Intersections of Gender and Politics in the Slums of Philippines - Dissertation

Intersections of Gender and Politics in the Slums of Philippines [Un]conventional Gender Identities.

Intersections of Gender and Politics in the Slums of Philippines —

by Mariah Trisha Jover BA Architecture Dissertation, Year 3 Group 1: Gender & Architecture Tutor: Anne Hultzsch University of Greenwich 2020/2021 Word Count: 6,830

Acknowledgements.

My thanks and appreciation goes to Anne Hultzsch for your constant guidance and literary advice.

Thank you to my family for your sincere engagement and support.

Abstract.

The notions of gender equality in the Philippines has been existing since the Pre-colonial Period. Throughout generations of political governors and spiritual leaders, equality has been a proposed pride for the Filipino people.

However, in the progression of new traditions and cultures implemented since the Colonial Period, the Philippines has lived under the conventional constructs of gender stereotypes and rising patriarchal systems.

Amidst all of this, inspired by the lifestyle of my grandmother, Consolación Prieto, slum homes as well as the inhabitants of these informal settlements have spatially and socially demonstrated responses that outweigh the rising patriarchy and conventional living within Filipino society.

This dissertation investigates how gender and politics pose as interrelating factors within slum settlements, specifically The Baseco Slum, as a means to challenge and reconstruct traditional gender idententies where women are recognised as the ‘ilaw ng tahanan’ and men as the ‘haligi ng tahanan.’ Through the exploration of how slum dwellers live, work and spatially construct their homes within these informal settlements, I evaluate how such lifestyles demonstrates a potential shift away from traditional hierarchal gender systems and identities within a domestic setting.

ilaw ng tahanan — light of the home ; haligi ng tahanan — pillar of the home

Contents.

Introduction Methodology 01: The Light and The Pillar The Conventional Home Law-Constructed Identities The Light and The Pillar

02: The Baseco Slum Slum Identities Baseco Slum [Part 1] Remy’s Story

03: Transition to the Unconventional Baseco Slum [Part 2] Lorna’s Story Consolación Prieto

Conclusion Bibliography Figures / Images

“My presidency was ruled by the following imperatives, respect for and the empowerment of the people.”

— Corazon Aquino (AP Archive, 2015)

Image: (Dragani, 2010)

Introduction.

In the Pre-colonial Period of the Philippines, women have been witnessed to carry out a prominent degree of dominance in society through their role of being Babaylans. These were Philippine shamans that specialised in communicating and harnessing the supernatural spirits of the dead and of nature. Regardless of the preconceived feminine identities of women in these practices, some argue that in those days there was a ‘bilateral kinship system’ wherein not only men, but also Filipino women received a great degree of equality and levelled leadership through these cultural animist practices (Kawada 2006; Brewer, 1999). In spiritualism and animism, women were profoundly leaders of the spirit domain. This identity of leadership carried on even in the Spanish colonial period of Philippines. In politics, women actively participated in the economic realm, having rights to earnings and properties as well as in the sector of governance through examples like the fighting leadership of Gregoria Montoya y Patricio in the 1896 Philippine Revolution against Spain, and the return of democracy through the first female president, Corazon Aquino after her husband, a previous presidential figure, had been assassinated in 1983 during Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship (Mateo, 2001: 91).

However, alongside these victories, new culture and ideals were established in the country of Philippines. An ideal image of women was constructed and domestic identities were practiced with roots in Catholic religion and culture.

This ideal image of a woman that was implemented from the Spanish culture was not solely a liberated women, like the Philippine shamans but women as a “dutiful daughter, a caring wife, a sacrificial mother,” following the idolised life of Virgin Mary (Kawada, 2006: 117). Additional to this was the introduction to Western culture when Philippines was ceded to the United States in 1989.

Whilst maintaining the values of Catholicism and religion, indigenous practices like the Babaylan woman (priestess) was substituted with Western institutions. This was not only a new culture given for women to live by within society but it was a gender construct of women that heavily rested within the domestic setting, following principles which exhibit the conventional home.

In this progression of constructs, the 21st Century position of women in the Philippines has experienced a noticeable decline within the Global Gender Gap Index. This overall Gender Gap Index measures gender equality between men and women across areas of health, education, economy and politics. In 2016, Philippines placed 7th of 145 countries, but in 2020 has now placed 16th.

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Although there are extents of strength in maintaining a small gap within sectors of health and education, the subtle disparities within economy and political empowerment has effected the overall stance of the Philippines in the gender gap rankings (CNA, 2019; World Economic Forum, 2016; 2020). This opens an opportunity for investigation regarding how these shifts in gender equality within the Philippines, as well as political factors like the economy and law have become interrelating subjects that have impacted the social portrayal of women in the Philippines.

