Women’s Month always gets me thinking about the women whose lives affect me every day, and I don’t just mean the few women friendships I keep, the ones who have become my younger sisters, the relatives that I grew up with, the nanay who is at the heart of who I am, the teachers whose voices resonate in my head.

The Pinay “other”

I also mean the Pinays I know only through images: those on billboards all perfected by technology, selling every from clothes to whiter armpits, kitchenware to new boobs. Those whose images dictate how women are defined and limited to certain roles. I mean the diverse set of women Senators and government officials who rise to the occasion of the news; or if you’re Miriam Defensor-Santiago (who I am not at all related to), who will actually ask the more difficult questions and assess the more complex assertions.

There too, are the Pinays I am distanced from by class, but who define how I live every day precisely because of this difference. Of workers in factories and malls, of every manang who works the markets, each one who works the underground economy to survive. That woman who takes care of land and family, who takes on more than her husband does; the Overseas Filipina Worker who knows to take on the task of leaving home, if only so home might become better.

This year, a set of wishes for all of us Pinays, given the common conditions we suffer under, and taking cognizance of our differences. (more…)