Politics of Dress
Magnolia Garcia
Of the excerpts provided to us, the one I found most intriguing was that of gender, nation and the
politics of dress in the Philippines. More specifically, the American colonial period and its influence on Filipino dress really stood out to me. “The difference in women and men’s positioning in the composition of the future independent nation state was reflected in dress.” Men were styled in Americana; meanwhile, the wives of politicians always wore the temo and panuelo. Because many Filipino men were opposed to female suffrage, women (dressed in traditional garments) “represented the disenfranchised, disempowered non-citizen.”
It’s interesting to find that these were strictly male views, as women did not accept and internalize these representations of themselves. What does that say about the male perspective on Filipino
culture during this period? In a way, it was as if the male point of view implied that their own Filipino heritage and tradition were weaker than that of the Western people. Men viewed women as “beneath” them--as shy and submissive. Is it not then ironic that it was man who wore the clothing that originated from the colonizers? Is this not submission in it of its own? Men were yielding to what they viewed to be a superior force.
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