Wanted Pretty Lavandera

There is a bill in the Philippine senate that aims to expand labour laws protecting the rights of women against employment discrimination.
If approved, the bill will penalize guilty employers from 50 to 200 thousand pesos. Well and good as this is welcome especially in a country like the Philippines where playing fields are strewn with potholes and dotted with landmines, not only in the field of employment but also in as far as accessing other opportunities. Similar to most good laws in the Philippines, and there is no lack of them, the question now is in the implementation, in the enforcement and in prosecution of violators. Having one good law is one thing and enforcing it is another. But even if they are well enforced, prosecution would be another matter as the justice system is flawed, if not corrupt.
What has to be noted, and it is good that it is recognized through this bill, is that such discriminatory practices against women exist. Discriminatory attitudes and acts are not only based on gender, however. Being a woman is not the lone basis for discrimination. The poor, the uneducated, and therefore powerless are at the mercy of those who wield power, worse if they are also female. But that’s another story.
(Organizations like Gawad Kalinga shelter them because it is the belief that those who have the money must take care of those who do not — noblesse oblige! The poor will be forever grateful and indebted and therefore be dependent on the mercy of the nobility, great.)
The intent of the bill is to broaden the scope of gender equality in the workplace. It would then be against the law to give men preference over women on promotion and training opportunities, as examples. The inequality, however, is not only in gender. It is common knowledge that in the Philippines one has to be young, tall (in a country of short people at that), and beautiful in order to be considered for employment.
Proof of this is found right on the pages of the country’s newspapers. “Wanted – Lavandera with pleasing personality, at least five feet two, with high school education”, one advertisement would say. Now tell me, what does a pleasing personality has to do with washing clothes? Would the laundry be cleaner and whiter if the lavandera has better looks than one’s housewife? What do you need the required height for? Unless of course when the sampayan is too high a 4’8” Filipina would need a ladder to reach it.
Yes, I may be exaggerating regarding the lavandera bit but try getting a copy of a Manila classified ads and most of the jobs, if not all, require ages not older than 28, aside from a pleasing personality, for any job whether it is janitorial, banking or medical representative.
The Philippines as a country places so much value on physical beauty. No wonder every barrio fiesta has a beauty queen. Focus is placed on external characteristics. No wonder everyone wants their skin white, making skin whitening products popular. No wonder why showbiz people past their prime, when they start to show wrinkles and when body parts begin to sag don’t get offers anymore except for mediocre roles or that of hags or witches. Despite being character actors they don’t get hired because film makers don’t make movies with old wrinkly faces on screen because moviegoers don’t go for them.
Putting premium value on the physical attributes such as beauty, height, and youth is not only true to the Philippines. It has been viewed as such as far back as history could tell us. Adolf Hitler, although ugly himself, mad eugenics (the bio-science of improving the quality of the human race) the policy of his Reich. He ordered the extermination of Jews because he considered them unhygienic and declared the Aryan Race(blue-eyed, white skin) as superior. But that’s another story and is an evil thing, the mother of Racism.
Beauty (external) alone has long been banished from the realm of Metaphysics, a branch of Philosophy that studies Being (as opposed to nothing) because it is subjective; hence, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty, however, is good and is to be desired when it is extended beyond external and therefore be applied as an internal attribute of one’s existence. It should not even be the primary standard for hiring (or loving). Normal people would agree to that.
Therefore there should be a law in the Philippines that prohibits employers from using such criteria as part of their hiring policies. The law should further specify that ads which focus on the “pleasing personality” part be banned. Instead, hiring policies should focus on people’s abilities, their skills, and qualities relevant to the job. Otherwise, only those who are born beautiful will be part of the Philippine workforce and the rest will go to Canada and elsewhere.
(Yes, because we want beautiful Filipinos in Canada, too).