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BRING IT BACK, PLEASE

The VAW Experiential Museum is an excellent eye-opener about the silent everyday plight of women

By JOSEFF TUAZON, GMA News

As part of their 18-day campaign to end violence against women (VAW), the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) put up the VAW Experiential Museum from November 24, 2017 to November 26, 2017 to demonstrate how seemingly harmless, everyday acts can and have harassed women.  

In partnership with the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) and several theater organizations, PCW's four-part exhibit/museum walked viewers through situations women endure on a daily basis.

By immersing the viewers through the experiences, the hope is that people will recognize the issue, develop compassion, and instill in them lifelong awareness and commitment to never condone such acts.

The experiential museum spans the entire PETA theater in New Manila, baring a quartet of performances of true-to-life examples of abuses that are often brushed off, leaving Filipino women in a position of doubt, fear, and powerlessness.

Below, we'll walk you through the walk-through, as we hope PETA and the Philippine Commission on Women will back the experiential museum for another and longer run.

‘Joke lang daw’

Ushers first led us to the backstage of the PETA Theatre for the first act. We were met with what you'd understand as a typical backstage scene — the loud commotion of actors preparing for their act.

At first, I thought they were genuinely preparing for the play, until it hit me: It's already, and what I was seeing was in fact, the beginning of their story. 

Performed by the UST’s Artistang Artlets, the play showed the blurry line separating ‘a joke’ from real sexual harassment, and its damaging repercussions to the female victim.

 

 

The focus went to a particular thespian waiting for her boyfriend to bring her costume. Not long after, the guy arrives and perhaps to make up for his tardiness, went as far as assisting the cast as a "volunteer wardrobe assistant".

The conflict soon revealed itself: he insisted on helping an actress remove her bra, despite constant refusal.

 

 

From then on, the play showed similar incidents that left the female victim on a momentary paralysis: Was it really an unintended joke like what he says it was, or has she indeed been taken advantage of?

‘’Dun ka sa foreigner’
From the backstage, we were led to the roof deck, where members of Dumaguete's Youth Advocates through Theater Arts were waiting for us. Their story is one about domestic abuse and how some families, especially in the provinces, resort to pimping their daughters to alleviate their financial crisis.

We were first serenaded by the actors who were singing a Bisaya folk song as they were doing laundry. Because I was born in Samar and have some knowledge with Waray and similar dialects, I immediately understood the reference and appreciated the depth it lent to the story: it is a cry about how hard it is being a housewife and how one has to work tirelessly for her family.

 

 

The play started with three actors gossiping about their neighbor who now led a better life after marrying a foreigner. Their seemingly endless chatter started off smooth and spontaneous then became more intense and vulgar as it outrageously exposed abuse against women, all of which, were seen as acceptable: pimping their daughters, domestic abuse, sex between couples without consent, men’s womanizing tendency, and back to pimping their daughters.

 

 

It was sad to hear the actors reason out a few things we've all heard in real life: how it is in men's nature to be sometimes aggressive, lustful and polygamous. It was also disheartening to hear them dismiss the idea of soliciting their daughters to foreigners as immoral by plainly calling it a "small sacrifice" to lead better their lives.

But none was more heart-breaking than knowing these cases really do happen, especially in the most rural areas of our provinces, including some from where I come from.

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‘Miss Ganda’
We were next brought into a more familiar setting: a room full of chairs and long tables, a single whiteboard up in front, and the MAPUA Tekno Teatro actors completing the whole classroom vibe. The 3rd of four plays, this one explored how women are abused in the academe.

 

 

It opens with a normal, rowdy class along with a jeprox of a teacher. A girl wearing a mini skirt then enters the scene. She is asking for a few minutes for the class to answer a survey.

The sudden change in the atmosphere was significantly noticeable, with the boys — the professor — included, fixating on the visitor, taking notice of how much skin she’s revealing. 

At this point, the professor took notice of the survey form, and asked her why the word ‘sex’ was used instead of ‘gender’.

The male students quickly chimed in, grabbing the opportunity to make fun of their teacher’s remark. But what really creeped out most of the audience was when the professor made a not-so-sly innuendo asking the innocent lady if she wanted sex! And just when you thought things could not get any worse, watch the following scenes for yourself:

 

 

The play was effective in such a way that the male actors’ portrayal of their roles was very convincing; with an audience behind me even commenting that they look natural at harassing women. The story was light and simple, but the message remains raw and clear: Women are being objectified everywhere, even at a place where the next generation is being taught what they should deem acceptable.

 

 ‘Bible study’
The Philippine Educational Theater Association highlighted the darker side of social media by taking a jab at one of the most controversial and most relevant forms of violence against women yet: online objectification and harassment.

Their play puts on stage a group of three guys who were secretly objectifying their female co-workers’ online photos, digitally manipulating the photos to make her look more promiscuous. They had  the intention of sharing it online as ‘ambag’ to all the ‘pastors’ and ‘hokages’ lurking in the dark corners of the internet.

Online objectification of women, unlike the other forms of VAW tackled in other plays, poses a different kind of threat in a sense that it is easily accessible for younger people who might perceive it as something "normal".

PETA’s play effectively highlights the urgency of the matter. It also sends a strong message to all the women in social media to practice vigilance in terms of uploading personal photos or videos online.

 

 

The VAW Experiential Museum was definitely immersive, well-thought out, and insightful. It was an intriguingly haunting but very eye-opening experience —the kind which leaves a mark and opens up your mind to a daunting realization that it could happen to anyone, especially to those you hold dear.

So think of your sister, your mom, or your female best friend and ponder this question: Have they ever experienced, with or without your knowledge, being catcalled before? — LA, GMA News

The 18-day campaign to end violence against women is still ongoing until December 12.

Tags: violenceagainstwomen, peta, theater, plays
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