
Originally Posted by
Felons_Felony
I'm a first-generation Filipina; this is, needless to say, a bit of a point of concern of mine. I'm mostly referring to Luzon -- the main island, where Manila is -- in this post
This is going to end up being really long. I'm sorry; I'm drunk, tired, and had a hard day working my "clothed job."
A bit of context: the Philippines has, essentially, served as Southeast Asia's "raping bag" for the better part of its history. I mean this in a really serious way, because it goes beyond a dismissive government and into more pervasive cultural roots. After being conquered by Spain, Catholic missionaries were sent to convert the indigenous people -- most of whom rejected the religion at first but eventually had no real say in the matter. This religious influence has led to one of the worst, worst, worst sexual ed. systems in the world. My grandmother was sixteen when she married my grandfather, a much older man. My grandfather had managed to convince her, after doing nothing more than stealing a kiss, that she'd fallen pregnant. She went on to bear seven children.
There's both a reproductive ignorance and an obligatory Catholic strike against reproductive rights. I could go on for miles and miles, having been raised American, about how far behind we as Pinoys are in treating women. Admittedly, it's led to a lot of complexes I have as a dancer; my mother has always been a naturally beautiful woman, appearing exotic & foreign to Western men (among them, my father), which has over the years allowed her to live comfortably. Drawing the parallel between dancers and women like my mother -- both of whom make a living off of an attractive appearance -- often leaves me with a sense of guilt. My father, a cynical old Jewish ex-Air Force officer, took care to remind me that the only thing easier than being a hot chick was being a hot chick who actually knew what she was doing with life.
But that's not really the point I was trying to make. I just needed to get it off my chest.
The point I was trying to make is that the Philippines hasn't really grasped the concept of "reproductive rights." There are a whole fucking lot of us. I consider my family lucky because my mother & father met by happenstance, married, and a new opportunity was born. A lot of us got the chance to emigrate; others stayed behind and kept to farms & small businesses, receiving support from my mother. However, that sort of self-sustainable lifestyle is actually really, really difficult to accomplish in the third world. You'd be surprised. My grandmother actually worked as a seamstress in a sweatshop for a number of years before my parents met & married. And if you think the sex industry in Thailand has a reputation...
The age of consent in the Philippines is twelve; the age of consent for prostitution is eighteen. That said, the definition of "prostitution" is blurred. Keeping in mind the fact that most women are wildly uneducated about the matters of sex before childbirth, it's definitely plausible for human rights to come into question. It's not really about malice, though; it's about money. If you mate a third-world economy with what I consider a deep social plague, there's a lot of room for exploitation. It stops being "I'm being mistreated, I'm being exploited, and I as a human have rights & dignity" and starts sounding more like "My family needs me."
My mother -- like a lot of women who emigrate to the America from third-world countries, who seek opportunity and some semblance of a future -- has blossomed into, shall we say, a much more "enlightened, liberated, Americanized" woman of her time. She began using birth control after I was born, encouraged honesty rather than authority during my "coming-of-age." The thing of it is, you can never really completely abandon deeply-embedded traditional tendencies. I'd confided in her once about a friend of mine in high school whose stepfather was molesting her; her response was, "That makes sense; she always dressed like kind of a slut." This sort of caused a rift between us during my adolescence, after I was raped and could never let her find out for fear of evoking a sense of shame (I told my father later on and he agreed with my decision), but at the same time I bear a forgiveness for her because that's what we were raised with in the Philippines, and I'm just glad that I wasn't raised there for very long.
Because, beyond the often-strong family ties relatives have with one another, it's not really an environment conducive to feminine safety.
The question still exists, though: This is horrible; what do we do to help?
I'd like to think I've tried to answer that question simply in relaying a firsthand account of culture. Knowing the origins of a problem always makes it easier to suggest a solution. Reproductive rights are human rights, just as female genital mutilation is becoming more widely recognized as a monstrosity rather than an accepted practice. It goes beyond women choosing whether or not to bear children and into women having the education & mental capacity to choose whether or not they should. Additionally, since so much of the issue revolves around poverty, checking into nonprofit organizations and charities which seek to send aid to third-world nations, particularly ones where the sex industry is exploitative, is a good call.
But these are all part of the greater picture. What about the individuals? What about the girls whose faces really do show up on the screen? There do exist watchdog groups that seek to police the web, magazines, and black markets for human trafficking. There's also INTERPOL (the international police coalition). The issue gets trickier when you consider international vs. national law -- for example: mail-order bride magazines based out of Russia often recruit women from Belarus, but the Belarusian govt. can't really say anything because the companies aren't based in Belarus. I think I'll compose a list of relevant links tomorrow when I'm done working.
This was probably a lot longer than anyone actually really wanted to read. Hell, it's four o'clock in the morning here, and ended up being a lot longer than I really wanted to write. However, taking my familial background into consideration brings me a real sense of redemption as a dancer in the first-world. It takes the bastardization away from something enjoyable & pleasurable, puts the experience back into my hands. To every "feminist" who has ever questioned whether or not we girls are doing this of free will & sound mind, the answer should be pretty fucking obvious after reading this:
Yes, and I'm damn grateful.
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