Freedom from imaginary prisons
We learned about the different waves of feminism as part of our high school English Literature class. Our teacher, Mrs. Marisyll Pengson, used sociology, philosophy, and history so that we could see feminism as a critique of faulty social structures that always had to be questioned lest they lead to new forms of slavery.
We studied older, militant forms alongside the newer, pragmatic feminism. To be feminist was not to hate men. To say that one hated men was to just be hateful, to feel without thinking, to impose rage without questioning its origin or direction.
Many of us embraced post-modern feminism, which sees women as discerning, independent, free to choose their path. Women can be whatever they wish: astronauts, scientists, writers, wives, mothers, politicians, philosophers—anything, as long as they fully consent to and want the role that they pursue.
Women should not be subjected to constraints because of supposedly traditional norms or blindly followed rules. By extension, women should not be limited to that which is tender, gentle, or motherly, all because of some vague framing of “femininity.”
This was why we, as high school students then and professionals now, frown on gendered colors, jobs, even toys. Many of us bristle when we hear that girls should play only with dolls and boys should play with Lego, that boys should like blue and girls should like pink.
It’s not so much the quality of the color that enrages us as it is the connotation of enforced femininity. Many of my batchmates, after all, campaigned for former Vice President Leni Robredo and proudly wore hot pink or rose pink in support. But we did so—and will continue to do so—because she represents a woman who refuses to be limited by social norms and societal constraints. She is a wife, mother, lawyer, and administrator—and does not bow to any insinuation of weakness, any attempts at stereotyping.
It was the high school lessons that guided many of us later, as we prioritized shaping ourselves into professionals. Many of us wondered why some of our college classmates talked so carelessly about women needing a good job so that they could marry properly.
Much later, I wondered why my undergraduate students at Purdue were hostile to women academics and even labeled them “those feminists.” This prompted me to march to the front of the classroom in which I was team-teaching back then, and deliver an impromptu lecture on the many feminist movements and what they actually meant.
My lessons came back in full force last week—thank you, always, Mrs. Pengson—when two videos made the rounds online.
In an interview, conservative US bishop Athanasius Schneider critiqued post-Vatican II liturgical reforms. As part of that commentary, he said that women should not be allowed to be readers at Mass.
The reason: the Blessed Virgin Mary, in Her humility, would never do it. As though proclaiming the Word were automatically a form of pride. As though a man’s speech is his birthright and a woman’s silence is instant modesty.
A commenter on the video did not help: women were best suited, he said, only to Old Testament readings that told stories requiring “a motherly voice.” As though the job of a lector was that of merely recounting old narratives. As though the holy sacrifice of the Mass were a mere babysitting ritual, complete with storybook reading and snacks.
In another video, Nick Fuentes, a self-avowed anti-Semite and white nationalist, said that “the number one political enemy in America is women.” The reasons: women are responsible for “hurting the fertility rate” and “making us sensitive to poor people.”
His chilling solution: women should be “sent to the breeding gulags. The good ones will be liberated. The bad ones will toil in the mines forever.”
The easy, pedestrian reply is, “What outdated ideas! It’s a new century—we’ve moved past this!”
But I think many women who share my views on the statements do not fight on the basis of trends. Anyone can call a year, a decade, or a century “new” and then push for a new set of beliefs to supplant the “old.”
Our fight is that of rebelling against a world of mad selection, of reckless cherry-picking, of people who trap others in a hypothetical box. We fight against artificial humility by those who cannot tell the difference between enforced silence and nuanced restraint.
The fight is against those who bear false witness, who twist scripture and claim God’s wisdom, and who condemn women who do good work but are silent when the victims of evildoers like Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein beg for their stories to be heard and for justice to be served.
Because yes, we, the feminists, are not hateful about empty offenses. We are angry at the imagined prisons in which women are caged.
We will still choose our own paths. We will still proclaim the Word at Mass. We will still speak up, in the tradition of the women who were the first to see the stone rolled away from the tomb, who heard the words of the angel, and who never lost the courage to bear witness.
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iponcedeleon@ateneo.edu
