Filipina feminist identity construction within the politics of western and third world feminisms

• Main Author: Arnado, Janet M.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2005
• Subjects: Feminism > Philippines; Feminism; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/11985
• Institution: De La Salle University

Western and third world feminist politics within the increasing global integration sets the backdrop where Filipina feminist identity is anchored. With the crossover of third world feminism in the west and western feminism in the third world, a blurring distinction emerges between third world and western feminisms. Due to this crossover, this paper argues that the significance of third world and western feminist conceptions in the 21st century is declining. I will use my qualitative study of twenty Filipina feminists as a case, whereby Filipina feminist experiences and perspective constitute a hybridization of western and third world views. Unlike most writings on feminisms that are anchored on the structuration of womens' movement, this paper dwells on the micro-politics of feminists' everyday lives. The contribution of his paper lies on how Filipina activists construct their "feminist" view of reality based on their lived gendered experiences within the Filipino culture, and under the backdrop of westernization. The paper operates on two dimensions of analysis, juxtaposing the macro and the micro. On a macro level, it attempts to argue for the declining significance western and third world feminist distinctions, as illustrated in the case study. At the micro level, the case study of Filipina feminists is in itself a theory fo Filipina feminism, no matter how limited.