Philippine E-Journals

Articulated Feminist Discourse: Male and Female Feminists in Philippine Print Media

Isagani R. Cruz | Jhoanna Cruz

Discipline: Feminism

 

Abstract:

In print media in the Philippines today, feminists are exercising their right to use their own language-within-a-language (or their discourse or register). Articulating their concerns in language previously regarded as non-standard or unacceptable in polite print, feminists have discovered that gender issues transcend the male, highly publicized, hotly debated issue of which language to use as the primary medium of instruction in Philippine schools (the Filipino vs. English debate). The area of linguistic struggle in the Philippines today, then, consists not only of languages as traditionally defined by race or even class, but of language as gender-specific.