#kawomenan

[radikalchick]

Care. Been thinking more and more about this as we hit a year under versions of lockdown and quarantine, given how things are so so much worse, and how headspace now has to accommodate so much more given 2022. I tell my squad: I think we’re all a little crazy at this point, and I feel it in many ways that I cannot put into words (yet), as I do think it’s my way of making sense of a year on lockdown, in the country with one of the worst pandemic responses, as I have been brought to the point of wondering if the care work we do in @pagasa.ph has been as much about keeping sane as it has been about extending compassion and kindness on a year when a majority got none. ✊🏽🇵🇭❤️🍋 @everythingsfineph is hosting this Q&A of women questions for #womensmonth2021! Do send any question at all. I promise to answer all of ‘em, no matter how difficult. 🍋❤️🍋❤️🍋❤️ Posted @withregram • @everythingsfineph When we’re a year into a pandemic, and there are absolutely no signs of things getting better, there is no reason to frown upon self-care. But can it be a feminist gesture? ❤️✊🏽🇵🇭🍋 Keep your questions coming! #kawomenan #feminism #feminist #feminismo #loveandlemons #loveandlemonseveryday #ofloveandotherlemons #essays #booksph #books #readindie #readindieph https://www.instagram.com/p/CMW8seRhXjR/?igshid=o7k5xap6uhka

[aninafish]

VDay Roundup: Day 1

Because it is always worth doing, I’ll be posting my favorite love poems until Valentine’s Day. Here’s the first one:

Pagbati sa Pagsinta

Joi Barrios

Nakatindig akong babatiin ang pagsinta. Hindi nakahimlay at nahihimbing na kailangang gisingin ng halik, hindi nakaupo’t naghihintay na para bang ang kanyang pagdating ang kabuuan ng buhay, hindi nakatingkayad o lumilipad na nakikipaglaro sa hangin at pangarap. Nakatayo ako’t sumasayad ang paa sa lupa, pagkat lagi’t lagi, nakayapak ako kung umibig.

(emphasis is mine)

For a schoolgirl who grew up with fairy tales, really waiting to to be the princess and not the ogre—this poem has and will always be a revelation. It is nice to be swept off your feet, the head rush of losing control and falling headlong into a love so new, but I find that the loves that have lasted around me are quiet and constant and grounded.

What I find most beautiful really is that, the last line is not only about having your feet planted firmly on the ground. But about them being bare, skin against the soil. So vulnerable, so unafraid, so connected.

I’ll add more things (maybe, a piece of art or a piece of music) as we progress. But today, Joi Barrios and her voice is more than enough.

If you’d like to contribute a favorite love poem or a song or an artwork, please send me a private message on FB or Twitter, so that it can be included.

[radikalchick]

Ask. Because as I said in the @shetalksasia interview, I am the persom who will always ask: what do YOU think? does this make sense? And that’s a good thing, to always ask questions, before moving forward. Am doing this with @everythingsfineph for #WomensMonth2021, probably the most critical time for women given the 2022 elections. 15 months to go. 🇵🇭❤️🍋✊🏽#kawomenan #feminism #womanhood #beingbabae #babae https://www.instagram.com/p/CL5rN6jhHKI/?igshid=mm68ks5bd893

[radikalchick]

Dear Unhappy. This is the last book Jose Rizal purportedly read before he was executed, which he left behind to and inscribed for his wife Josephine Bracken, who to my mind are portrayals on stage and in film, though mostly it is @crisvillonco in Dear and Unhappy (by @carvercomics), at a #VirginLabfest years ago, who portrayed a Josephine lost in a forest, shifting from hysteria to dementia, with voices in her head, or an overactive imagination, but also now that I think about it, the possibility of truth-telling in the throes of unhappiness, by a woman denied her role in the hero’s life, silenced by her foreign-ness, alienated by the historical milieu and national context within which she existed. And in that forest she is bound to the babaylan (played by #BernardoBernardo), which Josephine herself becomes in the end to the extent of finding her own voice, stronger now, certain in the path she wishes to take, beyond what everybody thinks of her, about which she is well-aware, she is without blinders, and she is without Joe to guide her, no dear husband. Just self, unhappy as she is, to move forward, or away, maybe beyond what is expected. There is a power in that, isn’t it? But also there is much to be said about people who know to acknowledge unhappiness, who dare call it what it is, especially when one is part of why someone so dear, could be so unhappy. 📷via the #NationalMuseum, which will allow public viewing of this historical artifact in the first week of 2020 to commemorate our National Hero’s execution, December 30 1896. #123Years #JoseRizal #JosephineBracken #Books #NationalHero #Rizal #RizalDay #Love #Romance #kawomenan https://www.instagram.com/p/B6tONWSB6IV/?igshid=1tstfiecxteqc

