RIZAL AND FEMINISM:

A Feminist Analysis on the Writings of Jose Rizal

MA. RUBY ANNE M. LIWANAG

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
PHL503D

April 15, 2013

RIZAL AND FEMINISM:

A Feminist Analysis on the Writings of Jose Rizal

ABSTRACT
The researcher aims to show that Jose Rizal as a feminist
encouraged women empowerment. The paper argues that Rizal
aided in the liberation of the Filipino women as well as to their
empowerment. The researcher analyzed Rizals letter to the young
women of Malolos and his other writings and used various
philosophical literatures to see how the Filipino woman was
marginalized and how the writings of Jose Rizal were indeed a
step towards the liberation of the Filipina. The paper showed that
Rizal indeed invigorated the Filipina in obtaining an independence
of mind and called for the New Woman among the Filipino
women. However, though Rizal has given us many valid feminist
insights, he can only be considered as a limited feminist.

INTRODUCTION
World history will tell how subjugated women are by men from then and probably until
now. Cixous (1976) showed the socio-political standing of women before (thats still happening
today) in which they have no right even in speaking in public. In line with this, we can see that
women of the past were thirsty for their rights, all the rights that men have taken away from
them to make them a slavery puppet of the men of the past. Cixous (1976) wrote:
Every woman has known the torment of getting up to speak. Her heart racing at times entirely
lost for words, ground and language slipping away thats how daring a feat, how great a
transgression it is for a woman to speak even just open her mouth in public. A double
distress, for even if she transgresses, her words fall almost always upon the deaf male ear, which
1
hears in language only that which speaks in the masculine.

The history of the Philippines shows the same story for the Filipino women. They are
disadvantaged and underprivileged. They were passive, thus not considered as worthy of

Helene, Cixous. 1976. Laugh of Medusa, Signs 1, no. 4. Summer 1987. pg. 8.

education. But this is where I and most perhaps would beg to disagree; I believe that they are
not innately passive and submissive, but they were then, because they were uneducated.
Women for centuries were marginalized, from then until now, as women are confined at home,
doing household work and child rearing. Marginalization was defined by Domingo (2010) as a
social process of relegating or confining an individual or a group of individuals to a lower or
outer limit or edge, as in social standing.
In this paper, I aim to show that Jose Rizal as a feminist encouraged women
empowerment. I shall argue that Rizal aided in the liberation of the Filipino women as well as to
their empowerment. I shall analyze Rizals letter to the young women of Malolos and his other
writings, and see how exactly the situation was in his time that may still reflect until now, in our
present time. I shall use various philosophical literatures to see how the Filipino woman was
marginalized and how the writings of Jose Rizal were indeed a step towards the liberation of
the Filipina. Rizal invigorated the Filipina in obtaining an independence of mind. I believe that
Jose Rizal is calling for the New Woman2.
The paper shall be divided into three sections. I will start section one with a description
of the Filipino women during Rizals time and through Rizals eyes by using his literature.
Section two will be an analysis of the Rizals Letter to the Young Women of Malolos, to
understand the historical subjugation of the Filipina women of those times. The third section
will be a literature review on selected writings such as Helene Cixous Laugh of the Medusa,
Simone de Beauvoirs The Second Sex, Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of
Women, and Mary Astells A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of Their Minds.
2

From Helene Cixous terminology which was developed in her writing Laugh of the Medusa.

It will be an analysis to see the relevance of the letter to the vindication of women as well as to
women empowerment in the society and Feminism in general.