Slum settlements in the Baseco Compound of South Tondo, Manila, home to one of the most densely populated slums, present a number of responses to this ongoing query of gender equality. Through the investigation of these slum homes, within the context of the gender category, a great potential is uncovered. By seeing the way these dwellers live, work and how their homes are comprehensively constructed as a result, one can argue that it is through these settlements that we see a shift away from conforming to male-dominant gender identities, stereotypes and inequality within the Filipino society.

The experiences within my family regarding [un]conventional gender identities has also placed significance in pursuing this investigation. With scopes of conventional to unconventional living, my grandmother, Consolación Prieto stands as one of the women whose story confirms the potential within Filipino women, especially those in the lower classes. From the early 1900s, she displays her story as a testimony to the promotion of gender equality even as patriarchal lifestyles surround her to this day.

These intersections present itself of relevance today because factors such as space, history and law have an integral influence as to how culture is established and what is normalised, in gender and many other sectors, as a result. In this dissertation, I investigate the shifts of gender roles and identities within Baseco Slum, as a means to challenge the state of gender equality and stereotypical perceptions of women in the country. There is a potential that amidst the patriarchal norm and the suggested rising misogyny in the Philippines, that women, are breaking the stereotype of distinctive male superiority and expressing the ability to equally live up to the Filipino masculine responsibility of being the ‘haligi ng tahanan,’ the pillar of the home. It is specifically through the spatial and social presentations of the Filipino slum home that women begin to rise above gender stereotypes and challenges of only ever being a subordinate wife and a caring mother and thus, gain the ability to stand beside their male counterparts as strong, capable ‘pillars of the home.’

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Methodology.

As for the methodology, my sources include books, documentaries, reports and an interview that aid in the analysis of the interrelated fields of the study.

The dissertation first introduces and explains the wider view of gender theories regarding the conventional home. I use essays such a Leslie Kanes Weisman’s “Women’s Environmental Rights: A Manifesto” from Gender Space Architecture by Jane Rendell, Sexuality and Space by Beatrice Colomina and Space, Place and Gender by Doreen Massey, and utilise their theories on conventional home, gendered spaces and gender roles in a domestic setting to lay out the foundation of the study. Alongside such theories are academic papers and books such as Carolyn Brewer’s Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines and Myrna Feliciano’s review on Law, Gender and the Philippine Family as a way to supplement and relate theory and law to the construction of gender roles and ideologies in the Philippines from the 16th Century to now.

After introducing conventionalities established in Philippines, I use the foundational research from the United Nations and other complimentary sources to present my main case study which is based in the Baseco Slum of South Tondo, Manila. This case study is utilised to investigate the spatial and social expressions of how slum homes are an example of how, even within the lower classes, women rise above conventional living and gender stereotypes that encourage distinctive hierarchal systems and inequality within the Filipino society. The spatial report from Francesco Rossini’s work on the Baseco Compound and first hand experiences shown on Paul Roy’s Documentary on “The Slum” are the main sources where my analysis of the case study has come from. Additionally, the slum experience of my grandmother is presented to collectively reinforce and further supplement the findings from the case study.

My approach includes the analysis and comparison of how physical qualities of slum homes including space and material, as well as social qualities of slum dwellers respond to the conventional ideologies regarding gender identities and domesticity. This is supplemented by writings from Ohlsson on gendered spaces as well as the primary gender theories researched.

Such findings suggest potential in how women can carry out lifestyle’s beyond the boundary of gender stereotypes therefore implying equal capabilities of living up to traditionally masculine responsibilities of being the ‘haligi ng tahanan’ and not just the conventional ‘ilaw ng tahanan.’

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Chapter One.

The Light and The Pillar

The Peñaridonda-Jover Family

The theory regarding domestic gender identities resonates in the lifestyle and attitudes of the Filipino people. Through the explorations of gender theorists, feminist architects and historians, such as Beatrice Colomina, Leslie Weisman and Doreen Massey, analysis regarding the conventional home, political approaches about family and the woman’s place, stand as the foundation of established gender identities and stereotypes within Filipino culture. In the Philippines, women are identified as the ‘light of the home’ and men, the ‘pillar of the home,’ which are gender constructs that depicts the conventional caring, nurturing, maternal housewife and the strong, dominant provider and father. These identities provide the cultural connotations of conventionality within a Filipino home, suggesting, in its own unique way, of the hierarchal systems in a home. These ideas of conventional identities, cultures, and hierarchy established by law can be considered as the driving forces towards societal expectations regarding gender roles and how informal homes in the Philippines, such as the slums, respond to challenge them.

