Role Reversal

By Noel Aglubat, guest contributor Sexism is everywhere and happens all the time. In the school or office setting, sexism can get you fired or expelled or at least reprimanded (an action which shows a level of tolerance).

In a bar setting and beyond, men objectify women, as something to be had, something to be won, something to be conquered. Sexism in a party scene breeds an uglier crime: unsolicited physical contact, or in other words, sexual harassment. I was aware of how we men treat women in the party scene.  Awareness, however, doesn’t equate with empathy and the divide between the two wasn’t clear to me until recently.

Last weekend, I went out for drinks in the East Village with my good friend, my “bro,” who wanted to show me the neighborhood bars. Since I had moved to the area relatively recently, I hadn’t yet had a chance to explore the local bars on my own. We arrived at one of them, sat at the bar and ordered a round of drinks. My friend struck up an interesting conversation with the woman, who was with a group of friends, next to him. For all intents and purposes let's call her Rachel and my friend Ryan.

"Hi," said Rachel.

"Hi," replied Ryan.

"No, you can’t f*** me," she stated bluntly.

Yes, that is, word for word, how the conversation began. In an effort to alleviate the awkward tension in the air, Ryan continued the small talk, but it was downhill from the very beginning. Rachel remained aggressive and hostile. I knew this was not going to end well, so I decided to intervene before it got worse.

"Excuse me, ladies. If my friend offended you, that was not his intention. Let me buy you a round of drinks as an apology and we’ll be on our way," I offered with sincerity. Rachel then responded with the following.

"You’re cute. But you look a little gay. I bet you can’t f*** me either. Let me check."

At this point I’m at a loss for words, unaware of her hand swooping towards my genitals. She grabbed my crotch, and I backed up. She persisted. Rachel and her friend, in tandem, isolated me from Ryan. They asked me to go dancing, to party on her AMEX.

“I got money. We can go skiing in Wyoming,” she said. It was in that moment when I realized this is how many of us treat women when we “hit” on them. We isolate them, belittle their person and touch them when unsolicited. I declined her offer and escaped from the bar with Ryan as quickly as possible.

What is interesting is the range of reactions I got when I told this story to my friends. My male friends called me a b**** and a p*****. In my attempt to save face, I told them I was uninterested and just saving Private Ryan. Still, they insisted that I was a b**** and that I should have “manned up.”

The feminist blogger/writer Jessica Valenti once stated,

“The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult. Now tell me that’s not royally f***ed up.”

Ms. Valenti articulates my second realization: even our insults put down women by normalizing them as insults.

I told this story to my female friends and some suggested that I could sue Rachel. But taking legal action for an ill encounter at a bar? The realist in me said it’s highly unlikely anything would come out of going to the police, and besides, nothing terribly awful happened. Then, I had my third epiphany: this is what women go through all the time. They are often abused both verbally and physically and some take no action because it is the norm that society has led us to accept.

I’m not saying that I am a perfect person, because I'm not. I don't claim to have never made sexist comments, because I have. But due to that incident, I will be more aware of how I treat women, whether I am around them or not.

If you read through some of the stories in theeverydaysexism project, you will see how women experience sexism constantly.  The topics vary, from so-called jokes and catcalling stereotypes, to accounts of rape and the subsequent victim blaming. However, women are not objects nor are they categories (NSFW). Let us step down from the pedestal of privilege that we have built over centuries of sexism, stop promoting patriarchy and truly strive to attain our celebrated ideal of equality.

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Noel Aglubat, 25, was born and raised in Queens, NY. He is a civil engineer at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He graduated from NYU-Poly with an M.S. in Structural Engineering in 2013, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering in 2010. He joined the UniPro staff as a member of the Summit team in May 2013. Noel also volunteers with Advancement for Rural Kids (ARK) to help rebuild schools on Panay Island in the Western Visayas. He likes to play paintball, piano and bass guitar, and is gearing up to complete the NYC marathon this year. 

Infographics designed by: Highrank websites Inc. Sources: 1, 2, 3

All My Closest Friends Are Pilipino... Is This A Problem?

