Gender Bias vs. Lesbianism in the Office

Made-up faces. Dresses, blouses and skirts to wear. Stilettos, peep-toes, flirty flats and sexy sandals for the feet. Long and straight or short and stylish hair. Kikay bags, branded lady bags…What do they remind you of? Women. Or at least, that´s the stereotypical female we have in mind. But what if it is the non-stereotypical girl standing in front of you? In fact, she does not even see herself as a girl? How would you regard her?

In the Philippines, women are lamentably less valued in the workplace. Less women have jobs; women who have jobs often earn less;  women earn less because their parents did not think much of their education before as they were going to ¨just marry and have children, anyway.¨ Statistics do show that  such thinking reflects in the way women are treated in society especially in predominantly male working environments – the less valuable, ergo, the less rights to worry about. Women are, therefore, often subjected to harassment particularly sexual, various forms of abuse and gender discrimination. When it comes to the last one, no female knows it more than the employee whose sexual orientation is decidedly gay.

¨At an early age, both girls and boys are keenly conscious of the fact that, in our society, being male means being privileged¨ (How We Raise Our Daughters and Sons: Child Rearing and Gender Socialization in the Philippines. UNICEF Evaluation and Research Database (ERD).

In the article Putting You in Your Place: Culture and the Filipino Lesbian (Isis International, Sept. 15, 2006), the above statement was quoted to emphasize it as ¨a generalisation…a simplistic look into the difference between the sexes in a society where women are limited by societal expectations. It speaks of how children observe inequality, and the preferred status that men have over women.¨

In the Filipino setting, being a lesbian could be a double whammy, based on the norms. Lesbians suffer maltreatment or discrimination because they are too homosexual for a hetero-sexist society, and they are too female to be considered equal to men in a male-centric society. When it comes to reaching expectations, they are deemed failures on both counts.

December 2004 saw the Lesbian Advocates Philippines (LeAP!), Inc. publishing its research Unmasked: Faces of Discrimination Against Lesbians in the Philippines where discrimination against lesbians was categorized as ranging from inapparent to blatant, the first being virtually unrecognizable and could be misconstrued as non-discriminatory.

Being biologically female, lesbians may also suffer the same problems or abuses as straight females, as aforementioned. Sometimes, they become the target of malicious intent simply because, according to perpetrators, they need to be ¨straightened out.¨  They are also unfairly judged as good-for-nothing. However, some take it as an opportunity to change the world´s point of view of them. They take their hardships as motivations for them to succeed and work laboriously to rise above their unpleasant reputations. ¨Deviating from traditional norms does not translate into inefficiency, unreliability, and inability to be productive members of society¨ (Putting You in Your Place…).

It is a tall order, nevertheless, especially in the workplace.

Back in September 1994, the human rights organization Balay Rehabilitation Center ironically terminated the services of Elizabeth Lim and Evangeline Castronuevo for their alleged affair, which came to the company´s attention when one of them privately confided to another employee. Four (4) weeks later, both women were dismissed for ¨Acts grossly damaging to Balay¨ or gross impropriety.

This outraged women´s and lesbian organizations (gay/lesbian activists and feminists alike) in the country, prompting protestations against the unfair and discriminatory termination, and demands that both women be re-employed, receive a full apology, and receive payment for damages. The two filed a complaint on the illegal dismissal with the National Labor Relations Commission. The case generated a lot of media attention and resulted in demands for an inclusion of issues arising from sexual orientation in the workplace.

Unfortunately, more than a decade later, much is yet to be done to rid of lesbian discrimination in the workplace. Admittedly, this cannot be solved unless society learns to respect women in general and afford them their equal rights as men´s fellow human beings.

Sources: ISIS International (www.isiswomen.org) (09/15/2006) International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (www.iglhrc.org) (12/01/1994)