Breaking the walls (Mona Lisa Smile, reaction)

A caring mother, diligent homemaker, an obedient wife – these are the apt descriptions for a perfect mother and wife decades ago and even a lot of us today would agree with it.

     The movie, Mona Lisa Smile, conveys a very significant message about the woman’s role in the society and family years and years back. Moreover, there are noteworthy issues included in the movie.

     A sketch of a perfect mother and wife was depicted in the previous entry for it is the way the Wellesley College, a conservative women's private liberal arts college in Massachusetts, the setting of the movie, wants their graduates to be.

     The same as Wellesley’s thinking, their society also looks women to be like that. Women are highly expected to be in the lineage of motherhood rather than be like at the present generation of working moms. Women should be more about housekeeping rather than in out of the house jobs.

     Elder women foster a predetermined path in life for youngsters who are to stick to traditional mores and thoughts, with the primary goal of marrying into a good family. They are taught to trail with the rules and are trained to fill in the roles which they are supposed to fill.

     Escaping the roles dictated by the society is a big no or else the family’s reputation and name is at risk. There is no way out for the women and they have to keep their selves on track on what is highly acceptable and appreciated in the eyes of many.

     With this situation, women’s right is degraded. Yes, they have reached the college degree but deep inside they were not able to reach their utmost potentials. If I, ambitious lass, was on their shoes on that era my drives would suddenly vanish and rather stay at home, marry a reputable man and take care of my family. Perhaps, I can do more than that but since it’s the society that dictates, I am much pressured to keep on track.

     Women were not given chances to show what they’ve got and express what they really wanted. They simply follow what the elders would say as it is also what the society is saying. They are bounded in a hidden line. A line that would keep them on their comfort zone and not exploring what are the other things they can do and more or less they are like prisoners, prisoners of old society’s thinking.

     Not everybody has seen it but women indeed portrayed a great role in yesterday’s society which became the strong foundation of today. They performed a significant part in civilization. Though they are not the ones seen as the front liner, they too had a contribution equal to what the men did.

     In a deeper sense of thinking, it is very undeniable that women played a very vital role in the society decades ago. They were the hidden backbone of the society. Men at work depend on women at home.

     In a family for instance, yes it is the man who works for them but seeing the function of a woman inside as her wife makes me say that he is very reliant on his wife’s home services. If the wife doesn’t prepare a breakfast, the husband may not be able to go to work; the same thing happens if she forgets to iron his husband’s office suit. To avoid these scenes, Wellesley College (in the movie) and others alike exist.     

      Women before are not valued much because of the fact that they are not the ones earning and bread-winner of the family. Yes! Women are merely at home but they too have a character to make the society go round. Though the society before doesn’t see the importance women’s role, I, not being biased, see the great part of them in what we are today.

     Moreover, the women of mid - 1900s’ should be the models of mothers of the present generation. Before entering a family life, they are much prepared on it. Women of today and before don’t differ much, but in terms of training, the women of yesterday have the edge; they are greatly ahead in terms of housekeeping.

     On the other hand, women should be valued, not just because they are the ones taking good care of the family but also because they do a special task in the existence of human race.

     A woman performs a certain function that the whole anthropocosmos needs. We all know that a woman is the one capable of bearing a child, thus responsible for the continuity of Homo sapiens sapiens. With this role they play, they should be given value as much as how humanity values men.

     However, it is still clear that women are still being belittled. Try to peek on the list of government officials, woman is outnumbered by man. Even in workplaces, a task is often given to male, thinking that females can’t handle it.

     Women’s reputation is also degraded. In the Philippine setting for instance, there is an increase in crimes involving woman. It is also vivid that there is prostitution where women are paid for entertainment thus degrading their standing.

     Also, men’s superiority over women is still observable. In decision making, leading a group and still, patriarchal type of family still exist in our society thus making me say that in the eyes of many, women are just subordinate of man.

     A woman plays a great part in the society and what hurts most is that it is not appreciated and given value. The problems stated above prove that woman and man has still a gap on the society. Women are very much affected with it and as the ones affected we must hand in hand fight for our rights.

     I do believe that we, women, do not aim to overpower or overrule the society. We are just pushing for the equality and respect.

     I also do believe that equality and respect is what the yesterday’s woman concern.