The Conventional Home Gender theory regarding the conventional home and domesticity states that the house is a spatial opportunity to demonstrate the key identities and roles of women, as well as of men, within a home. Through the idea that spaces are gendered according to activities associated to a distinct gender that take place within them, women are portrayed to take the primary place of a homemaker.

Weisman states that “a homemaker has no inviolable space of her own. She is attached to spaces of services… a hostess in the living room, a cook in the kitchen, a mother in the children’s room, a lover in the bedroom…” (2000: 2).

This suggests that women have socially been given a set of identities within spaces of domesticity, portraying standards that they are to follow within a home. By identifying women to be a “hostess, cook, mother and even lover” implies identities of service which are often subject to their male counterpart.

Not only does this open the house to be a “spatial metaphor for conventional role playing,” however it also clearly shows that there is an underlying hierarchy between the male and female that is established and therefore is played out within a home (Weisman 2000: 2). The house and its accompanied spaces become a metaphor of the gender roles that are to be lived within it. These standardised roles of the male and female are presented by Massey’s analysis regarding the British society’s perception of the “man being the breadwinner and the woman being the homemaker,” creating a level of separation between both roles, that whilst a woman’s place is in a home, society suggests that a man’s is out in the public world of work, standing as the “breadwinner” (Massey, 2009: 188). This identity of the homemaker implies qualities of nurture and cooperation which are seen to be feminine qualities and again, reinforces that women are attached to spaces of services.

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Furthermore, this reinforces the traditional Filipino woman as the ‘light of the home,’ which follows the same connotations of maternity, service and submission through roles demonstrated in domestic spaces, such as the kitchen, bedroom and living room as stated by Weisman. Simultaneously, Weisman also describes the man’s world as “the public world of events… associated with objectivity, impersonalisation, competition and rationality” which are masculine traits that demonstrate dominance, authority and strength (2000: 2). The identity of the breadwinner is therefore seen to imply more robust and public qualities which is reflective of the strong, working Filipino man, the pillar who supports and leads the family.

However, although this directly suggests a clear distinction between a private woman’s home and a public man’s world, other theories further explore the notions of the public and private and its implications towards gender. As men are identified to have authority in the world of public work and its duties of provision, they also live this authority within the home which further explores how men are not just identified as ‘pillars’ but rather, ‘pillars of the home.’

This demonstrates that the idea of the public man not only places itself to the outside world but additionally embeds itself within the domestic setting which provides greater depth on the hierarchal connotations of society’s stereotypes of women as the homemaker. As stated by Rendell, there is a “hierarchical system consisting of a dominant public male and a subordinative private female” which is evidently expressed within domestic architecture allowing the allocation of private and public to the female and male and thus reinforcing the established gendered identities within spaces (2000: 103). An architectural example of this is the analysis of Adolf Loos’ Moller House by Beatrice Colomina. Through the intentional spatial decisions of the architect, the modern design typology of domestic architecture is upheld, portraying the public male spaces and the intimate, private female spaces. Colomina talks of the “adjacent male spaces like the library. In these, leather sofa, desks, a chimney and mirrors represent a public space within a house… the office, the club invading the interior” (1992: 81). The expressions of robust leather and smoked chimneys create an environment of masculinity, implying an invasion of the public even within a home. With this in mind, one begins to see the woman’s place, position and authority in the home present but always with the man still within the view frame. This presentation of masculine public spaces, whether in its materiality or in its social implications, becomes representative of the standardised male identity and therefore reiterates the hierarchal system of gender identities and roles that is within a home. Therefore, through the cultural connotations of conventional gender identities suggested from both the public sector of work as well as the very home itself, we see the suggested roots of the gender constructs of the Philippines which carry very similar ideals regarding a woman and a man’s role in society and in a home.

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Law-Constructed Identities The gender roles that are reflected through domestic spaces are also often a result of the law and culture implemented throughout the society. Weisman states that the “use of space are political acts,” standing as a means for opportunity or oppression; for power or submission (2000: 4). A space can enhance or restrict its inhabitants both physically through its spatial qualities and socially through the identity it depicts as a result of law and social constructs. Just as a woman’s identity is in a home, law has established such culture and appropriated women to fulfil such ideals. Rendell reinforces this through her statement on the importance of relating the home back to the “context of its production,” which in this case is heavily related to politics and culture. (Rendell, 2000). In the Philippines’ transition during the colonial period, family laws had several provisions from the “Roman Doctrines of Patria Potestas and Paterfamilias” which, in definition, mean the head of the family and household is the father.

It denotes standards regarding the power of the father and ideas of patriarchy (Feliciano, 1994: 549). Laws, such as the Marriage Law of 1870 regarding the legalities of religious and civil marriage, and the Spanish code of commerce of 1845 that connects with the business and commercial sectors, carried out these qualities of masculine power and dominance from the Catholic Roman Doctrines. These codes within politics have become key influencers in Filipino culture to reinforce the gender theories on clear hierarchal systems that suggest a woman’s place is solely within domestic spaces of service.