THE FILIPINA THROUGH RIZALS EYES

The three centuries of colonization of the Philippines by Spain was three centuries of
subjection and suppression of the Filipino women. Spaniards have looked down among the
Filipina. Jose Rizal knew about this. In Rizals letter, he wrote it is common practice on the
part of the Spaniards and friars here who have returned from the Islands (Philippines) to speak
of the Filipina as complaisant and ignorant, as if all should be thrown into the same class
because of the missteps of a few, and as if women of weak character did not exist in their
lands. Rizal also wrote:
the returning Spaniards and friars, talkative and fond of gossip, can hardly find time enough to
brag and bawl, amidst guffaws and insulting remarks, that a certain woman was thus; that she
behaved thus at the convent and conducted herself thus with the Spaniards who on the occasion
was her guest, and other things that set your teeth on edge when you think of them which, in the
majority of cases, were faults due to candor, excessive kindness, meekness, or perhaps ignorance
and were all the work of the defamer himself. There is a Spaniard now in high office, who has set
at our table and enjoyed our hospitality in his wanderings through the Philippines and who, upon
his return to Spain, rushed forthwith into print and related that on one occasion in Pampanga he
demanded hospitality and ate, and slept at a house and the lady of the house conducted herself
in such and such a manner with him; this is how he repaid the lady for her supreme hospitality!
Similar insinuations are made by the friars to the chance visitor from Spain concerning their very
obedient confesandas, hand-kissers, etc., accompanied by smiles and very significant winkings of
the eye. In a book published by D. Sinibaldo de Mas and in other friar sketches sins are related of
which women accused themselves in the confessional and of which the friars made no secret in
talking to their Spanish visitors seasoning them, at the best, with idiotic and shameless tales not
worthy of credence. I cannot repeat here the shameless stories that a friar told Mas and to
which Mas attributed no value whatever. Every time we hear or read anything of this kind, we
ask each other: Are the Spanish women all cut after the pattern of the Holy Virgin Mary and the
3
Filipinas all reprobates?

Rizal was the first to bend the general impression that women are weak; instead, he
enshrined them as creatures of strength and source of inspiration. He did state that there are
3

Nicanor Tiongson. The Women of Malolos. ASIAN Journal. December 29, 2005

lots of things the Filipina has to improve on. Women in his time were imprisoned by the
society. This is very much apparent in his characters in the Noli Me Tangere and the El
Filibusterismo.
Maria Clara, one of the main female characters in the two novels of Rizal, is a picture of
a defeated soul. She may have a lot of beautiful traits, seemingly beautiful traits, at least in the
eyes of the superficial society of those times. Maria Clara was as described in the novel:
Ah! The daughter of the rich Capitan Tiago! They say she has become very beautiful? Oh Yes!
4
Very beautiful and very kind-hearted, the young man answers.

Maria Clara was indeed beautiful, she looks like the Virgin Mary, she is kind hearted, as
she helped the leper, she is pious, as she never fail to recite her prayers. Cabalu and Pasigui
(2006) wrote: all her completeness, sadness, happiness, hope, faith, and everything are all
dedicated to God. Yet, above all these positive traits that Maria Clara has, still she is weak, and
not worthy to be emulated by the Filipino women, young and old. What made her weak is her
inability to speak and fight for what she believes in. She is a prisoner of the voices around her.
Sisa is another character from the Noli Me Tangere. What is the role of the woman? Is it
to take good care of the home and teach their children good manners and good virtues? Sisa as
a mother works in order to earn and save for her family. The Noli says, Sisa has been for
several days confined in the house sewing upon some work which had been ordered for the
earliest possible time. In order to earn money5. Sisa as a mother, has only one wish:
All that day she has been anticipating the pleasures of the evening, for she knew that her sons
were coming and she intended to make them some presents Full of hope, she had cooked the
whitest of rice, which she herself has gleaned from the threshing floors. It was indeed a curates
6
meal for the poor boys.

Derbyshire, (Trans.) The Social Cancer, In the Twilight.

