The 8th of March is designated as International Women’s Day. That day had not always been the day for women all over the world. There were countries that set aside a day for women in February. Countries in Eastern Europe spend this day with men giving the important women in their life flowers. Whatever the date, women and men all over the world make sure this day is a political day. It is a time for paying not only tribute to women but examining the world’s responsibility to women. The tribute can come in the form of flowers and bouquet; the examination is by way of looking at the women and how men look at them.
I believe flowers and politics can always be the greatest dissonance. For a special date to honor women – wives, mothers, grandmothers, sisters – giving flowers is flippant way to tell other people that women are important. Men always give flowers to women but this gesture is no more a tribute than it is the act of making sure women are pushed down to remain locked in that special margin, but margin nevertheless.
You’ve heard of gallant men saying they will never hurt women because women are there to be protected? Or, he who promises to put the special woman in his life on a pedestal? Well, pets are to be protected and costly figurines belong to pedestals.
Bracketing the season to allow one day for reminding us of the women in this world is a sign that the entire year is not marked for them. And yet, there is hope, if one may call this hope. The theme for this year’s celebration of IWD is “Women and Men United to End Violence Against Women.” There is an attempt to address with that theme the incongruity of the celebration. It is an attempt, however, that teeters on the absurd. After all, the world really should foster a movement that will have women and men uniting to end violence against women and men.
The absurdity does not end there: the month of March is also the Fire Prevention Month in the Philippines. What’s the link? In March, fires occur most often in this country. In March, when we observe the day for women, then we get reminded about the injustices that man-made structures bring upon women. There is the default notion that the head of the family is a man. There is the concept of single parent, where the only nurturing person is a mother. In our society, there is a system that allow fathers to leave. And women to endure and, later, to forgive.
One can romanticize that the single mother is a brave person. The figures, however, paint another scenario: in a family with a single parent, one finds more hunger, less education. In terms of labor, one can always refer to the statistical representation of the participation of women in labor. The women’s participation would always be around 50 percent against men and their 80-plus percent participation. What we do not know, however, is that being a mother is not counted as work or labor. It is merely seen as a social extension of a biological predisposition.
After many years, the words from Freud unfortunately still reign: biology is destiny. So much about this world is given to men. So much of this universe is not parcelled to women. Not the loneliness, and not the discrimination, and not the joys even can be understood by the world that remains under the signs of men. And it is a world that is hurt by poverty, inequality, wars.
From the book Hagkus. Twentieth-century Bikol Women Writers by Paz Verdades M. Santos is this work of Clavecillas with the title “Sarong Rosas na Amarillo asin Sangribong Rosas na Pula” (One Yellow Rose and a Hundred Red Roses). Clavecillas tells us how she is “used to just one yellow rose to explain the meaning of the scars on the skin of the world I revolve in” (Natuod ako/na saro sanang rosas na amarillo/ an nagpapaliwanag kan kahulugan/kan mga pinilaan/sa kublit). She also talks of “a dream where she saw a thousand women swallowing the teeth of their loneliness, with each one of them giving her one red rose” (Munan, nangiturugan ako/na may sangribong babaeng/pighahalon su mga ngipon/kan saindang kamunduan;/kada saro sa sainda/nagtao sakong sarong rosas na pula).
I am tempted, with my Western education and interest in those caustic epigrams, to say that I hear the voice of Dorothy Parker in this poetry. I doubt if Franz Clavecillas will be flattered at all. They are worlds apart. Parker was a wit who survived and lived in the comfort of men; Clavecillas truly walks in this poem with women even as they pine for shelter under the kind stars (sa sirong nin mga maboot na bituon).