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Over the years, women are receiving degrading views and occupy an inferior
oppressed and are expected to conform with male-constructed roles. In this analysis,
one will discover how the poem Revolt from Hymen by Angela Manalang mirrors the
male-constructed role of women and how women revolt against the dominant male
culture.
One of the male-constructed role which is been on going since the very
beginning is the purely sexual and reproductive role that men have assigned to women.
According to Kanyal in the website India Today, when Miss Universe 1994 Sushmita
Sen was given the question, "What is the essence of being a woman?" she answered
the quote "Just being a woman is God’s gift that all of us must appreciate. The origin of
a child is a mother, and is a woman. She shows a man what sharing, caring and loving
is all about. That is the essence of a woman." From that answer, one can already
discern that society has made women believe that their essence or their primary role is
Revolt from Hymen. This poem is a virulent protest against the solely sexual male-
constructed role of women. According to Dr. Hunt, the hymen is a stretchy collar of
woman's virginity. In the poem, the hymen becomes a symbol for the society's concept
of femininity. In relation to this, the word hymen also symbolizes the idea that a
For this idea, the speaker in the poem states the following lines:
These lines echoe the women's cry for freedom from society's oppressive grip
and social constructs. Women want to be free from being hymen-ized and being
depersonalized into a mere sexual organ. She demands to be humanized rather than
hymen-ized. Hymen-ization deprives her of her true identity as a woman and this is
The speaker in this line suggests that hymen-ization disfigures her face, distorts
her true essence and undermines her true value as a person. Furthermore, the speaker
is utterly revolted by this type of degrading union with man and thus rejoices in being
alone and free from man's unclean passion. The speaker also states the line:
....to sleep at last, As infants sleep within the womb of rest! (line 2)
This line conveys that the speaker yearns to return to some kind of Earthmother,
the source of the eternal feminine, from whom she may recover her face and essence
The poem's final two lines as apparent below, introduces the virgin/whore
dichotomy. The virgin, whose hymen is still intact, is a symbol for all women who have
chosen to conform to femininity's standards. Meanwhile, the whore and her broken
hymen come to represent everything the virgin is not: active, aggressive, and
subversive. The phrase "broken the seal" also conveys that the speaker severs the
http://projectbackspace.blogspot.com/2007/03/poetry-critique-revolt-from-
hymen.html?m=1.
Hunt, P. (n.d.). Hymens and virginity: Health Navigator NZ. Health Navigator New
Zealand. https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/health-a-z/h/hymens-and-virginity/.
Kanyal, J. Sushmita Sen's Miss Universe answer that won the world. On
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indiatoday.in/amp/movies/celebrities/story/sushmit
a-sen-s-miss-universe-answer-that-won-the-world-on-throwback-thursday-1742294-
2020-11-19.
Angela Manalang Gloria. Philippine Studies, 37(4), 389-411. Retrieved June 12, 2021,
from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42633146