ON THE RIGHTS OF

WOMEN
 Babae
Kayo ba ang mga Maria Clara
Mga Hule at mga Sisa
Na di marunong na lumaban?
Kaapiha'y bakit iniluluha?
Mga babae, kayo ba'y sayang mahina?

Kayo ba ang mga Cinderella

Na lalake, ang tanging pag-asa?
Kayo nga ba ang mga Nena
Na katawan ay ibenebenta?
Mga babae, kayo ba'y sayang pang-kama?
 Ang aging isip ay buksan
At lipuna'y pag -aralan,
Ang nahubog ninyong isipan
At tanggaping kayo'y mga libangan
Mga babae, ito nga ba'y kapalaran?

Bakit ba mayroong mga Gabriela

Mga Teresa at Tandang Sora
Na di umasa sa luha't awa?
Sila'y nagsipaghawak ng sand at a
Nakilaban, ang mithiin ay lumaya.
 Bakit ba mayrong mga Lisa
Mga Liliosa at mga Lorena
Na di natakot makibaka
At ngayo'y marami nang kasama?
Mga babae, ang mithiin ay lumaya!
 Jean Jacques Rousseau believes that women should
be useful to men, should take care, advise, console
men, and to render men's lives easy and agreeable.
Rousseau also influenced the development of modern
political, sociological, and educational thought.

Mary Wollstonecraft, in Vindication of the Rights of

Women (1782), argued that such education would
produce women who were mere propagators of fools.
She believes that women must be united to men in
wisdom and rationality. Society should allow women to
attain equal rights to philosophy and education given
to men.
 For Wollstonecraft, if men would snap women's
chains, they would find women more observant
daughter, more affectionate sisters, and faithful wives,
more reasonable mothers and better citizens.

She maintains that women must learn to respect

themselves. Men's worth should not be based on the
vanity of women and babies, for this degrade women
by making them more dolls. She stressed that
women should not marry for a support. Instead, they
should learn their own "bread". During her time,
even women in upper echelons of the society are
oppressed.
 In the Philippines, women are subjected to oppression,
among others, of class and sex.
"Babae", sung usually during women's month (march), is a
song that problematizes the gender role assigned by the
social order to women since their childhood.

Opposing the identity reinforced by dominant patriarchal

institutions like the family, education, the law, and the media,
the song advances the alternative image of the women
aspiring for liberation (" Mga babae, ang mithiin ay
lumaya!").Citing the example of heroines from Philippine
history like Gabriela, Teresa, and Tandang Sora as well as
women martyrs in the ongoing people's war in the
countryside like Lisa, Liliosa, and Lorena, the song challenges
the stereotype of women as represented in Philippine
literature by the figures of Maria Claras, Hule, and Sisas.
 These are the realities that the song, "Babae" calls on
to study and question ("Ang ating isip ay buksan/At
lipuna'y pag-aralan"). Ultimately, Inang Laya's song goes
to the end with the message that gender roles, being
social constructs resulting from the interplay of power
relations in a particular historical juncture, are also arenas
for struggle.