Queens, New York. Not only is this borough my home, but it is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the entire world. Tell me, then, why are 90% of my friends Pilipino? Fast forward to college: New York University. Despite 22,000+ undergraduates, I find myself deeply involved in a Pilipino-based community. As a testament to the ubiquitous Pilipino-ness of my friend groups, I just scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed and went through posts by 25 people before encountering someone not Pilipino. I have always loved rooting myself in the Pilipino community, but as someone who prides herself on a doctrine of diversity, I just realized my own hypocrisy. It seems like I only hang out with Pilipino people, I am only active with Pilipino organizations, and I focus all my energy on the Fil-Am community. Is this something to be concerned about? It is not as if I look at people with a need to fulfill a quota: White friend, check. Black friend, check. Hispanic friend, check. I do not subscribe to tokenism. I do, however, want to hold a mirror to myself and understand why I gravitate toward Pilipinos. Am I losing out on something else by surrounding myself in a homogenous community?

An epiphany occurred to me at the Journey of a Brown Girl launch, when I was introduced to the idea of "kapwa." I've heard this word echoed around the community but never understood it. It is an essential concept of collective identity in intrinsic Pilipino psychology, theorized by the likes of Virgilio Enriquez and Katrin de Guia. Sarita Echavez See defines it in "Gambling with Debt" from American Quarterly:

"Kapwa, often translated as a 'shared inner self,' can be understood as a worldview based on profoundly collective forms of mutual recognition. According to sikolohiyang Pilipino scholars like Virgilio Enriquez who forward the study of 'indigenous Pilipino psychology,' in the colonial context kapwa can be interpreted as a kind of friendliness, hospitality..."

My first thought: So there's a word for it? I never guessed the deep bond I have felt with Pilipinos – through exchanged glances with strangers on the subway, the way I root for Pilipinos in any competition, or how my ears perk up at the utterance of any Tagalog – could be summarized so succinctly. There is a smile when you know someone is Pilipino without saying so, and a smile that says I've known you my whole life. It takes a matter of minutes to connect over shared histories, and I have always felt this, but I had never known kapwa. It encapsulates the phenomenon so perfectly.

Perhaps this is the underlying reason why I have found my closest friends in fellow Pilipinos. I have deeper levels of understanding and relation to someone who identifies with my love for Pilipino culture, origins and conflicts with Pilipino traditions, or shares my taste for cultural references, food, and words.

The reason I take issue with recognizing my almost exclusively Pilipino cohort of friends is that a comfort zone bubble forms. Growth and learning come from exploring the unfamiliar and exchanging with diverse groups, but I rarely get pushed to step outside of my Pilipino-centric interests. I wonder if I am subscribing to preference or circumstance. I wonder if I should consciously make an effort to step outside of the Pilipino community. I wonder if this whole line of thinking is flawed.

I do not have answers – only a desire to spark dialogue. Thanks to kapwa you will find a familial bond with other Pilipinos no matter where you go, but who is to say you would not discover that within others?

Source: tumblr

Being Thankful: Witnessing typhoon relief operations during Thanksgiving

It was something that I was torn with for days after Yolanda: Should I reschedule my trip to Johannesburg, and instead, return to the Philippines, or stick with the original plans? Reason #2 of HowStuffWorks' "Ten Worst Things to Donate After a Disaster" echoed deeply. I reminded myself that I didn't have any skills, and that it would be wiser to use the money I'd spend on airfare and give it to a non-profit (with skilled workers and volunteers already in place, who are much more familiar with the situation on the ground). My parents hail from the parts of Iloilo province that weren't greatly affected by Yolanda, so there was no substantial reason for me to check up on them. But then I received a message from my mother a week after the typhoon. My lola had passed away. At this point I had no choice. Mom needed me to be in Miag-ao for the funeral. And so I returned to the Philippines. While I was primarily there to attend the funeral, I did spend a couple days shadowing the Iloilo chapter of Gawad Kalinga. I was introduced to Merveen Ortega, the brother of a friend and fellow GK advocate. When we first met just a couple hours after I touched down, it turned out that GK Iloilo didn't have any relief operations planned for the weekend. So, I spent much of the day discussing long-term plans in the reconstruction effort, as well as touring around several GK villages and meeting kapitbahayan - the beneficiaries of the homes.

As we hopped from one site to another, I noticed Kuya Merveen's cell phone was constantly ringing. There were requests for relief packs from five barangays in the far-flung municipalities that took the brunt of the damage in the province. Following up the request was a coincidental call from his companions from the neighboring island at GK Negros Occidental; they had assembled relief packs that were available for distribution. I was finally going to witness where donations go and get a glimpse of an another overlooked part of the Visayas affected by the typhoon.

