RIZAL AS A FEMINIST WRITER

Even when National Hero Jose Rizal lived and died before women’s
suffrage became in vogue in the West and way before the second half of the
20th century saw the women’s liberation movement burst into the patriarchal
world, he definitely knew the condition of the Filipina in his own historical
location.
While Rizal wrote letters and articles prolifically, very seldom did his writings
openly deal with concepts on the rights and status of women in the Philippine
society of the 1800’s. These rather few literary works are therefore considered
valuable by Filipinos.
Of Rizal’s beliefs on women’s independence and on inalienability of women’s
rights, the most famous is the “Message to the Young Women of Malolos.”
Upon the request by fellow Propagandista Marcelo H. del Pilar, he penned the
epistle on February 1889 while residing in London in order to uplift the spirits
of these young women. Rizal admitted to not knowing Malolos or anyone of
the women save for Emilia Tiongson, whom Rizal met two years before. A
bevy of twenty young women from Malolos town in Bulacan, daughters of the
gentry, signified their intent to establish a school where Spanish language
would be part of the curriculum. The lady daughters of the maginoos were as
follows: Elisea Tantoco Reyes (1873-1969), Juana Tantoco Reyes (1874-1900),
Leoncia Santos Reyes (1864-1948), Olympia San Agustin Reyes (1876-1910),
Rufina T. Reyes (1869-1909), Eugenia Mendoza Tanchangco (1871-1969),
Aurea Mendoza Tanchangco (1872-1958), Basilia Villariño Tantoco (1865-
1925), Teresa Tiongson Tantoco (1867-1942), Maria Tiongson Tantoco (1869-
1912), Anastacia Maclang Tiongson (1874-1940), Basilia Reyes Tiongson (ca
1860-ca 1900), Paz Reyes Tiongson (ca 1862- ca 1889), Aleja Reyes Tiongson
(ca 1864-ca 1900), Mercedes Reyes Tiongson (1870-1928), Agapita Reyes
Tiongson (1872-1937), Filomena Oliveros Tiongson (ca 1867-1934), Cecilia
Oliveros Tiongson ( ca 1867-1934), Feliciana Oliveros Tiongson (1869-1938)
and Alberta Santos Uitangcoy (1865-1953). It was on December 12, 1888
when these young women proposed to Governor-General Valeriano Weyler,
later to be named “butcher of Cuba ,” for consent to open a “night school”
where they might learn liberal arts including Spanish language through the
supervision of Teodoro Sandiko.
However, the town’s parish priest, Fr. Felipe Garcia, opposed the petition and
triumphed in aborting the idea by arranging for the governor’s disapproval.
Nonetheless, the women persisted, defied the friar’s wrath and continued to
push for their plan with the governor until such time their cause ultimately
earned his permission.
The agitation for the Spanish school was a rarity in the Philippines during the
period. When they succeeded in garnering the government permission to their
plan, a condition was compromised that Senorita Guadalupe Reyes should be
the one to teach them. The thing unheard of before in the Islands reached the
faraway shores of Spain, where the Malolos women’s Bulakeno compatriot del
Pilar would write Rizal from Barcelona on February 17, 1889, asking Rizal to
transmit a letter in Tagalog—a noteworthy deviation from his customary
Spanish writings—as a booster of the women’s morale.
Although in the thick of annotating Dr. Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las
Islas Filipinas, he set aside his literary business and wrote his famous letter and
sent it to del Pilar for transmittal in Malolos on February 22, 1889. Because the
simple deed transgressed the wishes of a powerful friar, the act was taken as a
scoop by Rizal’s fellow reformist Graciano Lopez-Jaena and the National
Hero’s lengthy letter would be published too in the official newspaper of the
Propaganda movement, edited especially by del Pilar.
The consent gained by the young women of Malolos was for Rizal a victory
that likewise belonged to the Filipino women at-large. At most, their success
was for the Filipinos in general.
Every so often, women are seen merely as wives, mothers, sisters or daughters.
Although the women perform these sterling roles in their daily lives, the
conventional historians have obliterated the women out of the picture. Despite
the suspicion that the women of Malolos were just tools of the illustrados
immersed in the reform movement, specifically Marcelo del Pilar, their action
was rare and revolutionary for their time and class. The oppositional rhetoric of
the women of Malolos was founded in the old culture of women’s resistance to
colonial trappings. Ever since the Spanish conquered the archipelago for a third
of a millennium, women had fomented uprisings across the Islands from the
babaylan rebels circa 1700’s to the illuminati native nuns residing in beaterios
to the bolo-equipped women rebels of the 1896 Philippine Revolution.
The singular deed of the young women of Malolos created a deep impact on
women in all corners of the Philippines . For one, the Spaniards were made
conscious of the previously underestimated resistance being one involving the
entire society, not only from the Filipino men but also from the Filipino
women. The reformists noticed this, hence the urging of del Pilar for Rizal to
advise the young women to champion their cause being proper female citizens
of the country. Even as Rizal had a notion of them possessing “a sweet
disposition, beautiful habits, gentle manners, modesty, excessive goodness,
humility or perhaps ignorance,” he anticipated them to be “like withered plants,
sowed and grown in the darkness. Though they may bloom, their flowers are
without fragrance; though they bear fruit, their fruit has no juice.” Rizal added:
“However, now that news arrive here of what occurred in your own town of
Malolos , I realized that I was wrong and my joy was beyond bounds.”
