On the surface, sexism isn’t evident in the Ateneo.
The Ateneo has many female administrators, has had co-education for decades and does not have an overly disproportionate male valedictorian-to-female valedictorian ratio. Sexism just isn’t seen in the hallways the same way “equality” is.
Leloy Claudio, PhD, an assistant professor of the Political Science Department, says that he does not see sexism on an institutional level or even among his students. Likewise, Laurel Fantauzzo, the moderator of the Gender Equality Society and a lecturer at the English Department and Fine Arts Program, says that from her experience, she didn’t have a lot of bad stories to share about obvious sexism in her classes.
Political science junior Marianne Vitug says that many of the professors that she has encountered “have shown nothing but respect and proper recognition of women’s abilities.” She also observes that the students in the Ateneo are “mostly open-minded about gender equality.”
Generally, female students do not receive different treatment than male students in the classroom. The Ateneo doesn’t give its male students privileges that the female students do not also get.
Yet, given the chance to be anonymous, sexism in the Ateneo community reveals itself.
An online revelation
“Putang ina naman nito.”
The expletive comes from Claudio. It slips from his mouth at the sight of the top three most “liked” Ateneo de Manila University Secret Files posts about how women dress on campus. “This is terrible. This is really terrible stuff.”
There are things that cannot be voiced out in public, and the Ateneo Secret Files gives those things a megaphone. The Facebook page hosts a plethora of confessions of love, rants about the “Great Wall,” stories about catching couples in moments when they thought they were alone—all from anonymous posters. Even though the page itself may have been just meant to make you laugh, the more controversial posts on the Secret Files are about how women dress, how women act, what women are.
These posts attack how women behave. People comment on them defending them as mere anonymous opinions. However, they are broadcast to over 20,000 Facebook users and “liked” by hundreds of people who share the same thoughts.
The word is: Sexist. That’s what these posts are. And they might be indicative of a larger problem in the Ateneo.
“Note to girls”
Posts on the Ateneo Secret Files berate women for many things: For partying too much, for not being conservative enough, but most especially for wearing certain articles of clothing.
One Secret File reads, “Girls, kalma lang… Yes we should enjoy, pero wag naman sobrang sobra na mukha na kayong mga pokpok (Girls, calm down… Yes, we should enjoy but not to the point that you look like prostitutes).”
In a mix of English and Filipino, another one says, “Note to girls: If you don’t want to be ogled, don’t wear short shorts or spaghetti straps or anything revealing in campus. [When you do,] you get annoyed that you are ogled. Of course you are. Your outfits are asking for it.”
These anonymous posts reveal the thoughts of the Ateneans who posted them and the “likes” that these posts garnered—531 and 219, respectively, as of press time—show a prevalent belief that women’s clothing need to be policed.
However, there are close to no posts about men’s outfits “asking for it.” Claudio says that he sees no posts about men in tank tops or even men in the John Gokongwei School of Management Student Enterprise Center being “douchebags.”
Vitug mentions that this double standard exists even in the dress code of the Ateneo, saying that it is “much more restrictive for girls than it is for guys.”
This is problematic because the dress code and the posts on the Secret Files perpetuate the idea that a woman’s respectability depends on what she’s wearing, forgetting that she is a human being who should be respected no matter what clothes she has on.
There are other double standards that posts in the Ateneo Secret Files makes apparent: Girls cannot party as much as boys can. Girls cannot sleep around like boys can or else they aren’t “wife material.”
Origins
Claudio says these dangerous thoughts are not just violent towards women but also “based on empirically incorrect ideas about where sexual harassment comes from.”
He explains that posts like these give the idea that if a woman wears revealing clothes, it is her fault if she is ogled–or worse, raped. “People who are rapists—empirically, there’s something wrong with them,” he says. “They’re culpable… they’re the violent people. They [have] abusive personalities.”
