Ang Babae (The Woman)

by Patricia Ramos

AN: Something I composed in the car last night. Might record it later.

For heroes. And Sir Bigs.

***

I love a woman,

But I hate a woman. No. I despise her. I'm disgusted by her. Sometimes, the very thought of her infuriates me into the red of my blood and the white of my bones.

She loved thrice, but she was no whore. 

The first took her maidenhood just when she was a girl all her own. He taught her how to pray, and he taught her how to cover up, and taught her that almost everything about her was bad

and she believed him. 

300 years, she believed him, to the point that she smelted herself down and tried to fit herself into the mold of his ideal woman (even though, deep inside, she knew she never could be). She took his words and stuffed them into her flesh until she shone in all shades of glutathione-white and dumbly followed with angel-like veneration. 

Sometimes, she came to her senses and tried to fight, tried to convince him that she was more than he made her out to be. Always, always, she failed. 

And when she had practically become what he wanted her to be, and almost - almost - lost everything she was, he was taken away.

The second was gallant and blonde and tall, and filled her pretty little mind with the Charlston and green, across-the-bay eyes and Coca Cola. 

He was her knight in shining aluminum armor and the way she reflected off of it so bright and blinding made her squint and think that it was all him when in fact, it was all her. He was just trying to show her.

But soon all she ever wanted was to be just. 

Like. 

Him. 

He swept her off her feet and drank her like a rootbeer float, and all that filled her mind was gaining his approval, and pleasing him, and being just, like, him. He kissed her silly and promised her all sorts of things like change and education and electricity, and even though he did give much of this to her she began to forget she was also her own person. 

She was infatuated with thoughts of a foreign dream and told herself that when you make it there, you make it anywhere, until she forgot "there" was here all along.

The third was a surprise. The white sheets on her bed were stained with a single circle of blood red and even in the morning she couldn't bear thinking about a rising sun. He built a cross upon her lung and until today she has trouble breathing because of it. Then she was the damsel in distress who had to be swept out of a misery by her blonde and blue-eyed Hercules.

When it was time for her second beau to leave she was practically learning how to walk again. Her thin little fawn legs top-heavy with the weight of a war past, her hair no longer as black and lustrous and long as before, and her heart so dark and greedy it infected those of the poor young provincial lads who ever dared to venture there, who ever dared to make it there.

I hate a woman. But this is not her fault.

Her family members crowd around her with relics and surgical needles and curfews and campaign posters, telling her she needs nothing but approval from everyone else but herself. She was young when she was taught that what she was was never satisfactory, and when she was cursed to never think herself worthy of anything, even her own self-confidence.

This is not her fault.

I hate a woman. But I love a woman.

I loved her when, finally, she stood up against a brother who told her never to speak up when it was against him. He was clever when he clothed her in grey and forced her into shoes that were white and way too small for her. 

He called her gorgeous around other people but went to lengths to hide how ugly he found her. 

He made friends with her second boyfriend, his yellow hair now streaked with salt and pepper, and sometimes lent her out to him just for dollars and dollars and dollars. Her ex told her he could never do that to her, because she loved her, even though it was no longer in that way. He paid her brother anyway.

One day, she came out of her room in all yellow - a yellow dress, a yellow headband, yellow shoes that fit her perfectly - and when he told her to go back to her room and change into her proper clothes she kicked him all the way to Hawaii. She won.

I love her for this. I remember, even though to her it is a distant memory.

I love her for the sun in her coppered, ruddy skin, and the stars in her chocolate eyes (three in each one). I love her for the way her nose was wideset and snubbed, and the rough, grizzly twang in every English enunciation. I love her for all the ways she talks. I love her for the days where she smells like crushed sampaguita and the nights where her scent is dama de noche. I love her for she is home.

I love her for what she is, and I love her even though she does not know it.

I hate a woman only because she does not know how to love herself.

The Congratulations You're World-Class Badge Theory

A few disclaimers before we go on.

1. This is a Theory I named just yesterday so I could use it for my Thy Womb entry just briefly.
2. However, I've been thinking about this Filipino mentality for a while and only now am I putting it down in words.

The unofficial design prototype.

The Congratulations You're World-Class Badge Theory came about from that popular Pinoy belief that as long as you're deemed worthy by some famous foreign body, you are immediately deemed worthy by Filipinos everywhere. Alternatively, it is also the belief that being "world-class" is the only defining factor of anything Filipino-produced.

"World-class" is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "being of the highest caliber in the world". That's no longer the case. Today, "world-class" is the only thing  separating the wheat from the chaff in terms of Filipino art, music, film, books, etc etc, even in BEING FILIPINO AT ALL.

Why do we need the world to tell us we're good enough when we know that we're good enough? Is it because of us not knowing that we're good enough?

Look up "world class filipino" on Google and you're bombarded by all these articles detailing who "World Class Filipinos" are. You see the usual suspects, like Manny Pacquiao and Lea Salonga. These are people you should look up to - at least, they're people who've made it big in other nations.

I suppose this is what almost four centuries under colonial rule does to you. The Philippines forgets that she is her own person, that she can actually complement herself??? and that she doesn't need the endorsement of foreigners to feel accomplishment, and similarly go apesh*t in defensiveness when foreigners endorse her negatively?

I'm not saying it's wrong to use the word "world-class". That aspect is only on its overuse and my sheer personal annoyance at how many times people just have to use it. However, when deeming something Filipino "worthy" only boils down to being "world-class", when we actually have that chance to find ourselves worthy and independent of anyone else's opinion, we have to decide once and for all to put away "world-class" and start thinking "Filipino pride". That is, a pride that doesn't need the approval of any foreign nation. 

Chino on his article in antipinoy.com, entitled The Truth About World-Class Filipinos, says it best:

We have to recognize that to become World-Class Filipinos, we need to examine our place in the world, and humble ourselves in acknowledgment that cooperation with, not competition with or more especially hostility towards, other countries is the right attitude and the way to help uplift our own. We should develop ourselves in a way as not to live in a box, but to get out of this box and learn to live alongside others out of this box.

We're well past that stage when we look up to the Foreign Body with big brown eyes, asking, "Is this good enough?", throwing a good, ol'-fashioned kiddy tantrum-slash-hissy fit when it doesn't meet their approval and throwing a celebration when they do. Grow up, Philippines. You deserve so much better than that.

I leave you with a quote from one of my favorite Phil. Star Supreme articles by the lovely Cate de Leon, entitled Pinoy pride and prejudice:

I want our pride to be something that is already there when we groggily wake up in the morning; something we would talk about very sparingly because mentioning it is actually quite redundant. Basically, shut up and be. Selling is hard. Real swag is easy.

Redundant Links:
Pinoy pride and prejudice by Cate de Leon (@catedeleon)
The Truth about World-Class Filipinos by ChinoF
Whatever the heck this is (Worldclassfilipino.com)