However, although Filipina women were not given the same rights as men in sectors of governance and empowerment, many compensated by actively participating in the economic life of the country (Feliciano, 1994: 549).

Many took liberties of new business and crafts such as weaving and selling fabrics, and hosting mahjong stations within the perimeters of the home to gain additional savings for the family. Regardless of the implied power of the male within the home, this was the woman’s opportunity to contribute for her family whilst carrying out her own interests even in the home. To an extent, although these are businesses expressing feminine qualities such as knitting, it is through entrepreneurial initiatives that we slowly see the woman’s independence outside of her male counterpart’s dominance.

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The Light and The Pillar These theories regarding gender constructs, politics and law, are a crosscultural representation of the conventional home and gender identities that are not only present in the Western cultures but also within the Filipino society.

Growing up in a big family in the Philippines has allowed me to witness the generational traditions culturally established within our own traditional middle class Filipino home. Values established even from the Colonial Period of the Philippines, wherein the conventional home would display the biblical hierarchy of the father, the mother and the children, still applied when I was a young child in the Philippines. The conventional ideals of gender roles in a home not only rooted from Spanish religious values in the 16th Century but also from the well known and practiced presentation of the woman being the ‘ilaw ng tahanan,’ the light of the home and the man being the ‘haligi ng tahanan,’ the pillar of the home. In following these values, women carry the responsibilities as the carers, religious mentors and nurturers in the home.

They were to be the ideal image of “a caring wife and a sacrificing mother” in pursuit of living up to the highest biblical image of Mary (Kawada, 2006: 117).

Men, on the other hand, stand as the strong protectors, providers and priests of the home. The statement of Weisman that a house is a place for conventional role playing, became the same spatial metaphor of the Jover’s Residence wherein I witnessed my grandparents and parents live up to the identities they were raised to carry out: allocated leadership and service (2000: 2).

The lifestyle of my grandparents, Filemon and Lorna Jover, presented itself of great significance in terms of gender roles and identities. The same public space imagery by Colomina of the office, the club and the library was present in our home wherein my grandfather, the elected chairman of our district, took ownership of these public domestic spaces. Amidst my grandfather’s leadership in society and in the home, my grandmother took on the traditional roles of the homemaker, where she identified with the spaces of service like the kitchen, living room and my room, the children’s room (Weisman, 2000: 2). However, she also took advantage of domestic liberties available to her such as weekly mahjong, a home-based business. This was her personal way of participating in the economic life whilst maintaining conventional domesticity, applying the entrepreneurial skills of a Filipina woman in the home as a means to voluntarily contribute to financial family needs.

This supplements the theories that go along with gender identities within a domestic setting and reinforces the lawfully constructed gender roles within a home. Simultaneously, it expresses the hierarchical function of the man and woman, not to conclude that woman are mere subordinates to their spouses but rather that there are distinguishable private and public managing roles within the home (Feliciano, 1994: 552).

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This exploration of gender theory regarding the conventional home, gendered spaces and the domestic influences of law, within the context of the Filipino home, provides the basis of conventional identities. Such explorations in theory become key points that help inform my investigation towards how informal, slum homes of the Philippines respond to these established gender roles and stereotypes within conventional domesticity.

Interior Office of Generations of Jover men

Lorna Jover’s Mahjong Activities

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Chapter Two.

The Baseco Slum

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The Baseco Slum, Baseco Compound

Notions of conventional domesticity extends from standard housing all the way to informal housing. The largest part of the current urban growth is taking place in the developing countries of the world including the Philippines. This urban growth involves the informal housing, specifically the slums. In the Philippines, slums are now scattered to over 526 communities in all divisions of Metro Manila, housing 2.5 million people on both vacant private or public lands usually located along rivers and railroad tracks, near dumps, under bridges and beside industrial establishments (UN-Habitat, 2003: 215). Slum settlements, as a form of informal domesticity are additional grounds where the presence of conventional domestic gender identities can be investigated.

This is specifically tested in the Baseco Slum through the scopes of physical spatial qualities and the social role analysis of its inhabitants. As a result, through the macro and micro scale investigations of the slum community, we see implications of gender neutrality, presenting qualities within slum homes and dwellers, specifically women, that express identities which differ from conventional gender stereotypes and constructs regarding the ‘light’ and ‘pillar’ of the home.

Slum Identities Slum settlements are one of the lowest forms of informal housing within an urban locality inhabited by the poor, lower class. The Human Settlements Programme of United Nations states that slums “have the most intolerable of urban housing conditions, which frequently include: insecurity of tenure; lack of basic services, especially water and sanitation; inadequate and sometimes unsafe building structures; overcrowding; and location on hazardous land.”

