Brown Is Beautiful
Llewelyn Muriel Austria-del Rosario
July 09, 2006
Everybody says, “Brown is beautiful.” But given the volume of whitening products in the supermarket today, I don’t think the Filipina believes it. Our billboards, movies and magazines are testimonies to our preference for the mestiza. Will somebody please explain to me why we are so obsessed with becoming fairer?
So far, I’ve only been able to come up with two theories to this obsession. One, I think it’s a deep-seated inferiority stemming from over 300 years of colonial rule by white people. Two, I think it’s a basic human flaw—we covet that which we do not have. Either way, it doesn’t speak very highly about us. And it’s not simply a matter of aesthetics.
More often than not, Maria Clara is still our ideal Filipina. I cannot fathom why. For one thing, she’s not real. Second, she’s half-Spanish. I think it’s about time we discard Maria Clara as our epitome. Why is docility treated as a virtue in a woman? Why do we insist on a mold so far removed from reality?
We are the kin of Princess Urduja, Gabriela Silang, Trinidad Tecson, Imelda Marcos and Cory Aquino. Very different women with very different personalities, perspectives and agenda. But totally, completely and absolutely not docile!
Why is “conservative” still the highest compliment we can ever pay to a Filipina? My thesaurus lists traditional, conventional, conformist, unadventurous and old-fashioned as its synonyms. How, pray tell, is being unadventurous and a conformist a compliment to the dynamic role that women play as a career woman and/or wife and mother?
Why do we still brag about sisters and daughters who don’t do anything else except go to school and stay home? That’s the perfect recipe for raising a dull, boring and unskilled citizen, wife and mother!
I am not advocating that women become liberal and wayward. Let’s not get stuck in the Madonna and Whore dilemma. Just because a woman isn’t exactly as meek and mild-mannered as we envision Mother Mary to be, doesn’t automatically make a woman a whore.
I believe this Madonna-Whore, either-or dichotomy is the reason why a lot of women like me have been hugely misunderstood. It seems as if a lot of people just do not have the capacity to make room for our brand of womanhood.
I remember my father shaking his head at me with a wry grin when I was in my teens “Water seeks its own level yet I pity the man who has to polish you. I hope to God he has the strength and force of character to do so.”
In a society where women in film and fashion look so alien and foreign to the typical Pinay, in a culture where the ‘mahinhin’ is idolized, it is no wonder that the Filipina finds it hard to believe that brown is, indeed beautiful.
My father’s comment has stayed with me in my own journey of defining what it means to be a Filipina in this century. I share it with you now in the hope that we will come to embrace the width, depth and breadth of a woman’s influence—kabiyak, katuwang, kabalikat—without failing to cherish her femininity as we would a precious gem.
So far, I’ve only been able to come up with two theories to this obsession. One, I think it’s a deep-seated inferiority stemming from over 300 years of colonial rule by white people. Two, I think it’s a basic human flaw—we covet that which we do not have. Either way, it doesn’t speak very highly about us. And it’s not simply a matter of aesthetics.
More often than not, Maria Clara is still our ideal Filipina. I cannot fathom why. For one thing, she’s not real. Second, she’s half-Spanish. I think it’s about time we discard Maria Clara as our epitome. Why is docility treated as a virtue in a woman? Why do we insist on a mold so far removed from reality?
We are the kin of Princess Urduja, Gabriela Silang, Trinidad Tecson, Imelda Marcos and Cory Aquino. Very different women with very different personalities, perspectives and agenda. But totally, completely and absolutely not docile!
Why is “conservative” still the highest compliment we can ever pay to a Filipina? My thesaurus lists traditional, conventional, conformist, unadventurous and old-fashioned as its synonyms. How, pray tell, is being unadventurous and a conformist a compliment to the dynamic role that women play as a career woman and/or wife and mother?
Why do we still brag about sisters and daughters who don’t do anything else except go to school and stay home? That’s the perfect recipe for raising a dull, boring and unskilled citizen, wife and mother!
I am not advocating that women become liberal and wayward. Let’s not get stuck in the Madonna and Whore dilemma. Just because a woman isn’t exactly as meek and mild-mannered as we envision Mother Mary to be, doesn’t automatically make a woman a whore.
I believe this Madonna-Whore, either-or dichotomy is the reason why a lot of women like me have been hugely misunderstood. It seems as if a lot of people just do not have the capacity to make room for our brand of womanhood.
I remember my father shaking his head at me with a wry grin when I was in my teens “Water seeks its own level yet I pity the man who has to polish you. I hope to God he has the strength and force of character to do so.”
In a society where women in film and fashion look so alien and foreign to the typical Pinay, in a culture where the ‘mahinhin’ is idolized, it is no wonder that the Filipina finds it hard to believe that brown is, indeed beautiful.
My father’s comment has stayed with me in my own journey of defining what it means to be a Filipina in this century. I share it with you now in the hope that we will come to embrace the width, depth and breadth of a woman’s influence—kabiyak, katuwang, kabalikat—without failing to cherish her femininity as we would a precious gem.
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