[radikalchick]

Slow. One of the things I’m most thankful for is that I’ve done yoga on and off since I was a teenager, thanks to a nanay who knew yoga and taichi and meditation, too, and to (later on), low priced yoga sessions I could get coupons for. It’s what I’ve gone back to, over and over, the past year, just by myself, following videos on YouTube, testing which channel works best. After a terrible bout with lower back pain last month that was quickly healed by one of her videos, I think I’ve found my favorite online yoga guru: #yogawithadrienne. She’s funny and talkative, keeps reminding you to adjust to your body, you’re not competing with anyone, and tells you to find your dignity and smile. That last one is a fitting reminder, too! #yoga #selfcare #kawomenan #exercise #quiet #yogaeverydamnday #yogateacher #yogajourney #yogamat #onlineyoga

[radikalchick]

Skin. One of the major things I had to get over growing up was insecurity about my legs with every imaginable scar from allergies and bike accidents and falls. When I got over that, I also stopped worrying too much about my skin: the scars fade, the skin stretches, boys -- and I! -- cared more about other things. #Turning40 though has surprisingly meant almost adolescent skin woes: pimples, dry patches, new allergies, something that does not surprise my derma, who told me to try #physiogel, which hooray! was part of the box of goodies @mikkigalang gave me last month, knowing as she did about my crazy allergies. Always good to have someone look after you in this way and lucky for me Mikki is not only a beauty queen she's also a chemist. Taray! #ThankYou #Sisterhood #sisters #age #skin #aging #kawomenan

[radikalchick]

Rise To The Occasion. Cooking was always a chore, my resistance to it borne of the expectation that I needed to know how to cook because how else will I find a man and get married? Living on my own for a decade, there was never enough time for it, and I just didn't have the patience. Back home at my parents' it was Mama's thing, and I'd help out by buying take-out instead of slaving in the kitchen. But the first quarter of 2017 was surprisingly about learning to cook, and not just frying up stuff and cooking rice, but as @tuxqs has called it: putahe levels! It can still feel like a chore of course, but three months in it's also become a way to destress, to take my mind away from the books I need to finish making, that article I can't quite wrap my head around, the state of the nation (yes OA!). You'd think the more tiring things are, the less you'd want to stand in front of a hot stove. As it turns out, it's not only a free work-out, but also the achievement one needs on days when nothing seems right, as even if you're eyeballing the recipe and throwing together what you have in the pantry, somehow with practice you get a sense of how things come together in the end. Not always in life (and rarely in nation), but in there kitchen highly probable. At a time like this, one will take whatever good news one can get. #cooking #macandcheese #kawomenan #feminism

[radikalchick]

Happy Birthday. There's reason for anxiety when a 12-year old's birthday prompts greetings that talk mostly about her future based on how she looks -- beauty queen, model -- both good jobs for sure, but neither of which capture what else is here. She's probably one of the most well-read adolescents around, she has a film repertoire that would put many adults to shame, she is skilled in dry wit via parents that raised her to speak out, to be funny, to be a smart aleck, to know she is more than the limits of conservatism, of religiosity, of what her peers imagine as inescapable labels. One hopes we all realize how dangerous it is to reduce our daughters to how they look, when we should be talking about what they can do, what they can become, what they already are, beyond the physical. Because even praise is toxic especially when it is premised on nothing but the superficial. #Ril @janearguelles04 @ayerarguelles #kawomenan #feminism #beyondbeauty #girlhood #womanhood

[radikalchick]

Equals Love. Seek those engagements that look you in the eye, ask how you are, wait to hear you speak, and actually listen to what you say. To love is to know to treat another as equal. But most importantly it is to know that equality is what you deserve. #galentinesday #Valentines2017 #Valentayms #Valentines #kawomenan #womenPH #romance #love #selflove #OfLoveAndOtherLemons