(2003). Additionally, two of the main challenges presented within these developing countries, such as the Philippines, which contribute to the recreation of these slums and its conditions, is the rapid urbanisation and the urbanisation of poverty (UN-Habitat, 2003). This implies that the formation of slums primarily root from the socio-economic factors and challenges of the society, relating back to class and the economy.

Slums can be analysed through its physical and social characteristics. Firstly, due to the fact that there is often very little dependence on public authorities in providing formal channels of water supply, sanitation and electricity, slums are physically perceived to have below minimum standards of living. As a result, slum women and the children they support in particular are the greatest victims of these conditions (UN-Habitat, 2003).

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Furthermore, the physical and spatial characteristics also explore the construction and materiality of the slums. In the Philippines, the construction of slums are with materials that are locally sourced from nearby ports and dumps which are viable to the slum community. Some materials are also provided by Christian foundations who support the lower class poor people.

Common materials of slum homes include a combination of cement blocks, corrugated metal, metal wire as well as bamboo, wood and fabrics (Ragragio, 2003; Al Jazeera English and Roy, 2014 Secondly, social characteristics of slums centres around its inhabitants and dwellers. Squatter homes belong to the lower income group, people who often work in various informal sector enterprises and who make a living for themselves. Examples of these are entrepreneurial businesses such as informal tyre shops and fabric services (Al Jazeera English and Roy, 2014).

Slum dwellers also include second and third generation squatters which are people following after their families within the same slum community. The roles of the inhabitants and the social interactions that are being presented within domestic slum spaces relate back to the possible gender identities in which such settlements depict and whether this reinforces or subverts the conventional domestic gender identities and stereotypes.

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Baseco Slum [Part 1] These slum identities are evident in one of the most densely populated slums of Metro Manila. The Baseco Slum accommodates 45,000 slum dwellers along with their accompanied, self-made slum homes (Al Jazeera English and Roy, 2014). Collectively, it is evident that Baseco slum responds to surpass traditional gender roles within a domestic setting, expressing notions of unconventional living through the spatial decisions displayed in the construction of slum homes as well as the lifestyle of slum dwellers.

2001

2019

Figure 1: Growth and Evolution in Extent of Baseco

The rapid population growth of the urban poor due to rapid reproduction and slum migrants within the Baseco Compound display the evident consequences of overcrowding and increase of slum homes. As a result, a noticeable merge of the private home and overall public slum community is presented. Where the public invades the private and conversely, where the private invades the public, the distinguishable and conventional private female and public male identity theorised by Rendell and Colomina is diminished. This primarily is evident in figure 1 which presents the macro growth in extent of the Baseco Compound where from 2001 to 2019, the increase of the slum settlements has grown to cover over 80% of the land (Cutini et al., 2020). Furthermore, as presented in figure 2, the increase of the slum networks and resultant unplanned and irregular structures, common to slum settlements, generates spaces where distinctions between public and private are not clearly defined (Cutini et al., 2020). This presentation of indistinguishable public and private spaces of the slum community can be considered key indicators of how the conventional gendering of domestic spaces cannot be practiced and therefore challenges the spatial evidence of gender conventionalities as well as the application of standardised and sequenced gender identities.

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Baseco Slums 0m

Figure 2: Density of the Baseco Slum Community

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Additionally, in theory, Weisman states that “the appropriation and use of space are political acts. The kinds of spaces we have, do not have, or are denied access to can empower us or render us powerless.” (Weisman, 2000: 4).

Although there is an implied powerlessness due to the general lack of space for slums along with the informal connotations of overcrowding, there is a sense of authority wherein the act of spatial invasion imply opportunity for openness and exposure to community. As a result, this increase in physical slum grounds, with the merge of the public and private, is an opportunity where women can practice social and productive activities beyond the traditional domestic setting. women are placed alongside men in an inevitable public setting creating this sense of openness and thus, redefines gender roles in slums where it is no longer distinctively the average “dominant public male and a subordinative private female,” as expected even in the Filipino society (Rendell, 2000: 103).

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Image 1 & 2: Stills of Remy from ‘The Slum’ Documentary (Al Jazeera English and Roy, 2014).

Remy’s Story The expressed undefinable public and private offer a place where social relationships and activities can flourish. (Cutini et al., 2020). Not only is this a great value to informal communities, but it is additionally an opened opportunity for women to liberally take advantage of the public and the world of work despite its traditional masculine connotations.

Remy Permitez is a women from Baseco who lives outside of gender ideologies of the public male and private female. She does this through her pursuit in being a self-taught midwife in order financially provide for her family of 14.