Ib. Id.
6
Ib. Id.
5

Indeed, Sisa was a woman and a mother determined to defend and promote the
definition of this term at all cost even if it means suffering and hardships. Another woman
character is Salome. This woman could be read from the missing chapter of the Noli, entitled
Elias and Salome. Worthy woman that she is, the novel describes her physical attributes thus:
She is graceful because she is young, has beautiful eyes, a small nose, a diminutive mouth;
because there is harmony in her features, and a sweet expression animates them; but hers is not
a beauty which instantly arrests attention at sight. She is like one of those little flowers in the
field without color or fragrance, on which we step unwittingly, and whose beauty manifests itself
7
only when we examine them with care- unknown flowers, flowers of elusive perfume.

The novel also mentions how dignified she is in her intention to honor debt even in
poverty. The account says: I should pay that debt. For the rest of it, in Mindoro as anywhere
else.8 Finally, through Salome, Rizal glorifies the Filipino women, as she behaves even in the
absence of a man in her life. The spirit of self-reliance is observed the way Salome lives and
survives on her own (Cabalu and Pasigui, 2006).
There are a number of women characters worthy of mentioning from the Noli Me
Tangere and the El Filibusterismo as well. There is Dona Victorina, Dona Consolacion, Juli,
Paulita Gomez, and others. Those characters, Rizal offers alternative views and different
possibilities and impossibilities for women. Yet, one thing is for sure as far as Rizal is concernedwomen are partners of men in the quest for just, peaceful, and humane place on earth.

RIZALS LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF MALOLOS

During his time, Rizal wrote essays with varying themes from politics, economics, sociocultural and even philosophical perspectives. One of these essays was in letter form originally

7
8

Derbyshire, (Trans.) The Social Cancer, In the Twilight.

Ib. Id.

written in Tagalog, entitled To the Young Women of Malolos9. At a time when the role of
women was confined to rearing children, keeping the house clean, saying prayers, sewing
garments for saints, here is presented a group of young women who petitioned the
government with conviction and faith. The agitation for the Spanish school was a rarity in the
Philippines during the period. When they succeeded in garnering the government permission to
their plan, a condition was compromised that Senorita Guadalupe Reyes should be the one to
teach them. The thing unheard of before in the Islands reached the faraway shores of Spain,
where the Malolos womens Bulakeno compatriot del Pilar would write Rizal from Barcelona on
February 17, 1889, asking Rizal to transmit a letter in Tagaloga noteworthy deviation from his
customary Spanish writingsas a booster of the womens morale.
The singular deed of the young women of Malolos created a deep impact on women in
all corners of the Philippines . For one, the Spaniards were made conscious of the previously
underestimated resistance being one involving the entire society, not only from the Filipino
men but also from the Filipino women. The reformists noticed this, hence the urging of del Pilar
for Rizal to advise the young women to champion their cause being proper female citizens of
the country. Even as Rizal had a notion of them possessing a sweet disposition, beautiful
habits, gentle manners, modesty, excessive goodness, humility or perhaps ignorance, he
9

Nicanor Tiongson. The Women of Malolos. ASIAN Journal. December 29, 2005. The famous letter of Rizal was
written in while he was residing in London, upon the request of M. H. del Pilar. The story behind this letter is this:
On December 12, 1888, a group of twenty young women of Malolos petitioned Governor-General Weyler for
permission to open a night school so that they might study Spanish under Teodoro Sandiko. Fr. Felipe Garcia,
the Spanish parish priest, objected to the proposal. Therefore the governor-general turned down the petition.
However, the young women, in defiance of the friars wrath, bravely continued their agitation for the school a
thing unheard of in the Philippines in those times. They finally succeeded in obtaining government approval to
their project on the condition that Seora Guadalupe Reyes should be their teacher. The incident caused a great
stir in the Philippines and in far-away Spain. Del Pilar, writing in Barcelona on February 17, 1889, requested Rizal
to send a letter in Tagalog to the brave women of Malolos. Accordingly, Rizal, although busy in London annotating
Morgas book penned this famous letter and sent it to Del Pilar on February 22, 1889 for transmittal to
Malolos.Nicanor Tiongson.

