Blog 6

Rolling the R’s Pg’s 86-91

Hi everyone, so I have been pondering what I am going to be writing for my 6^th blog, the thoughts occurred in my head for weeks but yes! I found my 6^th

                So today in Mr. Aronson’s English class, we were reading rolling the R’s pages 86-91 titled “What Manong Rocky tells Manong Pearly about Carmen, Rosario, and Milagros.

                So this story has a lot of gossip going on; a husband & wife are talking gossip of 3 Filipino women who sound to be haole in Hawaii. They judge them by their actions and routines they take by making their husbands do all the work while they sit like throne wives. We notice that the concept of Pakikasma (Nadal Ch. 2), Tismis, Marianismo & machismo relationship between this couple. We do not hear the female’s voice due to the fact that the male is the dominant one in the relationship and she is listening to please him by being the more submissive one.  We gain a sense that the husband has an over dominant role when he says “What you cryin’ for? Come over here. Come here, I said. I promise I not goin’ hurt you. I hate it when you start cryin’ for nothin’ “. It is suggested by the women having no voice and the man doing most of the dialog is that marianismo is practiced. Hiya is reflected

Hiya- He projects his shame on someone else. Shamed that he is not the one providing so he tries to assert his dominance by ordering him around. It is all tied together by acculturative stress and role reversal. He is machismo by being boss but role reversal when he has no job and is gossiping which is stereotypically wife’s work.

Acculturative stress- Hawaii- men are in charge   Filipino- Women are in charge.

Utang na loob- Doing each other a favor.

Machismo- Man code of conduct for not ratting on each other’s private business.

Men do not let each other down.

Haole- Foreign to the native land.

Manong is suppose to be in charge but

So I reflect this concept in current society where I see a trend occurring of role reversals where men are acting more feministic and woman are becoming more masculine. I primarily have seen this from 2^nd generation Filipino men, interracial relationships between Filipina’s and in some cases Whites, Blacks, & Latino’s. More often I have seen this in Filipino couples and interracial couples (either companion can be a Filipino or Filipina to opposite spouse/partner)

My theory is that it develops from acculturative stress and assimilation into the dominant white culture. In this culture we see that the woman is more dominant than the man. We see these examples in America & in the Philippines. In America there are a large number of single women, single moms, divorcee’s who have well salaried professions while attaining to the task of being a woman. The reason for this reversal in roles could be due to the woman having more simultaneous stressors such as working one or two jobs, being a mother, and maybe even holding the household income. This trend has been developing since the Women’s rights movement developing in the 1940’s and has evolved into the Woman’s feminist movement in the present. This develops a Woman in a sense to have become a “Super Woman” by being so stressfully tasked to do so much. Women have been pushing for equal rights such as the right to vote, being able to make equal income to men and to be treated as an equal partner in marriage.

The feminist movement has had numerous women declare a sense of independence being able to support themselves without a dominant male spouse in the picture. This has created tensions between both sexes going as far as sexuality, acculturative stress, and assimilation into a culture. Many factors are involved including Machismo decreasing in men due to the increasing population of professional workers who are women.

Men for years have a building reputation of being lazy, not hard working and good for nothing. Now correct me if I’m wrong but our forefathers stood for doing great things. For example my Great Grandfather was a Lt. Commander of the Philippine Navy and was a disciplined, honorable and real man.

Truth is, men forget their identity as real men and this is increasing, my answer is for men to stand up, claim their true identity and role in their community. Women are claiming more professional occupations everyday, they stand together doing this; us as men are apart and I speak for Filipino men, we need to stand together selfless and pride ourselves being men. We need to push towards becoming the ideal man. We need to embrace a more masculine identity within ourselves and push ourselves to be more like men.

When people say that a man is acting like a woman, it downgrades, it insults women by making women feel like there is something wrong with them.

So in conclusion maybe the block for men not acting like “Real Men” rather than boys is due to maybe they have a problem wrong with them psychologically.