In response to why she took the initiative in creating a career for herself, she states that “I understand women’s situations here because I have been through it myself. We are all the same, struggling.” (Al Jazeera English and Roy, 2014).

Her lifestyle and connection to the public in her on-call role as a midwife presents how women in slums are placed alongside men in the public world of work. She delivers new life within multiple neighbouring slums including Aroma Slum. Fortunately, in the progression of her self-made career, she was able to escape the slum shack and moved her family to a governmentprovided apartment offered to slum dwellers with the means to pay living costs. The space they occupy simultaneously has become her make-shift maternity clinic which in itself reinforces the merge of public and private within slum communities. Through Remy’s domestic and public lifestyle, we see how spaces become further unified as most women in poor areas carry out a “triple role to the productive, reproductive and community managing work.” (Ohlsson, 2013: 31). Such responsibilities include sourcing income, nurturing children, and maintaining an adequate lifestyle in hard living conditions. This lifestyle reinforces how the loss in distinguishable public and private spaces compliments the loss of conventional gender identities wherein women advance from boundaries of domesticity to becoming managers in the working field. It stands to emphasise that through slum settlements, women begin to take on masculine roles of the ‘pillar of the home’ as they stand as leader and provider. The way in which Remy uses space as her “political act” in taking initiative for her career renders her more empowered than what would traditionally be expected of women (Weisman, 2000: 4). This therefore is her own expression of dominance, living outside of the law-constructed ideals of patriarchy and domestic male leadership by surpassing conventional, private female expectations (Feliciano, 1994: 549).

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Chapter Three.

Transition to the Unconventional

Consolación Prieto

As stated in Chapter One, theories on the conventional home suggests that a house is a “spatial metaphor for conventional role playing.” (Weisman, 2000: 2). This implies that domestic spaces are performing grounds for men and women to live up to gender stereotypes of domestic living where women are presented as the traditional wife and mother, in service to her male counterpart.

However, through the analysis of spatially unified interiors, material qualities, and slum dweller experiences regarding the removal of hierarchy within a Baseco slum home, this standardised domestic ideal present in Filipino society is challenged. Additional to all of this is the collective experience of my grandmother, who having experienced the transition to unconventional living, emphasises the present rise in equality and surpass in typical domestic gender expectations through such poor communities.

Baseco Slum [Part 2]

Figure 3: Variations of Baseco Slum Homes

Through the unique construction, spatial layout and use of materiality in the Baseco slum homes, the theory on conventional role playing is challenged.

Although the configurations of slums carry similarities such as the standard domestic program of a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, it is unlikely to find two slums with the same physical and spatial layout (Fernandez, 2011: 7). Slums in Baseco take on different forms from two-story shared shacks to single area square huts made of materials such as bamboo, corrugated metal, robust cement blocks and recycled tyres and fabrics (Figure 3). As a result of organic building, it is clear that slum homes are configured based on factors including typology, space and access to resources. This means that the interior of slum homes display a dynamic integration of space where distinct domestic programs of kitchen, living space and bedroom are no longer spatially evident as they become one collective space only often separated by recycled fabrics.

Additionally, as a result of limited space, spaces common within higher class homes like libraries or a children’s room are not present within slum homes to further example differences in the public and private.

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Figure 4: Perspective Plan of a Slum Home in Baseco

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This is demonstrated in the example of a slum home (figure 4) wherein it presents the domestic spaces in a single area. The living space, bedroom and kitchen are unified, with fabric as a use of spatial coding, and the toilet is only separated using unconnected cement blocks and excess corrugated metal.

The lack in spatial identification not only reinforces the loss of distinct public and private domestic spaces originally theorised by Colomina and Rendell but it also affects the way in which conventional role playing is supposed to be applied. Conventional gender identities in singular spaces where metal, robust concrete and light fabric are unified cannot therefore be practiced as these open spaces subtly encourage neutrality over distinction. As a result, one cannot identify the conventional robust public male space, like the Moller House’s office1, and delicate private female space within a slum home which are the standard identities that create gendered roles and stereotypes within a domestic setting in the first place.

1 “...adjacent male spaces like the library. In these, leather sofa, desks, a chimney and mirrors represent a public space within a house… the office, the club invading the interior” (Colomina, 1992: 81).

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This is reinforced by Ranade who states that although many assume, within the context of architecture, that the user of space is a neutral entity wherein the user is usually an upper-class, able-bodied, hereto-sexual male, different bodies experience space differently because access to space is socio-culturally determined by differences such as class, age and gender (Ranade, 2007: 1520).

For slum settlements, a home is no longer a spatial metaphor for conventional role playing but rather a functional example of adaptation of the poor class, living under poor conditions with lack of resources which are characteristics common to slums that go beyond the boundaries of gender ideologies.

