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An Agenda for Gender-fair EducationZENAIDA QUEZADA-REYES

My long involvement with women’s studies has made me sensitive to what Iread. I automatically classify books as either sexist or not. I examine theparticipation of women and the biases against them in many books that I

use in teaching social science subjects. As one writer states:

No one has ever devised a method for de-taching the scholar from the circumstancesin life, from the fact of his involvement (con-scious or unconscious) with a class, a set ofbeliefs, a social position, or from the mereactivity of being a member of a society.

No production of knowledge in the humansciences can ever ignore or disclaim its au-thor’s involvement as a human subject in hisown circumstance (Said, in Saigol 1995).

I support an antipatriarchal ideology andenvision a society that pursues gender equityin the area of education. Gender-fair educa-tion involves the experiences, perceptions, andperspectives of girls and women as well as boysand men (DE, USA 1995). It aims to promotethe teaching and learning of gender equity,highlighting female experiences as products ofhistorical and cultural processes.

Gender-fair education works on the follow-ing principles:

• Men and women are born equal, and sothey must be given equal opportunitiesto develop their potential.

• All students have the right to a gender-fair learning environment.

• All education programs and career deci-sions should be based on the student’s in-terests and abilities, regardless of gender.

• Gender-fair education incorporates issuesof social class, culture, ethnicity, religion,sexual orientation, and age.

• Gender-fair education requires sensitivity,determination, commitment, and vigi-lance.

• The foundation of gender-fair educationis the cooperation and collaborationamong students, educational organiza-tions, and other relevant institutions.

These principles must guide teachers, schooladministrators, curriculum writers, and, mostimportant, the textbook writers, in eliminat-ing patriarchal ideology in the classroom.

Philippine Schools’ Gendered Curriculum

Schools reflect the social, economic, and po-litical structures and processes of a given soci-ety. They tend to reproduce the social orderand maintain the status quo (Cortes 1993).Philippine society supports patriarchal ideol-ogy. The formal education system promotesand propagates patriarchal ideology. The firstChurch-run schools and tertiary educationalinstitutions were established in the 1600s un-der Spanish colonial rule. Only the sons ofSpaniards and upper-class Filipinos could at-tend. Their sisters entered beaterios, where theywere trained in housework, religious music, andreligious rituals. While men pursued highereducation, women stayed at home and tookcare of their families. Even the Spanish RoyalEducational Decree of 1863, which establishedthe public school system in the Philippines, didnot allow women to go to school, and set up

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training schools only for male teachers. TheSpanish Royal Decree of 1865 gave even moreprivileges to men by extending the publicschool system to the secondary level. Voca-tional and technical schools were established,also only for men.

Under US colonial rule (1898-1946), theEducation Act of 1901 established the publicschool system and free primary education. Butwhile women now had access to education,schools continued to uphold traditional rolesof both men and women, as girls studied homeeconomics and boys took up practical arts.

Under Japanese colonial rule (1942-1945),the Basic Principles of Education were thefollowing:

• Present the Philippines as a member ofthe Greater East Asia Co-ProsperitySphere.

• Eradicate the idea of relying upon West-ern nations, especially the United Statesand Great Britain, and promote a culturebased on Filipinos’ identity as Asians.

• Encourage people to be less materialistic.• Spread the Japanese language and stop the

use of English.• Promote elementary and vocational edu-

cation.• Encourage people to be industrious.

Subjects were similar to those under the USsystem, including social studies, arithmetic,science, industrial arts for boys, and housekeep-ing and household arts for girls. The only dif-ference was that the Japanese required studentsto undergo military training.

Teachers were ordered to modify their in-structional materials. Anything that hinted atAmerican ideology was to be discarded. Com-pliance, however, was more artificial than real(Pangilinan 1954). The teachers remained loyalto the United States and to the patriarchal ide-ology embodied in the US school curriculum.

After World War II, all prewar superinten-dents, supervisors, principals, and classroom

teachers were reappointed. They resumedpropagating the US curriculum, with empha-sis on democratic values and community par-ticipation. At the primary, intermediate, andsecondary levels, boys and girls took up gen-eral subjects—math, science, social studies,English, Filipino, health and physical educa-tion, character education, and vocational edu-cation (UNESCO 1960). From the interme-diate to secondary levels, however, boys tookup industrial arts, gardening, and club work,while girls studied home economics, needle-work, cooking and housekeeping, food selec-tion and diet, and home nursing.

In 1957, the curriculum was revised to sepa-rate students as destined either for vocationalschools or college. General subjects were of-fered to both groups during the first two yearsof secondary education. During the third andfourth years, students preparing for collegetook college-oriented courses; the rest tookvocational courses. Boys still took vocationaleducation and girls still took home economics.

In the 1970s, the government revised thecurriculum, but girls continued to take homeeconomics, and boys, practical arts. Realchange took place only in 1985, when the cur-riculum was further revised, allowing boys andgirls to choose between home economics andpractical arts. Boys were now able to learn sew-ing, cooking, and interior design, while girlscould learn carpentry and how to do electricalrepair.