anticipated them to be like withered plants, sowed and grown in the darkness. Though they
may bloom, their flowers are without fragrance; though they bear fruit, their fruit has no juice.
Rizal added: However, now that news arrive here of what occurred in your own town of
Malolos , I realized that I was wrong and my joy was beyond bounds.
The letter has two main objectives, one is to congratulate these young women of
Malolos, and second is to remind the young women of Malolos and all young women of the
land (Philippines) of their duty as mother and as patriots as well. In congratulating these
women, Rizal said the following words of praise:
Now that you have responded to our first appeal in the interest of the welfare of the people;
now that you have set an example to those who, like you, long to have their eyes opened and be
delivered from servitude, new hopes are awakened in us and we now even dare to face
adversity, because we have you for our allies and are confident of victory.

Rizal, in the same letter, reminded the Filipina of their real duty as mothers in rearing
and bringing up a child. It is imperative that the thirst for learning be developed in her while still
young so that she may be able to inculcate the same values to her children when she becomes
a mother. However, Rizal reasons that the most Filipina is insufficient in terms of this thirst for
learning and knowledge in rearing up a child, thus she becomes inefficient in molding her child
as a contributory citizen of the country (Domingo, 2010). Rizal Said:
Youth is a flower-bed that is to bear rich fruit and must accumulate wealth for its descendants.
What offspring will be that of a woman whose kindness of character is expressed by mumbled
prayers; who knows nothing by heart but awits [hymns], novenas, and the alleged miracles;
whose amusement consists in playing panguingue [a card game] or in the frequent confession of
the same sins? What sons will she have but acolytes, priest's servants, or cockfighters? They
say that prudence is sanctity. But, what sanctity have they shown us? To pray and kneel a lot,
kiss the hand of the priests, throw money away on churches, and believe all the friar sees fit to
tell us; gossip, callous rubbing of noses. . . .

Further, Rizal explicitly stated the possible influence of a woman to a man as her coworker in writing history of life and destiny. Rizal in the letter said:

Let us be reasonable and open our eyes, especially you women, because you are the first to
influence the consciousness of man. Remember that a good mother does not resemble the
mother that the friar has created; she must bring up her child to be the image of the true God
The people cannot expect honor nor prosperity so long as they will educate their children in a
wrong way, so long as the woman who guides the child in his steps is slavish and ignorant. No
good water comes from a turbid, bitter spring; no savory fruit comes from acrid seed.

In like manner, with strong tone of conviction, Rizal crossed the line and strongly said:
People must listen to reason and not only to those who wear cassock- meaning the friars.
Finally Rizal gave the Spartan woman as a truly example of a woman, who live and survive not
for herself alone, but for the good of all, even if it means death for her own children and
banishment of her own dreams. Rizal analogized:
When a mother handed the shield to her son as he was marching to battle, she said nothing to
him but this: "Return with it, or on it," which mean, come back victorious or dead, because it was
customary with the routed warrior to throw away his shield, while the dead warrior was carried
home on his shield. A mother received word that her son had been killed in battle and the army
routed. She did not say a word, but expressed her thankfulness that her son had been saved
from disgrace. However, when her son returned alive, the mother put on mourning. One of the
mothers who went out to meet the warriors returning from battle was told by one that her three
sons had fallen. I do not ask you that, said the mother, but whether we have been victorious or
not. We have been victorious -- answered the warrior. If that is so, then let us thank God, and
she went to the temple.

The Spartan mother was the ideal that the Filipino mother should model their self into.
Domingo (2010) said that the Spartan mother was the root of their peoples nationalism, for it
was her who enthralled upon her children the preference for dying for the country with honor
than for continuing to live with dishonor. She further said:
To die defending the countrys independence was to die with honor, while to live and go on with
ones daily life seeing ones country in jeopardy or in slavery was to live with dishonor. For a
mother to imprint this awareness to her children was the most important role she could
perform- a role that Filipino mothers were unable to fulfil.