[radikalchick]

Saturday! Hope your weekend’s spent with a lot of hilata time wherever you are.💋💃🏽 #Repost @tiendetitas with @get_repost ・・・ And what are weekends like for you? This beauty’s for sale at P450 inclusive of shipping and an #AlpabetoNgPagkababae zine. Order form’s in the bio. #handmade #embroidery #embroideryart #women #bodies #realbodies #letsbemakers #letsbemakersph #crafts #TitaProjects #kawomenan #ListenToYourTita #weekends

[radikalchick]

Babae. Did reach Letter B. Should do more for Lit Month, yes? So many letters in the alphabet. #AlpabetoNgPagkababae #womensmonth2018 #zines #zinePH #zinefest #essays #kawomenan

[radikalchick]

Words. This, my daily reminder that words are important, that we women hurt each other with words all the time. Off the book (swipe left) with probably the dirtiest cover ever. My goal this year is to print more of the second edition, which had all these men in it because women hold up half the sky, but that would make it only half lifted. 💋✊🏽🇵🇭 #OfLoveAndOtherLemons #books #booksPH #makebooks #bookmaking101 #lovelemons #kawomenan #womensday #internationalwomensday #womensmonth

[radikalchick]

Kick-Ass. When you see these Sydney Bristows and you know exactly in which episodes these happened, and what stunts she did, and how she kicked ass and you’re all I waaaaaant! But then you’re an adult woman managing your finances better and you think nooooooo, because there are so many reasons not to, and you can elaborate on those reasons, and ... ooooh look there’s a Jessica Jones, too! #StopEnteringFilbarsKatrina #kawomenan #fictions #womanpower #fictionalwomen

[radikalchick]

For Sale. Very suspicious of how feminism and woman power is appropriated by big transnational businesses, which generally operate on the abuse of (women) workers in the third world, where labor is cheap and laws are lax in favor of foreign "investments" in sweatshops and factories. It is of course the same abuse we know many Filipinas suffer in the hands of our own locally-run businesses, from that mall running on the contractual, no-benefits labor of salesgirls, to women workers who get little or no chance at actually changing their lives in the hands of purported "social enterprises" that's supposed to be an alternative kinder capitalist model but too often functions no differently when it comes to actually empowering workers and giving them a just share of the enterprise's profits. That some of these businesses are also run by women should force us to think about how in the Philippines, it is critical not only to acknowledge class difference, but to see it in relation to any articulation and exercise of feminism, because really: when we celebrate woman power by selling something how much of that is about our own practice of ensuring that we don't abuse other women, and how much of it is just us capitalizing on it, complicit in the exercise of simply using these terms and concepts as soundbites, because hey look! we can sell a P1,400-peso shirt while we're at it! We don't even have to practice or believe in feminism to do it! #kawomenan #Philippines #feminism #feminismPH #feminist #capitalism #classcrisis #classviolence

[radikalchick]

Friday Night. Ended that hectic week with @lescranky talking about the present and past (char), the mean and the nasty and people's saving grace, also: Riverdale and Sta Clarita Diet, and Tiger Beat and Luke Perry and Molly Ringwald, and I realize we so rarely talk about kababawan and #WhyIsThat?!? We should go back to that all the time! 👯💋 Here's hoping we always all have conversations we need to have, serious and otherwise, with the few people who matter. #friends #friendships #sisterhood #kawomenan

[radikalchick]

Calling Women. This was a slide that was to kick-off a discussion about the state of women in culture, for which I thought It was important to highlight how I've been namecalled, how words have been used to dismiss and discredit -- not what I write -- but WHO I am, and obviously often enough who I am is defined by the fact that I am woman. It seems important to post at this point given the tendency towards celebrating womanhoods while silencing the facts that make us diverse and different from each other, from political alliances to social class, and it seems important to insist that these differences be acknowledged, because only then can a discussion about being Pinay be fruitful and productive: without the blindness of elitism, the silencing of the fact that sometimes women are women's worst enemies. #feminismPH #feminism #feminist #feministPH #kawomenan #womanhoodPH #womanhood #womanPH #womanwriter #writingwomen