Claudio also mentions that these ideas and the posts on the Ateneo Secret Files reflect his theory that “they learn this from their parents, probably. Like the ‘overly conservative tito’ type.” He also says that the idea that girls shouldn’t be wearing short shorts may also come from “sexist versions of religion.”
Fantauzzo says that the kind of thinking that women’s wearing short clothes are tantamount to their “asking for it” is residue from larger issues concerning the perception of women. She says that there are numerous things that are responsible for this skewed perception. These ideas include: “[Men’s] not seeing women as fully complex and human, their trying to assert power, their not knowing what [rape and consent] are.”
For Vitug, sexism is “evidently rooted in more traditional thinking of what women should stick to in terms of dress and conduct.” She says that the environment and people that one surrounds him or herself with are definitely factors in how a person perceives women.
In Claudio’s opinion, there is a possibility that subjects like Theology 131: Marriage, Family Life and Human Sexuality perpetuate gender inequality because the subject talks about “notions of the family.”
“Implicitly there is male privilege there, because the man is the head of the family and the woman [submits herself to her husband]. That has an insidious effect on the thinking of people,” he says. He explains that Theology 131 can swing in two directions: In favor of male privilege or in favor of the “sacredness of humanity as being equal.”
Moreover, Vitug says that the Ateneo does try to teach students that men and women are equal in their capacities. However, besides the dress code, she also says that the core curriculum’s lack of subjects concerning gender and sexuality also contributes to the sexism of students.
Fantauzzo says that the Secret Files makes it clear that women’s bodies are policed a lot more than men’s. “They’re cast as dangerous temptresses while at the same time expected to maintain some kind of submissive wifely demeanor,” she explains. This is far from the reality of Filipino women who hold important positions in the Philippines. She says, “It’s almost as if women can’t be fully complex and expressive and human as a dude who wants to dress differently.”
Reflections in the blue
Fantauzzo repeatedly says that, in her experience, she hasn’t seen sexism in her classes and in the Ateneo. If she ever recognizes an “imbalance” in her classes, she says she is quick to resolve them. She says, “I don’t see [sexism in the Ateneo], but I’m not saying it’s not there.”
Fantauzzo shares a story when, in class, a male student used the word “whore” to describe a character in a story. Her students laughed, but Fantauzzo explained to them that “‘whore’ is a very gendered insult.” She also shared that a student had written a piece about a character that was a non-specific gender. The class laughed at the idea.
“Trans people, people who don’t fit into any gender binary tend to encounter the most violence and we laugh at them. But for some of them, a language in which there is no gendered pronoun like Tagalog is quite a gift, because in English, there’s no room for somebody who’s on both sides [of the gender binary],” she says.
Claudio says that he also hasn’t seen sexism because he is “an explicitly feminist teacher” and his students know better than to be sexist in front of him.
Vitug says, “I think almost everyone avoids the ‘sexist’ label, but I do think that many people are still struggling to catch and correct the more subtle or simple things. I think that many girls, for example, will say that they are strong and independent, but will balk at the idea of going out with a guy who only wants to pay for half the tab on the first date. Those are the little inconsistencies that people don’t really know how to reconcile.”
Claudio wonders “if [sexism] gets less pronounced the longer they (students) stay here.” He theorizes: “These attitudes would be more pronounced with freshmen, especially if they come from exclusive schools.”
On sexism in the Ateneo, he says, “[It’s] not [on the] surface–you have to dig deep to see this. I’m almost sure that there’s something brewing underneath and what [is needed] is a means through which victims of this kind of thinking can articulate what they think.”
Solutions
Claudio proposes some solutions to the sexism in the Ateneo: A women’s office in the Sanggunian where women can talk about their concerns with female officers and student organizations that “socialize people against sexism.” He explains his experience in the Ateneo Debate Society, which sees a lot of sexist freshmen transform into vocal feminists by the time they graduate.