I would say, unable to fulfil yet. Though the letter of congratulations became much
more famous than the actual letter of petition that sparkled the controversy, the important act
of the young women of Malolos, through the help of letter of Jose Rizal, was considered as
worthy to land on a page of history (Cabalu and Pasigui, 2006).

FEMINISM AND THE FILIPINO WOMEN

In her book the Second Sex10, Simone De Beauvoirs primary thesis is that men
fundamentally oppress women by characterizing them, on every level, as the Other, defined
exclusively in opposition to men.
Man occupies the role of the self, or subject; woman is the object, the other. He is
essential, absolute, and transcendent. She is inessential, incomplete, and mutilated. He extends
out into the world to impose his will on it, whereas woman is doomed to immanence, or
inwardness. He creates, acts, invents; she waits for him to save her11. The world has indeed
marginalized the women species. Philippine history will tell us how Filipinos were marginalized
during the Spanish period; now think of this, there is still marginalization among those who
were already marginalized. The women of the Philippines then, are doubly marginalized, not
only because they were Filipinos, but moreover because they were women. They are not just
the Other, but the others who doesnt seem to exist. The Filipino voices then, are voice that are
heard but are not listened to, but the women are the voices that are hardly even heard at all.
The Filipino women were denied of their humanity. It is the case then, until it was changed. The
Philippine history was not only a history fighting of men for their rights, but women who have
the capacity to do the same, and Jose Rizal saw this.
Rizal was a feminist. It is his thesis that women can make or break a nation. If they are
irrational because of the indoctrination of the church and the state which promoted false
consciousness, then they can only create an irrational society. If however, they are rational,
10
11

De Beauvior, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Vinatge Books, 2011 (Originally published, 1949).
De Beauvior, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Vinatge Books, 2011 (Originally published, 1949).

then they create a rational society. This thesis is presented implicitly in the two novels and
explicitly in his Letter to the Young Women of Malolos.
Similar to what Jose Rizal is saying in the letter, Mary Wollstonecraft said almost the
same thing in her book, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, that women were ill-prepared
for their duties as social beings and imprisoned in a web of false expectations that would
inevitably make them miserable. She wanted women to be transformed into rational and
independent beings whose sense of worth came, not from their appearance, but from their
inner perception of self-command and knowledge. Women had to be educated; their minds
and bodies had to be trained. This would make them good companions, wives, mothers and
citizens. Above all it would make them fully human, that is, beings ruled by reason and
characterised by self-command. It urges women to extend their interests to encompass politics
and the concerns of the whole of humanity.
Wollstonecraft has the same view with Rizal on women as mothers. She stresses that:
To be a good mother a woman must have the sense, and independence of mind unless the
understanding of woman be enlarged, and her character rendered more firm by being allowed to
govern her own conduct, she will never have sufficient sense and command of temper to
12
manage her child properly .

Rizal in letter even said that if the Filipina will not change her mode of being, let her rear
no more children, let her merely give birth to them. Rizal believes that a woman who does not
have an independence of mind has no capacity to fulfill the full responsibility of motherhood.
He further said, She must cease to be the mistress of the home, otherwise she will

12

Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1983. A Vindication of the Rights of Women. In A Mary Wollnstonecrafts Reader. Edited
by Solomon and Berggren. New York City: The New American Library, Inc. Pg. 347-348.

unconsciously betray husband, child, native land, and all13. Mary Astells, an English woman of
the seventeenth century who wrote numerous works such as A Serious Proposal to the Ladies14,
wrote to the women of England who were marginalized at that time, How can you be content
to be in the world like tulips in a garden, to make fine snow, and be good for nothing. 15 She
also said:
Seeing it is ignorance, either habitual or actual, which is the cause of all Sin, how are they like to
escape this, who are bred up in that? That therefore women are unprofitable to most, and a
plague and dishonour to some Men is not much to be regretted on account of the Men, because
'tis the product of their own folly, in denying them the benefits of an ingenuous and liberal
16
Education .

