FEU Public Intellectual Lecture Series | Dr.

Amaryllis
Torres | Part 2
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I started my feminist work after I delivered my baby, and I was editing a book on
Women's studies in between feeding her. I've been doing this for a long time, and I'm
sure it will take many more years for you younger feminists.
I was pregnant and had a friend who asked me to help Unesco with a project. I put
together a team and wrote a book on the feminist studies that were done before the
1980s, mostly on women and development.
You were talking about class, not gender at the time, but you were already opening
your eyes to the inequalities of women and men. When the man said you have to
train women on primary health, who would come Women The man said no, that's not
for us, that's health.
We were reading and interacting with Sister Mary John and soon there was a group
of women from different schools who put up a shout out report on Filipino women for
the Nairobi Meeting. Some of those women are now leaders in the feminist area.
I said that I thought that the books on gender were not moving, but I didn't know that
psychologists were writing these books. So I said that I was okay with that, and then
I remembered an article that I had read about Civil Society groups helping
communities.
I've encountered material on the Psychology of Care and I find that very interesting.
Can you please elaborate on that?
Carol Gilligan observed that women were always scoring lower than men on morality
tests, so she decided to look into this phenomenon more and she interviewed
women and did her own studies. She came to the conclusion that women's moral
judgments are not based on whether there is a principle of a right.
The Feminine Ethics Ethics is an ethics based on care, but the danger in having an
ethical standard that is on care is that it is exactly what women have been doing in
the reproductive work.
The Feminists want to empower women to take control of their lives, not to be
subordinate, not be able to make decisions. Gilligan's notion of you know, you make
decisions first because you care for yourself or you care for others, You care for
networks outside the immediate others.
In Gilligan's framework, power means caring for yourself, caring for a network of
friends or people like my family, and caring for the community. The decision to help
the community is made with power over and no power within.
If you develop a new technology of weaving or a new design, you can help other
women, enlarge your network, and advocate that this kind of design is something
that we should take on. That is power within.
When we talk of women empowerment, we also need to talk about gender equality.
Students need to take into account practical considerations to ensure that they don't
contribute to the oppressive culture of patriarchy in our society.
The notion of equality doesn't mean sameness, because individuals are unique, and
even within families, there are greater differences. So we want to remove the
sources of oppression, which means we want to be equal with men.
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action talks about women's rights, but
because of patriarchy, some laws are antiquated and don't make this happen. So we
want to change the law so that there is more better equivalence in the opportunities
and rights of women and men.
In the Civil Code, a man can sue his wife for adultery if he just suspects that she is
carrying on an affair. The old code required in flagrante meaning in the act.
The right to name your child was removed in the past, but now it can carry the
mother's name.
Women have been taxed double, cannot carry the dependent category if they're
working, and are given benefits for every depend that you declare. Now there's a
way of changing that, and women are now in the military and college.
Tesla has trained women as welders and mechanics, and women have been winning
the U.Olympiads. It's funny because you call women cooks, but if it's a man, they call
him the chef and he's paid more.
In the 21st century, we see stories of women being superhuman, such as Captain
Marvel and Wonder Woman. So we must be gender sensitive and observe feminist
ethics. Even media now carries notions about gender equality, gender fluidity, and
Lgbt issues, such as two elderly men who were gay but had married.
My own students are not August anymore, and they say yes when I talk about
gender sensitivity. In fact, the post modern perspective of feminists is that all of this
will disappear with artificial intelligence, because the robot has no sex.
There's nothing shameful about a male wanting to be with a female and there are
already same-sex marriages here. Women are also changing what they're able to do
and culture is changing with them.
Even in terms of political leadership, you have the likes of Angela Merkel, Justin
Trudeau, and the President, who was a feminist, who made sure that all cabinet men
submitted gender plans and gender achievements every year or every quarter.
You can be a male and adopt a very feminist stance on on issues. It doesn't make
you less of a person just because you adopted a particular men who are well read
and who are open to new learnings are easy to convince that women have a right.
There's still some old fashioned language, especially with gender bias language,
among ourselves. But everything that you've said is actually very interesting.
We should all contribute to the empowerment of all kinds of people, regardless of
gender, and let's move forward and move on because it's better for men, women,
and all genders of all identities, all expressions.
Ma'am, Rita and Feu, thank you for the discussion. I think the key takeaway is that
gender equality is about recognizing, respecting, promoting, and fulfilling the equality
of rights between men and women, including also the Lgbt community.

 Feminism ethics is based on care. Women are more caring, empathetic,

emotional

 These supposed strengths are being used against women

 Feminism does not mean being superior than men and other gender

 21st women