Eating In

From the dictionary, humanizing something is giving this thing a human character. So, the

opposite which is dehumanizing is making a human appear or seems to be like an object or to

inanimate it. If you humanize a situation or condition, you improve it by changing it in a way which

makes it more suitable and pleasant for people. In this case, a human, specifically a girl, is

described as just something to be eaten.

“The entire course of her/ The whole part / Or chopped into bite-size pieces of her. / The

lechon of her. / The crispy pata of her. / The lechon kawali of her.”

These lines all objectify the body parts of a women. She is being compared by the speaker

to a pig. The speaker view each part of her as some delicious recipe of a delicious dish that is there

to served him well. The very enticing description of the speaker of the woman in the poem reflects

the desire or, at most, lust that he feel towards her.

For me, the poem tackles a social construct problem which is that men objectify women.

They set standards for them to act in a certain way. They set ceilings for them so that they will not

dominate them. They treat them unequally and treat them as their possession. Ever since

prehistoric, even in art, women are being objectify and stereotyped. The Venus of Willendorf, the

first ever art recorded in the history, were it resembles a somehow exaggerated version of a

human body. According to history, those who created that did not carelessly make it that way but

instead, deliberately increase the proportion. It is said to be that they created it in a way that it

reflects what the society really value in terms of women. In the figure, hips, belly and breast are
unusually and unrealistically large because it pertains to women having the purpose of only to

reproduce. There is no face and arms at all that can be seen in the figure.