What Mary Astells is saying is very much applicable to the Filipina women of the
nineteenth century. If it is false consciousness that is enslaving the Filipina, then education is
the answer. But during the time of Rizal, it is not available to them and the government seems
to be not willing to grant it to them. Now what were they supposed to do? Rizal answered this
indirectly through the letter, similar to what most feminist philosophers have said: That women
should move, she should act. There is no other person or group of person who will fight for
them but only the women themselves too. This is what I thought when I read the first
introductory statement of Cixous (1976):
I shall speak about womens writing: about what it will do. Woman must write herself: must
write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as
violently as from their bodies for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal.
Woman must put herself into the text as into the world and into history by her own
movement.
13

This is the fifth of Jose Rizals points to ponder on which he gave to the young women of Malolos through the
letter.
14
The complete title of the work is A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (Part I and II) For the Advancement of their
Interest by A Lover of her Sex by Mary Astells. The book was originally published in 1696, printed by T.W. for.
Wilkin at the Kings Head in St. Paul Church-Yard.
15
Mary Astells. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. Part I. Patricia Springborg, ed. Peterborough, ON, Canada:
Broadview Press, 2002.
16
Mary Astells. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. Part I. Patricia Springborg, ed. Peterborough, ON, Canada:
Broadview Press, 2002.

I believe that Helene Cixous was not just talking about writing. I believe she is talking
about all efforts that a woman can do to liberate herself. Cixous also said:
It is time to liberate the New Woman from the Old by coming to know her by loving her for
getting by, for getting beyond the Old without delay, by going out ahead of what the New
Woman will be, as an arrow quits the bow with a movement that gathers and separates the
17
vibrations musically, in order to be more than herself.

Similar to this statement of Cixous, Rizal demanded the women to move for their
liberation from traditional Old Woman to the New Woman New Woman which has the
freedom in doing anything without the restrictions and hindrances of men like the quitting
arrow which got it freedom after been fired by the bow. Rizal believes that the petition of the
young women of Malolos is a step towards this movement. Rizal wrote in the letter, However,
when the news of what happened in Malolos reached us, I saw my error, and great was my
rejoicing. The event showed the merely liking of a quitting arrow in which the women
movement pursues a goal to separate themselves from the traditional, enslave Old Woman
and this gave Rizal great hope for the nation. A simple act of the Filipino women means a small
step towards a great goal.
Cixous stated that women should be liberated from the chain of past The future must
no longer be determined by the past. I do not deny that the effects of the past are still with us.
But I refuse to strengthen them by repeating them, to confer upon them irremovability the
equivalent of destiny, to confuse the biological and the cultural. Anticipation is imperative 18
through accepting the facts that everybody, even a non-popular woman, can make a difference
for the liberation our society. A woman should break that discrimination through mocking the

17
18

Laugh of Medusa, p 6.
nd
This is the 2 statement that be found in the book Laugh of Medusa by Helene Cixous.

standard which is only set by the men of our society. Cixous Laugh of Medusa mentioned many
points that could help those women which were victims of abuse, inequality and oppression.
Many points here from the past are applicable to the situation of the Filipina if Rizals time, and
is still applicable for our current situation because the nature of the environment. I believe that
those principal points of Cixous calls for even the unknown women to be more liberated to fight
for their own equality against the men of our society, which is the same thing that Jose Rizal
was calling for, as Mary Astells have said: Women need not take up with mean things, since (if
they are not wanting to themselves) they are capable of the BEST.19
Again Rizal, talking to the women of Malolos, whom he did not now, except one, whom
he knows only by name, said:
...now that you have set an example to those who, like you, long to have their eyes opened and
be delivered from servitude, new hopes are awakened in us and we now even dare to face
adversity, because we have you for our allies and are confident of victory. No longer does the
Filipina stand with her head bowed nor does she spend her time on her knees, because she is
quickened by hope in the future; no longer will the mother contribute to keeping her daughter in
darkness and bring her up in contempt and moral annihilation. And no longer will the science of
all sciences consist in blind submission to any unjust order, or in extreme complacency, nor will a
courteous smile be deemed the only weapon against insult or humble tears the ineffable
panacea for all tribulations.

