Philippine E-Journals

The Fairest of the Fair Sex: The Española as Model for the Mestiza Filipina

Erlinda K. Alburo

Discipline: History

 

Abstract:

Using materials from Spanish periodicals in the Philippines of the late 19th century as well as secondary sources on this period, this paper deals not so much on how the women’s magazines, especially El Bello Sexo and La Ilustración Filipina, perpetuated the stereotypes of women as it inquires into the media’s influence in shaping the Spanish or mestiza Filipina in the Philippines as modeled after their social counterpart in Spain. At the same time, it shows the “othering” of the native Filipina as an exotic curiosity and the countering process of the india as influencing her social superiors.