We departed from the staging area at the GK Peco village, trekked to urban Iloilo City, then on to municipalities whose names I've heard my parents discuss with other Fil-Ams hailing from the same province - names like Leganes, Barotac Nuevo, Anilao, Banate, and Barotac Viejo. One thing that was unique about witnessing the aftermath of the typhoon in Iloilo province is that you saw it gradually in the scenery. Slowly you'd notice that the trees that provided the lush greenery were starting to taper with tree branches holding less leaves, then you'd noticed forests of trees who were bare of anything green, and finally, seeing those trees uprooted, or toppled over homes.

Much of the highway had since been cleared for traffic, but the scars were quite visible. Remnants of power and telephone lines were hanging. There were houses without roofs. There were children along the road, with their arms out in hope of receiving relief from passersby. But one thing that struck me even more was a van that we passed. A family had pulled over and were conducting their own relief operations by distributing goods to residents of a barangay by the highway.

After passing soldiers from the Canadian Force's Disaster Action Response Team (DART)  and tackling downed telephone lines in dirt roads, we arrived at our first stop: barangay Odiongan of the municipality of San Dionisio. The barangay itself is in the east coast of the province, and was one of the first in Panay island to be struck by Yolanda. Once we pulled up to the barangay square, I knew that witnessing the damage from storm surge would be hard to avoid. Wreckage, clothing, and trash littered the coastline.

The distribution of goods was done in cooperation with the barangay captains, who were each armed with a checklist to ensure that all families received a relief pack. Children surrounded the square, and several tried to make their way to me and my camera. Some would approach me and giggle whenever they heard my American English, which is something I was accustomed to due to past trips. Admittedly, laughter was comforting to hear this time around. One thing that was sincerely inspiring was to see how many of the residents were in relatively good spirits. I saw this even more as we proceeded to other barangays.

Once the distribution in Odiongan was complete, we crossed into the neighboring Batad where we met with councilman Ernesto Balida, who guided us as we distributed relief goods at four barangays within the municipality. We passed homes with white camping tents alongside them, probably distributed by the Canadian Forces or one of several NGOs. The locations of barangays that requested relief packs seemed relatively distant from the highway, and required a fair amount of time traversing through more dirt roads and downed lines. One of them was Alapasco, a remote barangay deep within the mountains that sat next to a reservoir of the same name.

Alapasco was the epitome of a village that could easily be forgotten in the initial rush of relief distribution. Getting there required us to leave our supply truck, and transfer packs earmarked for that barangay into a smaller truck that was otherwise used as an open-air ambulance to transport patients from these distant quarters of Batad. The trees that covered the mountains leading to and surrounding Alapasco were no more, leaving behind a barren terrain of fallen limbs and bare branches.

It was in Alapasco that a quote from Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, seemed to resonate with me:

"We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way."

Throughout the trip, the cynic in me was prepared to see the worst of humanity, but instead I saw the best of it. We often hear of the likes of Pilipino hospitality, but I never knew of its resilience before this trip. The residents of the barangays that we helped seemed to have a justification to succumb to despair, and seek self-loathing; instead, they greeted us with the sort of friendliness that puzzled even US Marines when they participated in relief operations for Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) a few years ago.

I made it back in Miag-ao in time for my lola's funeral. With little time to mourn and reminisce, I walked into the room where her casket rested and greeted Lola with the same backpack that I lugged around during the relief operations, just hours prior. But after weeks of running to fundraisers across Oahu, catching up with classes, and then finding out of my lola's passing, it finally hit me: I had just spent Thanksgiving weekend in the Philippines.

My family hasn't celebrated this particular holiday since my brother's passing, and I've since used the extended weekend to travel to some far-off land. If anything, I certainly am thankful for the ability to travel as much as I can. But hearing of the things that we should be thankful for while saying grace before digging into that Thanksgiving dinner—things like the warm, fresh food we have, the roof over our heads, our good health—never echoed so much until I tagged along with GK Iloilo during this relief operation.

Witnessing situations such as how organized and patient the residents of affected the barangays were, while they waited until we distributed relief goods, really placed things in perspective for me. Meanwhile, images of Black Friday shoppers flooding stores back home played in the back of my mind. My experiences witnessing this relief operation really did bring being thankful to a whole different level, a level that I wouldn't have imagined from the comforts of indulging in a turkey dinner.