The women of Malolos were not portrayed as helpless and highly dependent
beings. Even at the young age, the ladies looked as if they were already taking
extra care of their lives, as might be gleaned when they took the risk of
challenging the curacy’s authority.
Writing to the women in Tagalog, Rizal commenced his message with the
turning point of how he reflected on the question of the Filipinos’ possession
(or the lack thereof) of the virtue of bravery. Sadly speaking, invoking the
moments of his life as a young person, he found but rare memories of those that
fit his standard of courage. He lamented that the girls of his youth were mild-
mannered and charming and immaculate, except that they were also completely
submissive to the powers that be in the society, the friars for instance.
In the 19th century, the Filipino woman’s colonial status has determined their
social role and standardized her function as wife, mother, spinster, worker or
dependent as well as dedicated and zealous colonial inside her social circle and
group. The Spaniards’ laws grounded the extent of her womanly behavior and
roles. When a Filipino woman before so much as partake of activities and roles
running against those implemented by colonial rule and male dominance, her
take on unfamiliar functions and activities may be independent choice, mere
luck or urgent necessity, but she would create social tension in the process.
That is why in general, Rizal looked at the Filipino woman as docile and non-
fighter rather than a branded social nuisance.
Nevertheless, what dauntless act the young women of Malolos showed told
Rizal that he was mistaken, and this caused him great happiness. According to
Rizal, the cause of the women of Malolos was one that surpassed their own
struggle. He referred to it as a fight for the common good whose triumph was
sure to arrive. Their waged war for the public welfare had rendered a role
model out of them for the rest of the Filipinas who “like (the Malolos women)
desired to have their eyes opened and to be lifted from their prostration.”
For Rizal, women in Malolos must use their reason and open their eyes wide
since they are the initiators to the influence of man’s consciousness. He had
them bear in mind that it is better to leave this world with honor intact than to
continue living in the shadow of dishonor. He reminded them too that no one
has the privilege of being subjugated by any other. The parish priests can no
longer insist that they themselves are accountable for their unfair order since
God gifted humans with reason and free will to dichotomize the fair from the
unfair.
Rizal asked the women to discern the difference between false and true piety,
the latter being composite of “good conduct,” a clean conscience,” and upright
thinking.” Over and above everything, Rizal urges them to seek not for the
wealth of the world but of the mind and spirit via education and knowledge. He
convinces the women to reflect, see an overview of the Philippines, and see
how they can stand and reap success and knowledge. Not anymore will the
Filipina mother exacerbate the plight of her children in colonial darkness.
He criticizes the subservient Filipino mothers for the bondage of their sons and
daughters under the Spanish colonizers, false authority to whom mothers
enslaved themselves and set their very being as examples for their children to
follow. To stop this social disaster once and for all by transfiguring their sons
from men of bondage to independent men, The Filipina women must
themselves be free. It could happen through the liberation of the Filipinas’
mind.
Rizal exhorts his countrywomen to liberate their mind, to cease from “bow(ing)
their heads to every unjust order” and seek(ing) solace in humble tears…All are
born without chains, free, and no one can subject the will and spirit of another.
Why would you submit to another your noble and free thought?”
Rizal asserts that Filipino mothers should imitate the Spartan women who
educated their sons that men are “not born to live for themselves but for their
country.” For as long as the Spartan men had this for a credo, Sparta would be
never be conquered.
Teodora Alonso, Rizal’s mother, was on her own very much like the Spartan
women. She inculcated in her children the love for learning and industry,
convicted that lacking these, any woman or man would not be too different
from a ship captain without compass. For Rizal’s mother, learning and hard
work makes one a good Christian and helps one realize his God-given talent in
order to reach out to his compatriots.
It was most likely Senora Teodora who influenced him immensely, from whom
he inherited the values of “honor, firmness of character and noble action” and
most of all, strength—virtues that Rizal hopes the women of Malolos would be
able to teach their own children so that they, in turn, will confront life’s
challenges courageously. Years after Rizal’s execution in 1896, his mother
would reject the government’s lifetime pension offer to recompense officially
the family’s show of patriotism. She would say that her family had not been
patriotic for any monetary reward.
In Rizal’s novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, Rizal unveils the
Filipinas of his milieu. There existed Doña Victorinas and Consolacions whose
aim in life was to mimic and even upstage first-class Spanish ladies in their
impeccable clothing and speech. Likewise, there existed Sisas and Maria Claras
who were too feeble to ward off the maltreatment and unfairness in the hands
of men, just as what battered women of contemporary times suffer under the
present cruel breed of men. However, there also existed Salome, Elias the
reformist’s comrade and friend. Salome lived independently and was self-
sufficient, and she loved Elias without any fear of mentioning her feelings for
him, even going the length of offering him to be part of her life.
Rizal may have his share of discrepancies and gaps in his relationship with
women from his sweetheart Josephine Bracken to other beloved women to his
sisters, but it cannot be denied that Rizal had an impassioned involvement in
the battle for the Filipino women’s rights. It cannot be denied that the
“Message to the Young Women of Malolos” is a significant contribution by
Rizal to the history of women and the feminist movement. For Rizal, the
women’s fight belonged to the Filipinos’ greater revolution for social justice
and transformation.