Gender and Pronouns in the Phillippines
by
michelle
poet/mandirigma


The major Philippine languages do not have a gendered pronoun. In Tagalog the word siya (pronounced shee-ya) means either he or she. The gender is understood in the context, by either understood reference between the speakers or mention of the person's proper name. Many men are named Jose Maria (Jesus Mary), though I don't know many women named Maria Jose. Many men in the southern part of the Philippines where an outfit called a malong, that is a tubular skirt. Things that Americans connote as gendered aren't seen that way in the Philippines. Yet in other ways the Philippines can be more gendered. But even without gendered words, gender expectations are high.

In the Filipino martial arts I train in, I have a gendered title, Gura, yet the Tagalog word for teacher, Guro, is non-gendered. Gura is not a Tagalog word. I have been told that I am ruining the culture and I have no right to call myself this. People I've never met hate me with such passion for this use. In the Filipino Martial arts there are few women, very few of them teach. I have felt a need to be explicit about my gender because otherwise I feel like I don't exist.

The kali itself stresses that all people contain male and female energy and that we must really be both regardless of physical named gender. It's the understanding of how these energies blend, integrate and work together that make it so powerful an art.

So in one hand having a gender-neutral pronoun doesn't keep people from reacting to gender. On the other there is an incorrect gendered term to speak of an art that acknowledges a blending of gender. I'm not sure what it all means.

Incorrect spelling allows one to challenge the dominant force. How it relates to gender, I do not know.