This therefore reveals a new interpretation of the ‘light’ and the ‘pillar’ of a home. Whilst this gender construct traditionally portrays a distinctive hierarchal role between men and women within a traditional home, such conventionalities differ in a slum setting. In a slum home, a level of equality is metaphorically suggested through the unity of supposedly divided domestic spaces. This implies that the position of the light and pillar can therefore be applied by all; a lifestyle that both men and women can live up to.

Figure 5: Baseco Slums Illustration

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Image 3 & 4: Stills of Lorna from ‘The Slum’ Documentary (Al Jazeera English and Roy, 2014).

Lorna’s Story The Pagtabunan family lives in one of the Baseco slum homes where Hener and Lorna are parents to 9 children, all of which rely on them for daily provision (Al Jazeera English and Roy, 2014). Lorna reinforces the idea of neutrality in hierarchy and identity, as suggested through the spatial qualities of the slum, as she stands at the primary breadwinner for her family. She does this by taking initiative in selling vegetables and snacks, a common Filipino micro-business within lower class communities known as ‘changgi.’

Lorna uses the window opening of the supposed kitchen area where she also does the laundry to create this micro-store. In doing so, she reinforces how slum homes act as single multifunctional spaces of domesticity and work, which is not the case in traditional domestic settings. This expresses how the public and private activities unify within a single area of the slum home reinforcing the loss in prominent conventional role playing allocated to the man and woman. Lorna states that within their slum community, “Life is hard, we women have to make a living,” which reinforces the unconventional lifestyle women carry out in slums as opposed to the traditional home wherein women carry out the suggested domestic roles of a “hostess, cook, mother and even lover.” (Al Jazeera English and Roy, 2014; Weisman, 2000: 2). Therefore, this is an example of how the unique construction and unified spatial layouts of slum homes are unconventionally used to show how women like Remy and Lorna undertake equal roles, in business and community, as men (Ohlsson, 2013: 31). Men no longer are the sole breadwinners and providers of the family and women do more than the conventional expectations of domestic service. Therefore, we can identity how gender identities of the ‘light’ and the ‘pillar’ within a slum home become interchangeable as they carry the same responsibilities such as using domestic spaces to equally managing businesses.

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Consolación Prieto

Consolación Prieto — A Woman’s Life in the Slums.

The experience of my grandmother, Consolación Prieto, collectively reinforces the spatial and social attributes presented within the slums of Baseco that have empowered women in informal settlements beyond levels of hierarchal expectation.

Consolación Prieto, now of age 76, lives in the province of Santa Barbara, Iloilo.

In her early years of motherhood, she lived within the informal settlements of the area, raising a family of 6 with her husband, Antonio Prieto. Prior to achieving the better standard of living she now has in a well-maintained working class home in Santa Barbara, Consolación underwent the same experiences of the slum women of Baseco. Through her journey, we see the transition to unconventional living which she embraced as a result of living in the slum settlements of Santa Barbara. Collectively with Remy and Lorna’s story, Consolación’s entrepreneurial values towards living further emphasises the potential within women in the slum communities to rise above long existing patriarchal norms and conduct themselves as the ‘haligi ng tahanan.’

From the side of her home as well as weekly in the local market, Consolación manages her personal business of selling rice to local dwellers of the province with the help of her husband. Like Remy, she too took the initiative in making a career for herself amidst the lack of financial provision that once was present in her family. Like Lorna, she optimised her home as well as her access to sell in the local market to effectively earn an income for the betterment of her family.

In my interview with Consolación regarding her journey in the slums as a woman, she assertively states about herself that “I am a caring wife and mother, religious in my conduct as is expected of any woman but I also am a hard working manager, selling rice in the market to daily make a living.”

The standard of society is for women to solely conduct domestic conventional living as a means to fulfil the traditional expectations of women of the “dutiful daughter, a caring wife, a sacrificial mother” (Kawada, 2006: 117). Whilst these are roles inevitable to a woman’s lifestyle, Consolación emphasises that it should not distance a woman from the public work nor bound her from living out responsibilities normally undertaken by men including leadership in the home, entrepreneurial businesses and public activities. She continues to live out this unconventional lifestyle to this day, as she carries out a new culture being the ‘pillar of the home’ as much as she is the ‘light of the home.’ Such lifestyles break away from the traditional western filipino culture of gender constructs regarding the hierarchal system of the dominant male and the idea that men are the breadwinners, and evidently present women with the equal ability and opportunity to live out being the ‘haligi’ of the home.

