Spanish Colonisation of the Philippines

If you were to ask most people what female rights there were a few hundred years ago, most people would say that, as a world, we have progressed extremely far, but, incredibly, the Philippines is a completely different story. Before Spanish colonisation, Filipino society was filled with equality. Women were seen as equal to men and even held important positions in their barangay. 

Babaylan is a form of shaman, typically female, from the Philippines, that were thought to have the ability to communicate with spirits. They used this power to be healers, soldiers, fortune tellers, and other roles for their respective barangay. The Babaylan held an essential role in their communities, guiding them through hardships in times such as war or natural disaster. Babaylan is still an integral part of the barangay in some places, most likely in ethnic groups in the island; however, after Spanish colonisation they lost most of their traditional power and status as they were deemed as satanic brujas (witches) and slowly got cast out of society. In pre-colonial society, women were allowed to own land, make key decisions in households and governments, and were able to live on equal footing with men. In fact, it was common courtesy for men to walk behind their wives as a sign of respect for women. 

However, in today’s Filipino society, there are studies that show that women are believed to be less capable than men in society. 99.5% of Filipinos hold attitudes with biases against women. This is due to the beliefs of the Spanish colonists where they wrongfully use Christianity to enforce their beliefs in inequalities. Throughout the Spanish reign of the Philippines, they would enforce their beliefs by tightly controlling the people and preventing many traditional practices that deviated from the Spanish norm from occurring. These beliefs that were enforced by the Spanish colonists still remain to this day in the Philippines, and whilst both international feminist movements and local feminist movements continue to make changes in the Philippines, it is still hard to predict how long it will take for Filipino women to have the same rights they did as in pre-colonial times. 

Though it may be disheartening to see how society can so drastically change for the worse, this does show that it’s possible to have a better society than what we have now in the future as it was possible before, hence still possible now. Even with our current society and the changes that have occurred since pre-colonial times, the possibility of Filipino women being as respected as they were before still stands.