Fantauzzo says that talking to boys at an early age and telling them about consent and rape would help alleviate the problem. She notes that rape prevention has been one-sided—girls are told, “Don’t get raped” while boys aren’t explicitly told, “Do not rape.”
Presently, the Ateneo may be showing signs of being more open to feminist discourse, with a proposed gender studies minor under the Sociology and Anthropology Department. The Developmental Studies program, along with the Sociology and Anthropology Department, offers some classes in gender studies.
Even the sexist posts on the Ateneo Secret Files garner hundreds of comments from feminists in the Ateneo community. The word is: Outraged. Atenean feminists are given fuel to speak up against the culture that tells them that their objectification is their fault.
Despite being bothered by its emergence, Claudio is happy that sexism mostly only comes out when anonymity is ensured. “I think these guys know that if they said this publicly here and not in a secret forum—and this is a good thing—that they would get pilloried. And rightfully so.”
Vitug closes, “I’d like to think every group, organization, or institution is capable of being open to feminism, in [one] form or another. Whether or not we work toward it, however, is an entirely different matter.”
The secret sexist files
by David G. Garcia
The concept of anonymity on the Internet removes much of inhibition one usually has to deal with when socializing online. Unfortunately, this anonymity often results in offensive opinions being brought to the surface.
On Ateneo De Manila Secret Files, a Facebook page where Ateneans can post anonymous confessions, several sexist concepts are manifest. Below are a few of the more distressing examples of such posts verbatim.
November 30, 2013
“Hi boys, do you really like those wild party girls? Di ko talaga gets eh. I don’t get why you guys fall for them. Kasi hot sila? Kasi ganun sila magsuot? Kasi malandi sila? Do you really think they’ll be for keeps? Can you present them to your parents?
I mean hello, come on, there are a lot more girls out there, girls who just want to be loved and doesn’t need to party like them to get you. Sorry, not all girls are like that. But then again, why do we need boys like you who obviously sees girls in a mababaw perspective.
Girls, kalma lang. We’re in college to study and to create a good image of ourselves. Yes we should enjoy, pero wag naman sobrang sobra na mukha na kayong mga pokpok. We’rxe in THE Ateneo de Manila for Christ Sakes.
Boys, I know you want to have fun and meet a lot of girls, but there are girls out there who are hurt by your decisions. Di niyo lang alam. There might be a decent girl, a wife material, who really likes you but you only look at those other girls. College na tayo, look at long term stuff naman. We should be done playing games.”
– Wife Material, SOM, 2016
November 30, 2013
“Note to girls: Kung ayaw niyong mabastos, wag kayong magsuot ng pekpek shorts o spaghetti strap o kahit anong revealing sa campus. Tapos maiinis kayo kapag may nang-manyak sa inyo. Malamang? Humihingi yung outfit niyo eh.
Ang dami-daming babaeng kaya namang nakapantalon, bakit hindi niyo kaya? Kung mas ‘refreshing’ para sa inyo mga sinusuot niyo, pwede namang magdamit na parang hindi pambahay.
Note to guys: Kayo rin eh. May mga nagsusuot din ng maiikling shorts tapos ang angas kung umasta. Paiklian ba kayo ng shorts? Directly proportional ba? Ayaw namin makita yung leg hairs niyo, at hindi kayo chix so ayusin niyo rin pananamit niyo. Hindi rin kailangan ipagsigawan kamanyakan niyo sa buong campus na parang nasa high school pa kayo. College na to, uso maging sensitive sa iba.”
– taga ilog, SOSS, 2014
November 30, 2013
“Okay, since may ganito na, dito ko na lang ibubuhos.
Takte, yung mga damit niyo please.
[K]ase may mga tulad ko na nangjujudge. Parang batman, except gusto kong lagariin yung legs niyo.