Rizal advised the women to elevate their consciousness by listening more to themselves
rather than the friars so that they could liberate themselves and their children from false
consciousness. Rizal, who doesnt even know anyone personally among twenty young women
who wrote the petition, believes that even a non-popular woman, can make a difference for
their liberation and of our society. Rizal has faith in the Filipino women that they would be able
to break that discrimination through mocking the standard which is only set by the men, both
Filipinos and Spaniards of their society. Rizal was so sure that if the women of the Philippines
19

Mary Astells. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. Part I. Patricia Springborg, ed. Peterborough, ON, Canada:
Broadview Press, 2002.

would liberate themselves from false consciousness through education, and endeavour to
educate their children as well then what he asked from Padre Florentino in the El Filibusterismo
will be answered:
Where are the youths who will dedicate their innocence, their idealism, their enthusiasm to the
good of their country? Where are they who will give generously of their blood to wash away so
much shame, crime and abomination? Pure and immaculate must the victim be for the sacrifice
be acceptable. Where are you, young men and women, who are to embody in yourself the life
force that has been drained from our veins, the pure ideals that have grown stained in our minds,
the fiery enthusiasm that has been quenched in our hearts?... We wait for you, O youth! Come,
20
for we await you!

RIZAL AS A FEMINIST
Central to the letter is the call to bravely assert collective autonomy and rational
judgment, and use rational judgment and good will. Rizal advises them to follow what is
reasonable and just, and carry out the prime duties of teaching honor to their children, loving
ones fellow citizens and the native land. In that way, rid of ignorance and abject fear, one
asserts ones dignity, courage, responsibility and honor. Tyranny and servitude are thereby
prevented by the prudent cultivation of the light of reason which God has mercifully endowed
us21. Sandwiched between the precepts specifically addressed to the maternal role of women
and the maxim of neighborly love is Rizals biting comments on avaricious friars and malicious
Spaniards who mock native women who have shown hospitality and deference. It is this
traduced and vilified honor of Filipina women that Rizal cannot let go, not because he aspires to
be the model defender of women, a proto-feminist vanguard-party spokesman, but because he
identifies the honor of Filipinas with the substance of the nascent patria, including that of the
Malay race (Zaide 1984, 157).
20
21

Jose Rizal. El Fibusterismo. Trans. By Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin. 2004. Ed. By Raul Locsin. The Bookmark, Inc.
Jose Rizal. Letter to the Young Women of Malolos. 1889.

Rizals concern is not so much with female virtue as with the maternal function/role and
its incalculable effects. His stress on individual reason and autonomous will, equality and
respect for each other, was needed to remove women from the influence of the religious
orders; he invokes Gods gift of natural reason to ward off the despotic authority of the friars
and correct servile habits. Rizal then concentrates on the function of the mother as progenitor
and educator/nurturer: What offspring will be that of a woman whose kindness of character is
expressed by mumbled prayers It is the mothers who are responsible for the present
servitude of our compatriots, owing to the unlimited trustfulness of their loving hearts, to their
ardent desire to elevate their sons22. Deploying throughout organic metaphors of growth and
fruition, Rizal emphasizes the mothers crucial role in shaping the infant: The mother who can
only teach her child how to kneel and kiss hands must not expect sons with blood other than
that of vile slaves23. Because mothers are the first to influence the consciousness of man 24,
Rizal exhorts them to awaken and prepare the will of our children towards all that is
honorable, judged by proper standards, to all that is sincere and firm of purpose, clear
judgment, clear procedure; honesty in act and deed, love for the fellowmen and respect for
God25. That is a desideratum because the whole community cannot expect honor and
prosperity so long as the woman who guides the child in his steps is slavish and ignorant26.
Despite their strength and good judgment, however, the Filipina mother has become a slave,
hoodwinked and tied, rendered pussilanimous. In a sudden leap, Rizal ventures a
generalization: The cause of the backwardness of Asia lies in the fact that there the woman are
22