Gendered Textbooks

An analysis (adapted from Saigol [1995]) ofselected Asian history textbooks being used inPhilippine secondary schools reveals their pa-triarchal construction of gender through theirwriters’ (i) point of view, (ii) handling and inter-pretation of facts and events, (iii) definition ofconcepts, (iv) images, and (v) in-depth analysis.The textbooks examined are the following:

An Agenda for Gender-fair Education • 91

• Kabihasnang Asyano. 1989. Serye ng Sec-ondary Education Development Program(SEDP). Pilipinas: Kagawaran ng Edu-kasyon, Kultura at Isports.

• Latourette, Kenneth Scott. 1967. A ShortHistory of the Far East. Philippines: KenInc.

• Leogardo, Felicitas. 1988. History ofAsian Nations. Manila: Sto. Niño Catho-lic House.

• Pearn, B.R. 1970. An Introduction to theHistory of Southeast Asia. Hongkong:Sheck Wah Tong Printing Press.

The gender bias of textbooks may be ex-plicit or implicit. It is explicit when men andwomen are shown as having certain roles:women as mothers and wives, for example, whohave to sew, weave, cook, clean, and take careof children; and men as soldiers, leaders, andcitizens.

Of history books, Fernandez (1998) has thisto say:

Judging from what is written in historybooks, one would be led to conclude that:1. Women must have wombs a hundred times

bigger than their body size such that theycan beget thousands of male children withone or two females only. This would ex-plain the scarcity of females and the over-whelming presence of males in recordedhistory;

2. Women do nothing but watch while mensingle-handedly make history as conquer-ing heroes, national liberators, victoriousgenerals, benevolent monarchs, wise law-givers and some such;

3. Some women, on a few occasions, assistmen in history-making as when they sew aflag made out of their skirts which the menraise over a conquered territory or whenthey use their feminine charms on the en-emy to ferret out military or state secrets;and

4. A few women, on rare occasions, make his-tory somehow, and that is because they arenot truly women in the first place, but menin women’s bodies.

None of the textbooks examined show therole of women in nation building, except whenthey become national leaders after their hus-bands (or fathers) are assassinated (CorazonAquino, for example, and Sirimavo Bandara-naike). Otherwise, women are portrayed ashousewives and mothers who submit to theirhusbands. Some mention that Asian women,specifically Chinese women, have attainedequal rights. Yet, although women are giventhe freedom to work for economic production,they alone bear the burden of reproduction.

Implicitly, Asian history textbooks impart thecharacteristics of maleness and femaleness. Thehidden voice in the text or subtext (Saigol1995) is not openly articulated. The authormay not even be aware of it. The significantevents in Asian history are subtly used to di-chotomize categories that represent masculineand feminine characteristics: open/enclosed,light/dark, good/bad, brave/timid, power-ful/powerless, and so on. Gendered construc-tion of history as masculine discusses war, brav-ery, aggression, conquest, fearlessness, anddominance. Women, however, are objects ofmale desire with no needs of their own as indi-viduals. They are humble, respectful, good, andpure. The words “masculine” and “feminine”do not appear as biological and natural char-acteristics in the hidden text. But the mannerin which facts are presented are socially con-structed as having male and female character-istics. In other words, the discourse used bythe writers has “masculine” and “feminine”aspects (Saigol 1995). The patriarchal dis-courses appear in the following threads: mas-culine/feminine positioning, celebratory viewof history, glorification of the military, andpowerful state and submissive citizens.

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Masculine/Feminine Positioning in Asian History

The triumph of democracy over communismis prominent in discussions on Asian history.In the discourse of Leogardo (1988), for ex-ample, Asian nations attained their true inde-pendence by rejecting communism. Beforedemocracy, there was darkness, misery, andconflict, which are “female.” Under democ-racy, Asian nations experienced light, happi-ness, and independence, which are “male.”

Latourette (1967) projects the technologi-cally advanced, male “West” and the backward,female “Far East.” Western colonialization,therefore, signified the development of Asiancivilization.

The discussion on conquest and subjugationuses male and female imagery. The colonizerwas the “male” conqueror, liberator, and subju-gator of “female” Asian countries and “virgin”land. Asian history textbooks are stories ofconquest (by Kublai Khan, for example) andcolonization (by foreign powers) of well-estab-lished civilizations, which brought misery andpolitical, economic, and cultural dislocation.

The Celebratory View of History

Representations of Asian history as a series ofmale political leaders glorify personalities suchas Kublai Khan, Emperor Akihito, MaoZedong, Khomeini, Nehru, Sukarno, and soon, who are held up as role models for chil-dren. In the books, men are preoccupied withwar. Peace and happiness are invisible in thestories of humankind.

Glorification of the Military

The narratives of the great kingdoms thatlater on became nation states concentrate onthe military prowess of leaders. The descrip-tion of strong Chinese leaders, the shogun ofJapan, colonization by the West, and WorldWar II, for example, send out the subtle mes-sage that leaders are strong, male command-

ers. Women are never portrayed as defendingtheir country.

The greatest military leaders are projectedas fighting for a just cause (as in Pakistan, forexample), mainly in defense of the Motherland,mothers, and children.

