Why this topic? Entry 5 (ENG201)
My mom is a single parent, so I was basically raised by my grandparents in the Philippines, prior to my move to the US about a couple of years ago; they raised me according to their views, which is traditional and conservative in pretty much everything that they do. The way I was taught was in a way that life is a step-by-step pattern when entering and finishing its different stages. For instance, essentially, I will have to focus in school, because it is my primary job; I will graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree, because it will help me get a good paying job; After, I will meet a man and settle down with him, if he’s the one; we will have to start a family, and raise kids the way they did. What were the characteristics of a good man to marry? They would say that someone who is able to support me not only emotionally, but also financially. Besides the fact that a guy is treating a woman with respect and integrity, providing for her and their children is one of the most important things.
It is very conservative and traditional in the Philippines, so when I immigrated to the US, it was a bit of a bold from the blue to me. Everything was different—the weather, the way people dressed and acted, and part of it were how students work and go to school at the same time, and how a lot of people that were my age had kids already as a result of an unprotected premarital intercourse. I have observed how competitive people were, and a lot of inequalities in between genders were highlighted. It made me become defensive to myself, I thought that people don’t often expect anything from women, but I thought that I can do anything even what people think that only men could do. I thought I could handle school and work at the same time; I was so motivated that even though I was raised differently, I was always willing to learn new things and have been very adaptable to change. I noticed that couples in a relationship were also different in here. In some, the man acts superior to the woman, and in some, the woman acts superior to the man. I thought, “Well, okay. I want an equal relationship with my future man”, but then, I met an acquaintance back when I was working as a barista, who has been suffering from many different judgments, because his wife’s family and friends don’t think that she deserves a man who can’t provide more than she does to their family. Why? Because apparently, as the society dictates, the man has to be the primary breadwinner in every family.
From then on, I have become obsessed with figuring out why a lot of people see things that way; even my boyfriend is somewhat paranoid about our future, because he thinks that he should get a better paying job so he can prove to my family that he can support me, not that it really matters to my family. I personally don’t think that it matters who contributes more (financially) in a relationship, I can be a breadwinner and I personally won’t allow people to hurt my family with their subtle and loud judgments. It made me become really interested to the wage inequality between genders, because it is a big crisis that is often goes unnoticed but it’s actually something that hits a lot of people on a daily basis (through people’s judgments). To me, men and women are worth the same and nobody should be a judge on what a person deserves or should be doing. We all live our own lives, which we should be putting our focus on, instead of aiming it towards other people’s businesses; and men who are degraded first-hand do not deserve to be treated that way, I don’t think that they lose their “balls” when they make less money, as soon as they are actually “trying” to contribute anything at all for the family’s advancement, that’s what should matter the most.