What is a woman? How do you become one? These are the questions the younger generation may soon raise if the identity of women continues to be shaped, questioned, or diminished by society's expectations. Big Deal brought me back to a glimpse of my childhood.
I remember the conversations among relatives at family gatherings, comments about a girl's body being too dark, too thin, not pretty enough. Backhanded compliments thrown out casually, as if spite were something to be passed around with the food. It feels strange to think that these were the kinds of ideas being introduced to a seven-year-old child.
Years later, that seven-year-old became thirteen, and the conversation shifted. Too thin and too dark gave way to new instructions: "Be careful what you wear." "Your shorts are too short." "Your top is too revealing." "Stop showing so much skin so you can avoid the eyes of men." Suddenly, it became a thirteen-year-old girl's responsibility to ensure she would not lead men into sin. "Do not be too outspoken." "Be a Maria Clara." "Fix your posture." "Avoid making friends with boys." "Go home early. You're not pokpok to be coming home late."
How does a teenager get compared to a harlot simply because she stayed out late, when all she wanted was to enjoy her youth?
At the time, I obeyed. I believed it was a woman's responsibility to avoid provoking men, and that the clothes she wore could somehow explain why men acted inappropriately toward her. Slowly, I became conscious of what I wore before stepping outside. A quiet whisper, something pretty but not too pretty, began to ring at the back of my head. I started noticing the eyes that followed me. I became careful about where I sat, where I stood, how I moved.
As if my life were being threatened by something I could not name or see.
And then comes the next stage: the weight of anticipated motherhood, idealization, and sexualization. Whether a woman chooses motherhood or not, she is always at risk of being called selfish. Over time, without even realizing it, the constant scrutiny plants something in a woman's heart: the need to be seen, the hunger for validation.
These are experiences most women, if not all, carry from childhood into womanhood, all in service of a Maria Clara culture. It would be difficult to find a woman who has never heard similar words at a simple salo-salo with family. I, too, became someone who sought validation, though quietly. Not loud or showy, but watchful, always observing from the sidelines, taking careful note of what was expected and what was punished.
These expectations are passed down so casually, from one generation to the next, that we sometimes fail to notice how early girls are taught to question their appearance, their behavior, their clothes, their choices, and even their right to simply exist without being blamed for the actions of men. Seeking validation has quietly become a near-universal chapter of womanhood.
Instead of teaching girls to be cautious, we have taught them that they are responsible for controlling how others treat them. This is why dismantling the patriarchal and misogynistic mindset feels so difficult. Questioning the culture can feel like opening something that was never meant to be touched, a kind of Pandora's box. And daring to open it releases the full weight of women's history, from the colonial era to the present day, case after case that has long been buried and ignored.
How many times has it happened? Men telling women what to wear, how to act, how to treat them as though their comfort were a right. And worse, women being blamed for what they endured. "Ginusto mo rin naman." A mockery that makes women feel ashamed for what was done to them, because society decided they allowed it. And so many Filipino women choose silence, swallowing the pain whole, letting it quietly destroy their mental health.
"Asawa kita, kaya akin ka lang."
A husband's words to his wife as he forces himself on her. She becomes, in Keziah Acharon's words, "a slave to an eye that simultaneously strips her of autonomy and humanity; a supposed extension of the male physically and an object directed to fit everyone else's mold." There is something suffocating about knowing that the threat lives inside your own home.
"The woman's body is not her own." — Keziah Acharon
Being a woman means being entangled in sexism and patriarchal treatment, sometimes at the hands of your own blood, your own circle, your own partner. Done by the very people women trusted most. If safety cannot be found at home, where does a woman run?
One would think these situations are impossible or exaggerated, but that is precisely how severe they are. The pain, the shame, the guilt, and the trauma accumulate in women who have no one to turn to and nowhere to go.
When does it end? How do we uproot a misogynistic mindset so deeply embedded in our systems and our culture?
The answer is difficult. A woman cannot free herself without carving her own path out, often by force, often alone. Meanwhile, a man needs only to say "I am a man" to be believed and respected. A woman, in a male-dominated space, must prove herself at every turn, and in doing so, is sometimes pressured to abandon the very identity she is trying to protect. Many Filipino women simply learn to go with the flow because the alternative costs too much.
Women are told by nature they are vulnerable, yet instead of protection, they face backlash, discrimination, and dismissal. Society uses that vulnerability not to shelter women but to strip them of their identity. But when women come together and raise their voices through shared stories, something shifts. Filipino women can hold their ground, as long as they hold onto who they are.
"After all, voices are louder and more powerful when put together. Highlighting the plurality of women's voices subverts the notion that there is one ideal archetype for womanhood." — Anonymous
Perhaps the torch we carry as women should not always be passed on. Maybe it is time to put it down.
The fear, the shame, the silence, and the belief that women must always make themselves smaller to stay safe should not become another inheritance for the next generation. Our daughters should not have to learn that their clothes determine their worth, that their voices make them less of a woman, or that their bodies are responsible for the actions of others.
We can break that cycle, not by changing minds overnight, but by building new ones, new beliefs, new ways of seeing, for the generations that follow.
A woman does not have to make herself smaller to be respected. She does not have to be quiet to be good. Her story is hers.
And if there is one thing Big Deal reminds us, it is that silence is not the only way to survive.
Your story matters, even when someone tells you it does not. Your voice matters, even when you were taught to keep it down. Your experience deserves to be heard, not questioned, mocked, or buried.
For every woman who has been told to stay quiet, may you find the courage to speak. For every woman who has been taught to blame herself, may you learn to give yourself grace. And to every girl who comes after us, may she inherit not our fear, but our freedom.
By Rose Vele Peria