Di ko alam kung may na-mimiss out ba akong contest na paiksian ng shorts o ano, lalo na sa mga babae. yung tipong CURVE NA LANG NG PWET ANG TINATAKPAN. UHMMMMM. salawal ba yan o shorts? naubusan ba ng tela yung shorts niyo? alam kong mainit sa ‘Pinas o ano, pero putek kung yun lang din naman rason niyo edi sana naghubad na lang kayo. marami pang matutuwa–magkakaroon na rin ng oblation ang ateneo.
[A]t hindi rin ligtas ang mga lalaki. parang nauuso na rin ata sa kanila ang save the earth theme na shorts. Diyos ko, minsan mas maikli pa nga ang mga shorts nila kaysa sa mga babae. ano yan? shorts mo nung 5 years od ka? E kung kainin mo na lang leg hair mo kaya.
[A]lam kong kanya-kanyang trip ang pananamit ng mga tao. Pero please lang, may linya sa pagitan ng ‘decent’ attire at ‘parang trip kong takpan ko ng oslo paper ang yieyie ko ngayon’ attire.”
– Klase-po-pupuntahan-niyo-hindi-AJMAlaunch, SOSS, 201X
December 5, 2014
“There’s this guy. Tall, dark, and handsome. Lahat na. Complete package. Got excited this sem cause my friend said he was in my class daw. First day of school comes and i’m in my most revealing top and shortest (super cute) skirt. I don’t see him anywhere. Prof starts calling out the class list and i hear his name. His sister na same batch and who i didn’t notice before raises her hand. It was her pala in my class not him. Punyeta.
#ADMUntikNa #ADMUsayangSparks”
– IWantYou, JGSOM, 2015
January 8, 2014
“Remember that girl on omegle you spoke to? The one who liked girls too? Probably one of the girls who got into an intimate conversation with you, and you understood each other so well because you were both girls.. Because only a girl would know how a girl feels and only a girl could understand your problems? Because all the places I said I’d touch you were places only a girl would be familiar with and would understand felt good no matter what a guy would think? Remember when we said that the intimacy we share is something only lesbians could share? That, you had to be a girl to love like this?
I have news for you. You’re one of many girls I’ve spoken to. Also, I’m a guy.
Think first before you generalize my sex. Guys can be sensitive too.”
– ALesbian, SOM, 2015
January 17, 2014
“I hate people associating ‘being gay’ to ‘being feminine’.
No, I do not like buying and putting on makeup that I am going to wash away in a short while. Neither do I want to wear skirts and other things that are tagged as feminine. I don’t want a vagina. I don’t want to get pregnant. I don’t wanna bleed like crazy every month. I don’t want the crazy mood swings or the high heels. I don’t want the long hair either.
I like guys. Sure. What’s not to like about handsome faces, abs and muscles? A guy who can listen to you and not share your secret because of the ‘bro’ code or because they’re just not built like some girls who are gossip mongers? Knowing exactly what they want, when they want it because that’s kind of what you want to. It’s sort of easy to know if a guy likes you or not. At least compared to the rollercoaster of finding out if a girl likes you or ‘likes’ you.
All I am saying is ‘Yeah. I like guys. But that doesn’t mean that I want to be a girl.’
I am sick of this stereotype. Grow up people.”
– Leaving, SOSE, 20**
January 17, 2014
“I still wait for that day wherein I can save a girl in trouble.
It can be from an accident, mugging, or whatever kind of danger.
I just want to put myself out there and help her even if I get hurt
in the process. And if I do, maybe she can return the favor by
taking good care of me”
– Knight in Shining Armor, SOSS, AB MEC, 2017
January 17, 2014
“I really like those ‘mom’ types. Ang cute nilaaaa.
Saying puro party girls lang yung nakikita ko sa school”
– Oedipus, SOH, 2016
January 18, 2014
“Boys,
So ang gusto niyo nalang ba ngayon ay ang mga babaeng parating naka-shorts at tight shirts?
Ayaw niyo na sa mga conservative girls?”
– Lovepls , SOH, 2016
