A feminist reading of Filipino women poets

Abstract

This paper draws on ideas from a shared identity of Filipino women writers. While a shift in 21st Century feminist reading, mainly the slant that to think about woman is also to think about gender, has become available for interrogation and re-inscription, the study on Filipino woman as a construct and a subject of self-representation of contemporary Filipino poetry remains scarce. Drawing at how women and their experiences were represented in select poems written by 4 contemporary women poets, this paper explored common patterns of women imaging using textual and thematic analysis, alongside French feminism expounded by the arguments of Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva. The findings revealed that women poets’ rhetoric, awakening, resistance, and call to action had redefined women experience as a collective whole. Collective as they seem, the poems established a strong articulation of a feminist stance, which is a resistance against subversion and marginality. The paper is of relevance both to feminist scholars and others with practical interests in women poetry as it will enable them to better understand Filipino women experience and its representation in verse.