Jose Rizal. Letter to the Young Women of Malolos. 1889.

Ib. Id.
24
Ib. Id.
25
Ib. Id.
26
Ib. Id.
23

ignorant, are slaves; while Europe and America are powerful because there the women are free
and well-educated and endowed with lucid intellect and a strong will27. This explains his
subsequent invocation of Spartan women as the models to imitate, notwithstanding his
knowledge that their position is underwritten by an iniquitous slave system prevailing in
classical antiquity.
A suspicion disturbs the epistolary self-assurance. Rizal feels that the Malolos women
will not listen to him because of his youth, so he submits seven instructions for their evaluation,
repeating what he has already stated about the need for dignity, knowledge, independence and
altruism. His fifth and sixth advice, however, sounds an alarming note of a fear of betrayal,
together with hostility to the superstitious machinations of a grossly mercenary priesthood.
The fifth proposition seems a warning: If the Filipina will not change her mode of being, let her
rear no more children, let her merely give birth to them. She must cease to be the mistress of
the home, otherwise she will unconsciously betray husband, child, native land, and all.
Apprehensively, however, Rizal withdraws his animus and insists on everyones equality in
enjoying the divine gifts of intelligence and rational judgment. Rizals final words may be
interpreted as a cautionary reminder for those cast out of the aboriginal garden: May your
desire to educate yourself be crowned with success; may you in the garden of learning gather
not bitter, but choice fruit, looking well before you eat because on the surface of the globe all is
deceit, and the enemy sows seeds in your seedling plot28. Didactic teleology here blends moral

27
28

Ib. Id.
Jose Rizal. Letter to the Young Women of Malolos. 1889.

realism with satire, impugning the fathers and appealing to a future regime of stalwart
mothers as the supreme tribunal of national vindication29.
Considering Rizals intelligence and his exposure to the predicament of women as a sex
separate from men, his interest in them was not the usual male interest in the female species.
He saw them not as sex objects but as creatures in need of liberation. Rizals feminism was in
the form of liberal feminism. This kind of feminism explains the subjection of women as a
function of the rules, whether formal as in the legal system, or informal as mores and tradition.
The rules are discriminatory to women. On account of their sex, women are less equal to men
at home, in the workplace and in the society in general. To make them equal, all discriminatory
rules must be repealed and sexism must be removed from the existing culture.
Rizal may have his share of discrepancies and gaps in his relationship with women from
his sweetheart Josephine Bracken to other beloved women to his sisters, but it cannot be
denied that Rizal had an impassioned involvement in the battle for the Filipino womens rights.
It cannot be denied that the Message to the Young Women of Malolos is a significant
contribution by Rizal to the history of women and the feminist movement. For Rizal, the
womens fight belonged to the Filipinos greater revolution for social justice and
transformation. However in conclusion, though Rizal has given us many valid feminist insights,
he can only be considered as a limited feminist. He ignores sexism altogether. For example, he
makes it appear in his letter that womens destination in life is motherhood and parenting is for
women only. In fact, he blames the women of the Philippines for the enslavement of the
Philippines. They are to blame, because they allowed themselves to be conveyor belt of

29

Albina Pecson Fernandez. 1990. Rizal on Women and Children in the Struggle for Nationhood.

colonialism and the many problems that it has spawned. Should not the men be blamed
instead? After all, they have been in control of women and children for ages.

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