     The face of a woman changes drastically, but they have the same desires – to be respected and be given equality among men. They slowly breakdown the walls of limitations and step by step changing the society’s expectations

Just a text away

It was a year ago during my social science class when somebody texted me "hoy!". For me and my friends, a “hoy!” is a friendly approach, so I, not really knowing who it was, did a quick reply for I thought it's someone I’ve known before. In a friendly manner, I asked for his name, pretending that I accidentally deleted my contacts but sadly, he refused to tell me.

I’m not a texter type but he gained my interest when he told me that I'm Marsha Tacadao from Tandag, Surigao del Sur and it was like "Shit! Who the hell is this? He actually knows me!". I was thinking that time that maybe he's just one of my crazy high school friends, trying to play a prank on me. Eventually, I did not stop texting him about his identity.

Later that day, I went back to the dormitory and told my roommates about it. We've got no stuffs to do, so our attention was blitzed to that mysterious texter. Me, Mariz Peralta and Hannah Talatala texted him. One of our questions was from what school he is enrolled in and he answered a good-sounding, prominent school and the abbreviations of that school became his contact name (haha). He also asked us the same question and we answered him as well.

He insulted the school we're enrolled in and we did insult his' too. Trash talks were exchanged from the both sides and we challenged him to tell us who he really is if he is indeed brave as a man. Still, we ended up not knowing him. It came to a hurting point for me that night when he told me that I’m very ugly, absurd and fat. For those who knew me for so long, they know that those words are my weaknesses. I cried hard that night, thinking that he really knew me. My roommates on the other hand, did tell him about my reaction.

On the following day, he texted me that he is very sorry about it. He confessed that he hasn’t seen me even in pictures and he got my number from his friend. I did forgive him and decided not to text him anymore. However, he insisted that we could be good friends and hmmmm, I accepted it.

He still refused to tell me his name but he gave me the initials of it. I now called him on those initials but still did not change the contact name I saved. He told me that he will tell me his name letter by letter, every after ten days. "What!? You think after ten-ten-ten days, I’m still texting a person I don't even know the name?" That was what I told him forcing him to tell me his full name (haha).

He confessed to me that he was not really from the school he mentioned but rather from a private college in the northern part of the Philippines and is taking up BS Architecture.

Basically, though I found this corny and fudge, we actually became textmates and FB friends. Through his facebook, I saw him and yes, he is handsome. We exchange messages almost everyday. Messages about ourselves, interests and we indeed discovered our differences like, I’m talky, he's the opposite; I’m mababaw, he's not; I like green, black is his preference; he's tall and I’m not; I laugh most of the time about these differences and he don't have any reaction about these differences. One thing we have in common is we're both slow (not poor) in math (haha). Also, we have the same interest on foods and when we talked about food stuffs, our tummies start to starve, craving for a delicious bite. We sometimes talk about delicacies and food we would like to taste someday. We even talk about restaurant-hopping in the near future.

We did not just ended up texting each other but we did drop calls. We talked random things, anything under the sun and anything which puffs out of our head. I still remember the time when he read me a book about mummies over the phone, until now I don't know why he read about mummies.

He's interested in astronomy and is updated with any breakthroughs about it. Though I’m not engrossed about it, I tried to tangle with it and he introduced me to the concepts of parallel universes, black hole and even promoted Discovery Channel's show Curiosity. Now, I’m actually a fan of the show and the science of astronomy. We also used to look at the night sky, texting each other and locate a common star. He's also interested in Sci-Fi and he actually made an out of the world Sci-Fi story about us. It is a Marsian story -- The Saturday Ice Cream.

Texting him became a daily routine for me. I’m used to have his messages in my inbox. Furthermore, to remain awake during hell weeks, I text him until I’m done studying and also, he texts me until he's done drawing his archi stuffs. This hobby did not affect me negatively. In fact, I manage to get good grades for my first two semesters in college; it did help me in some ways. In times that I’m down and discouraged, I have my friends, family and him who motivate me to try again and hit even harder.

As any friendship stories have this, we sometimes fight especially about opposing beliefs and principles.  Then again, we try to bring the craziness of the relationship back. Though this friendship had a hard start, the flow indeed became smoother and smoother until we reached this long.

We indeed became good friends. He is like my friends in the province. He is like my friends here in the campus. He is like a friend you can lean on. He is like a friend whom I used to be with for a long time. He is like a friend you have in your side for real, in 3D.

To him: Hey! It’s been a year and we haven't seen each other face to face. It’s been a year and we use to call this to each other: "Baliw!"