 69–70, 111, 113, 149 Disciplina 86 Hoklo 145 Discrimination 10–1, 15, 18–20, 25, 45, 57, 65, 69, Hōnen 74 73–5, 111–3, 124, 132, 151 Hossain, Kamrul 68–69 Divorce 19, 24–5, 32, 53, 67–9, 110–3 Households 11, 43, 50, 57, 104, 127 Dominicans 140, 142 Husband 11, 13, 22, 24–7, 32, 35–6, 45, 50–1, 53, 55–6, Doniger, Wendy 63, 69 62–9, 73, 75–6, 100–1, 111–4, 116, 120, 139 East 42, 97, 99, 114, 118, 144 Ijjat 11 Egalitarian 25, 32, 74, 120, 152 Ikebana 26 Emigration 42–3, 55 Ilustrado 36 Emperor 22, 49–52, 72, 94, 98, 119–20, 139–40 Ina 129, 135 Empowerment 13–4, 18, 25, 51, 133 Independence 15, 25, 27, 31, 37–8, 54, 63, 104, 145, 150 Entwisle, Barbara 57 Indra 73 Equality 17–8, 37, 39, 54, 67–9, 77, 111–2, 120, 133–4 Infante, Teresita 33, 46, 81–2, 93 Estepa, Consuelo 129, 135, 137 Inoue Tetsujirō 119–20, 124 Evangelizers 152 Invisible 151–2 Eviota, Uy Elizabeth 30, 33, 35, 38, 40, 44, 46, 93 Islam 9, 18–9, 30–31, 33, 61–2, 65–8, 70, 114, 149 Janakantha 14, 20 abella, Virginia 137 F Jesuits 91, 139–41 Family 11, 13, 15–6, 18, 21–7, 31–4, 38–9, 42–3, 45, Jesus 36, 91, 122, 130, 134–5, 139–140, 146 50–8, 67–9, 74–77, 95–8, 100–1, 104–5, 113–4, 117, Jolivet, Muriel 27–8 129, 131, 139–41 Junzi 98 Fate 35, 42–3, 53, 96, 113, 145 Father 11, 22, 32, 35, 51, 53, 55, 62–3, 67, 73, 75–6, 82, Kaibara, Ekken 23 100, 130, 132, 139 Kalpana, Kannabiran 17 Fatwa 14 Kamal, Sultana 68, 70 Fear 4, 9, 11, 13, 42, 49, 77, 105, 114–5 Kannushi 72–3 cumulative index | 157
Kassa-suul-Ambia 66 Moeran, Brian 28 Katipunan 36 Moga 24 Katulungan 81 Mohan, Ganguli 64, 70 Kelski, Karen 28 Monks 73–4, 99, 101–2, 138–9 Khandaker, Farzana 67, 70 Monshipouri, Mahmood 114, 118 Kinney, Behnke Anne 49, 57 Montiel, Christina 46 Kinship 32, 88, 97 Mortely, Patricia 28 Kishida, Toshiko 24, 121 Mother 19, 24, 32, 35–6, 45, 48, 55, 69, 90–2, 95–8, Kohn, Livia 102, 106 103–4, 106, 128–30, 135, 140 Kojiki 21, 72 Mother-goddess 99 Kristeva, Julia 57 Movements 24, 37, 40, 52, 76–7, 101, 120–1, 126 Kwok, Pui–Lan 143–4, 146 Mu-lian 96 Mulhern Chieko, Irie 124 abour 31, 37–8, 40–2, 44–47, 93 L Mullins, Mark 124 Lailufar, Yasmin 10, 20 Muslim 31, 62, 65–9, 94, 111, 113–4, 118, 144 Landsberger, Stefan 53, 57 Laywomen 121–2 Nancy, Andrew 77 Liberty 11, 39, 116 Nationalist 44, 52–3 Liturgical 72, 114, 117, 122 Nayereh, Tohidi 114, 118 Lojja 11 Nichiren 74–5 Lord 61, 63, 65, 120, 128, 130–1, 139, 146 Nicolini-Zani, Matteo 139, 146 Love 4, 23–4, 26, 43, 82–3, 87, 89–91, 93, 100, 113, 130, Nihongi 21 134–5, 137, 146, 152 Nolte, Sharon 28 Loyalty 76, 95, 119 Novenas 130 MacKie, Vera 24, 28 Obedience 22–3, 49, 105, 115, 141 McIlwaine, Cathy 46 Olaer, Eva 42, 47 Madonna 129–30 Orders 89, 91, 141–3 Madsen, Richard 57 Ordhanghini 67, 116 Mag-anito 82–83, 88 Orthodoxy 62, 98 Maganda 31 Panday 83 Magellan 34, 90 Pandot 83 Mahabharata 64, 70 Paradise 66, 104, 152 Malakas 31 Pardah 11 Mama 26, 128–9, 135–6 Parents 27, 32, 42–3, 50, 53, 111, 117, 120, 136, 141 Mananzan, Mary John 31–6, 44, 46, 84, 93, 137 Parish 32, 84, 90, 113, 122–3, 126, 132–3, 146 Mandaya 82 Pastore, Antonietta 28 Manu 63–6, 69 Patriarchy 4, 11, 44, 62, 65, 116–7 