Be Proud of Your Pilipino Skin

On September 4, 2013, seven-year-old Tiana Parker was sent home in tears from the Deborah Brown Community School. The reason? Her dreadlocked hair. Claiming that hairstyles such as “dreadlocks, afros, [and] mohawks” detract from “a respectful and serious atmosphere,” this Oklahoma institution scolded Tiana, barring her from classes. Needless to say, the community was outraged. And they were not alone as the media rushed to the aid of this young girl. Prestigious news sources, bloggers, and TV personalities each defended Tiana’s dreads as naturally styled African American locks, instead of a “faddish,” attention-seeking gimmick, as the Deborah Brown Community School claims. Tiana is now enrolled in a different school which embraces her natural hairstyle. Her former elementary school has since changed its policies.

Reading this story ignited a lot of different feelings; anger, discomfort, but more than anything an eerie familiarity. I, personally, don’t know what it’s like to be punished for exhibiting a naturally Pilipino physical feature, but I do know that such mentalities exist among Pilipino communities; and for me, they inspire the same amount of outrage.

Whiter Skin is “In”

Pilipinos generally possess a distinct type of hair: thick and pin-straight. However, it is not our typically dark locks that cause dispute among other Pilipinos; rather, it is our naturally tan skin. Eliciting the help of skin whitening creams, bleaches, and even cosmetic surgeries, Pilipinos hunger for lighter skin. In an older time, light skin in the Philippines was a sign of a life exempt from outdoor labor, and thus, a symbol of wealth and luxury. Even today, the celebrities, talk show hosts, and news anchors that populate TFC and GMA are those with a lighter skin tone. And, from my experience, even when telanovelas feature darker-skinned Pilipinos, it is to emphasize the difference between one and the other, castigating the darker of the two.

My Color is Pilipino

This type of culture breeds a warped idea of self-worth, one in which the most valuable gem is the one that can shine the whitest, showing no appreciation for the land-laboring emeralds, the sweat-drenched rubies, or the sea-faring sapphires. This is a destructive culture and it is not one that Pilipino youth should be brought up learning. Yes, white-skinned Pilipinos are beautiful, but they are no more beautiful than those with naturally darker skin. Whether representative of badges of laborious ancestors, or emblematic of different regions, these deep browns and dark tans carry vibrant histories. These sun-kissed shades should not be diminished, but celebrated as hues that add to the rich palette of the Pilipino people.

Photo Credit: Asiafinest.com Forum

Pasko na! 7 Essential Pilipino Christmas Songs

Credit: Courtesy of 365 Great Pinoy Stuff It was the middle of October, nearly Halloween, when I was sitting in a Pilipino restaurant and heard christmas carols playing. Patrons in anywhere else would be confused, but customers sat unfazed listening to Jingle Bells four months early. As far as Pilipinos know, Christmas season starts in September and continues through the Feast of the Epiphany in January. Evergreen trees, mini nativity sets, and colorful parols quickly go up after September 1 to mark the celebratory season.

Music, especially, marks the Philippines' devotion to the festive holiday. I have never had the pleasure of being in the country during Christmas, but I did grow up with my mother chiming "Ang pasko ay sumaaaapit" throughout the home as she decorated indoors and heard choirs at church singing Pasko na Naman at Simbang Gabi performances. Such inspired the below list of classic Pilipino Christmas songs to blast!

Ang Pasko ay Sumapit A gleeful tune exalting the joy of Christmas. http://youtu.be/lMcARSEcMQM

Pasko na Naman This upbeat song reminds us to give thanks for the holiday. http://youtu.be/oZhfHnIqxE4

Pasko Na, Sinta Ko Consider this poignant tune the Pilipino answer to "Blue Christmas." http://youtu.be/2XlFY141Q-E

Himig ng Pasko This waltz captures the visceral pleasure and sounds of the season. http://youtu.be/wA_L3CU0T3Y

Paskong Anong Saya The cheerful song not only celebrates Christmas, but the New Year. http://youtu.be/-6Q77D8Re3w

Noche Buena "Noche Buena" is a Pilipino tradition involving a feast on Christmas Eve. http://youtu.be/-K1CYXhyq80

Star Ng Pasko This catchy pop single features ABS-CBN stars and heralds the spirit of giving. http://youtu.be/T1nNUOMS14g