Powerful State and Submissive Citizens

Asian history textbooks promote ideologiesof citizenship and the relationship between thestate and the citizen. The citizen is the passive,infantilized, feminized Other of the patriarchalstate. The chapter on political systems of Asiain the SEDP series sends a subtle message thatcitizens must respect their leaders just as theyrespect their own fathers.

Promoting Gender-fair Teaching Strategies

Gender-fair educators advocate the follow-ing (DE, USA 1997):

• Be committed to learning and practicingequitable teaching by being committed toimproving the needs and welfare of bothmale and female students.

• Use gender-specific terms to market op-portunities. For example, if a technologyfair has been designed to appeal to girls,mention girls clearly and specifically. Manygirls assume that gender-neutral languagein nontraditional fields means boys.

• Modify content, teaching style, and assess-ment practices to make nontraditional sub-jects more relevant and interesting for fe-male and female students.

• Highlight the social aspects and usefulnessof activities, skills, and knowledge.

• Recognize comments received from femalestudents; and explore social, moral, and en-vironmental impacts of decisions, especiallythose that would affect women.

• When establishing relevance of material,consider the different interests and life ex-periences that girls and boys may have.

An Agenda for Gender-fair Education • 93

• Choose a variety of instructional strategiessuch as cooperative and collaborative workin small groups, opportunities for safe risk-taking, hands-on work, and opportunitiesto integrate knowledge and skills (e.g., sci-ence and communication).

• Provide specific strategies, special oppor-tunities, and resources to encourage stu-dents to excel in areas of study in whichthey are typically underrepresented.

• Design lessons to explore many perspec-tives and to use different sources of infor-mation; refer to male and female experts.

• Manage competitiveness in the classroom,particularly in areas in which male studentstypically excel.

• Watch for biases (for example, in behavioror learning resources) and teach studentsstrategies to recognize and work to elimi-nate inequities they observe.

• Be aware of accepted gender-biased prac-tices in physical activity (e.g., in teamsports, funding for athletes, and choices inphysical education programs).

• Do not assume that all students are het-erosexual.

• Share information and build a network ofcolleagues with a strong commitment toequity.

• Model nonbiased behavior: use inclusive,parallel, or gender-sensitive language; ques-tion and coach male and female studentswith the same frequency, specificity, anddepth; allow quiet students sufficient timeto respond to questions.

• Have colleagues familiar with commongender biases observe your teaching anddiscuss any potential bias they may observe.

• Be consistent over time.

The concept and principles of teaching strat-egies are useful in developing a gender-faireducation curriculum.

In conclusion, I would like to quote Saigol(1995):

Human beings are gendered emotionally,psychologically and politically because mostfamilies are based on gendered relations ofinferiority and superiority. The family is thefirst “political unit”. It is a biosocial, politi-cal, emotional and psychological space that isriddled with concerns of power. It producesgendered individuals, who, in turn, reproducegendered families.

Gendered thinking, that is, notions of“masculine” and “feminine” seem to becomeso infused with affect (negative and positive)for both men and women, and so deeply in-grained, that social and political entities takeon gendered meanings for people consciouslyand unconsciously.

This consciousness is reinforced by theschool system through the hidden curriculumembodied in textbooks. The school as the sec-ond agent of socialization is equally importantin shaping the minds of individuals. The teachermust take note of gendered construction ofreality in teaching and in the learning environ-ment.

References

Cortes, Josefina. 1993. Explorations in the Theory andPractice of Philippine Education: 1965-1993. QuezonCity: University of the Philippines Press.

Dorwick, Keith. 1997. Syllabus on the Introduction toGender, Sexuality and Literature. Kdorwick@uic.edu.

Exploration of an Idea: Gender Equity. 1995. Victoria,B.C., Canada: Curriculum Branch, Ministry of Edu-cation.

Gender Studies Curriculum. 1997. USA: Departmentof Education.

Fernandez, Albina Pecson. 1998. “Why Women AreInvisible in History.” A paper delivered during theseminar-workshop, “History Makes Women, WomenMake Herstory,” 9-10 March 1998, at the Univer-sity of the Philippines, Quezon City.

Kabihasnang Asyano. 1986. Manila: Kagawaran ngKultura at Isports.

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Latourette, Kenneth Scott. 1967. A Short History of theFar East. Philippines: Ken, Inc.

Leogardo, Felicitas. 1988. History of Asian Nations.Manila: Sto. Niño Catholic House.

Pangilinan, Benito. 1954. Public Education in the Phil-ippines. Quezon City: Bustamante Press.

Pearth, B. R. 1970. The History of Southeast Asia.Hongkong: Sheck Wah Tong Press.

Saigol, Rubina. 1995. Knowledge and Identity: Articu-lation of Gender in Educational Discourse in Paki-stan. Lahore: ASR Publications.

Shara, Razavi, and Carol Miller. 1995. Gender Main-streaming: A Study Efforts by the UNDP, the WorldBank and the ILO to Institutionalize Gender Issues.Geneva: UNRISD/UNDP.

The Tenth Milestone. 1960. Report by the EducationDivision USOM to the Philippines.

UNESCO. 1960. 50 Years of Education for Freedom.Manila: National Printing Co.