Maolana, Abdullah 65, 70 Patronage 17, 39 Mara 73 Pereira, Faustina 110–1, 115, 118 Marriage 12–3, 16, 19, 23, 25, 27, 32–3, 41, 49–51, 53–4, Phenomenological 4, 61, 80, 110, 115 65, 67–9, 86, 100–1, 110–4, 117 Philippines 3–5, 30–47, 79–93, 123, 126–37, 149–50 Martin Ahern, Emily 58, 106 Philosophy 103, 119 Mass 39, 145 Pickowicz, Paul 57 Matriarch 97 Politicization 98–9 Mencius 99 Politics 18–9, 24, 39, 43, 53, 57, 95–7, 102, 106, 114, 118 Mestizas 91 Pollution 72–3, 78, 95–97, 99, 106 Miao 141 Priestess 77, 81, 83–5 Migrants 24, 43 Priests 73, 81, 84–7, 89, 112–3, 115–7, 123, 126–7, 131–3, Miko 73 142, 146 Mikogami 72 Principalia 83, 87 Misogyny 65–66, 70 Protestant 94, 110–1, 128, 143–5 Mizan, Choudhori 14, 20 Providence 141 158 | Women in Context
Puja 62 Sobritchea, Carolyn 32, 47 Pulcini, Eugenio 30–47, 79–93, 126–37 Socio-cultural 4, 69, 84, 115, 143 Purity 72, 78, 97, 105, 129 Somman 11 Rahman, Akhi 66–7, 70 Sonat 83 Rape 10–2, 16–9, 41 Sorceress 85 Reese, Lyn 51, 58 Spirit 72, 82–5, 96, 101, 105–6, 119–20, 124, 127, 134, Religion 4, 18–9, 31, 33, 35, 44–5, 61–2, 64–5, 67, 69, 139, 142, 145–6 71–2, 76–80, 82, 84–5, 87–99, 102–3, 106, 111, 114, Sri, Kisari 64, 70 118–9, 121, 123, 125, 127, 130, 132, 137, 149–50 Suicide 10, 12, 14, 49–50, 56, 113 Responsibility 16, 26, 34, 45, 62, 75, 131, 133–5, 151 Sumiko 26, 29 Resurrection 135, 146 Swanson, Paul 75, 77, 124 Revolution 36, 39, 51, 53–4, 58, 141–2, 151 alaq 68 Rifareal, Elizabeth 46 T Rites 76, 96–7, 140 Tang 49, 51, 138 Robins-Mowry, Dorothy 28 Taoism 49, 102 Rodd, Laurel 28 Tapales, Proserpina Domingo 47, 83, 93 Roetz, Heiner 106 Taposh, Kanti Baul 67, 70 Rosenberg, Nancy 28 Targa, Sergio 7–20, 59–70, 107–118 Tawag 82, 90–1 aadia, Zahidi 10, 14, 19 S Tenrikyō 76 Sadeka, Halim 15, 17, 20 Tertiaries 89, 128 Saiō 24, 72 Th elle, Notto 125 Salazar, Zeus 83–4, 87, 93 Sangley 91 Th eravāda, 73 Santiago, Luciano 82–3, 87, 89–91, 93 Th eravadin 101 Śāriputra 75 Tosolini, Fabrizio 48–58, 94–106, 138–46 Schipper, Kristofer 106 Tosolini, Tiziano 21–9, 71–8, 119–25 Seaman, Gary 106 Tyson, Laura 10, 14, 19 Self 28, 104–5, 132, 150 Upanayana 62 Self-awareness 13, 145, 150 Self-cultivation 50, 102 Varnadharma 63 Self-fl agellation 86 Vasanth, Kannabiran 20 Self-fulfi llment 56 Vedas 62, 64 Self-immolation 143 Vengco, Sabino 129, 137 Self-realization 103, 150 Violence 5, 10–20, 41, 44–5, 111 Selfl ess 76 Virgins 50, 140–1, 143 Sex 10–3, 15–6, 24–5, 28, 32, 35, 40–2, 44–6, 50, 53–4, Virtue 28, 35, 44, 50, 56, 58, 94–5, 134 63, 66, 85–6, 93, 95–7, 102–6, 113–4, 120, 122, 130–1, Visayan 81–2 134 Shamanism 22, 33, 71–3, 76–7, 79–88, 90, 92–4, Wife 19, 22, 24–7, 32, 36, 49–51, 53, 56, 62, 64–6, 128–9, 137 68–9, 75–76, 92, 98–9, 106, 111, 113, 116, 139–40 Sharma, Arvind 76, 78 Wile, Douglas 103, 106 Shimabara 120 Wolf, Margery 55–6, 58, 95, 106 Shinran 74 Wu 49, 51, 104 Shinto 72–3, 75, 78, 149 Yōmon 21 Siddiqi, Dina 11–7, 20 Yangzhou 139 Sievers, Sharon 125 Yasmin 20 Silverberg, Miriam 28 Yin-Yang 48–9, 95, 98, 103, 105 Skov, Lise 28 Slote, Walter 58 Zannat, Mahbuba 10, 20 Smith, Brian 69 Zen 75, 93, 101 Smyers, Karen 72, 78 Zito, Angela 58