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“To live strong and capable as any man, it did not mean that I had to neglect my expected roles as a mother because those are responsibilities a woman cannot run away from. But, it meant that whilst fulfilling my responsibilities, I also did more; like work because I needed to but most of all wanted to.”

— Consolación Prieto.

Conclusion.

Over centuries, the Philippines has experience both pride and decline within the notions of gender equality. In the Pre-colonial Period, women experienced ‘bilateral kinship system’ where women were equally empowered as liberal spiritual leaders known as Babaylans (Kawada 2006; Brewer, 1999). Then in the Colonial Period, despite the presence of female revolutionists and leaders, fresh cultures were dominantly imparted to the Filipino people which influenced the social portrayal of women and the expected standard of ‘the conventional home.’

Resultantly, distinctive identities were given to both men and women which is the traditional Filipino identity of the female ‘ilaw ng tahanan’ and male ‘haligi ng tahanan.’ Such traditional identities presented women solely as the dutiful daughter, caring wife and sacrificial mother whilst men were the protectors, providers and public foundations of the family (Kawada, 2006: 117). These were Filipino identities that were further reinforced by gender theories that present the distinctive domestic “hierarchal system consisting of a dominant public male and a subordinative private female,” in the Philippines due to the Roman Doctrines within Filipino law that encouraged patriarchy and the dominant male figure (Rendell, 2000: 103; Feliciano, 1994: 549) However, throughout the generations of Babaylans and political female leaders, it is evident that at the heart of the Filipino community rests the imperative of equal empowerment upon all people, men and women alike. Just as stated by our first female president of 1986 on her presidential values, “my presidency was ruled by the following imperatives, respect for and the empowerment of the people.” (AP Archive, 2015).

Today, regardless of the decline within the Global Gender Gap Index of the Philippines and suggested rising patriarchy in presidency which expressed gender disparities (World Economic Forum, 2020), such a heart for equality was not in fact holistically overlooked after colonional-influenced constructs of gender identities. Using the explorations of space within slum communities, slums present a new culture where the traditional identity of ‘ilaw ng tahanan’ and ‘haligi ng tahanan,’ is reconstructed. Such findings evidently resides outside the boundaries of conventional gender constructs that have once been placed by law and conformed to by the Filipino people.

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By studying The Baseco Slum we see the ways in which normalised, conventional domestic gender stereotypes have been surpassed and overcome.

Through explorations of spatial and social consequences of overcrowding and even socio-economic disadvantages like lack of resources and income, we find release in potential equality as women like Remy, Lorna and Consolación take on additional roles of the ‘haligi ng tahanan’ in becoming both the primary breadwinners, public community workers and the homemakers, sacrificial mothers.

It is where such qualities collide that we see greater equality within the identities expressed from the light and pillar. As stated by my grandmother, for women to live as equally strong and capable in a world of patriarchy, it does not mean that one should neglect the inevitable responsibilities given to them as women. Instead, it means to take initiative in choosing not to the bounded by social gender constructs and simultaneously carrying out roles of the ‘pillar.’ In slums, where gender meets politics, we can conclude that women successfully, through spatial and social expressions, shift away from gender stereotypes, hierarchal systems and conventional domestic identities. Space is no longer merely configured to conform to conventional ideologies, whether in sectors of gender, politics or within society as a whole. Rather, space is an opportunity to do the unconventional, to venture beyond social expectations which will not only provide a new culture to its dwellers but even dynamic to its purpose. Thus, a new, neutralised and unconventional perspective of ‘ilaw ng tahanan’ and ‘haligi ng tahanan’ is introduced.

ilaw ng tahanan — light of the home = haligi ng tahanan — pillar of the home

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Figures / Images.

Dragani, R. (2010). Corazon Aquino (1933-2009). Available at: http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/ article/0,28804,2029774_2029776_2031847,00.html [Accessed Jan. 2021].

Figure 1: Cutini, Di Pinto, Rinaldi and Rossini (2020). Proximal Cities: Does Walkability Drive Informal Settlements? Sustainability, 12(3).

Figure 2, 3 & 4: Rossini, F. (2020). Regenerating Informal Settlements Through Mapping and Public Space: The Case of BaSECo Compound in Manila. Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, pp.55–82.

Figure 5: Baseco Slums Illustration. (n.d.). Pinterest. Available at: https:// www.pinterest.ph/pin/315885361361587229/ [Accessed 2020].

Image 1-4: Al Jazeera English and Roy, P. (2014). The Slum | Al Jazeera Documentaries. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=FEX3TIM3tcU [Accessed 2 Nov. 2020].

Kaliburan (n.d.). Kaliburan. [online] Available at: http://kaliburan.blogspot. com/2012/08/our-grandmother-carmen-and-jover-family.html [Accessed Dec. 2020].

All the other images in this dissertation are by the author.

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