Gender inequality has developed stereotyping and prejudice towards the opposite sexes in many aspects of our social reality. As it manifests in homes and society, one would wonder if colleges and universities are responsible for the propagating gender discrimination.

Household chores are the most obvious examples. Stereotypical ideas like women better in cooking and men being viewed as experts in electronics are default in our minds. Even with the modern age, seeing a woman doing carpentry would leave a person in awe or a man doing the laundry would be judged that the man is “under the saya”. 

It is important to note that a special time every March is labelled as Women’s Month, it is throughout the year that every member of the female population needs to fight the struggle towards gender discrimination. Even the LGBT community relentlessly fight to champion their rights.

However, the University of the Philippines Cebu’s Gender and Development (GAD) continues to struggle in campaigning for women’s rights and advocacies.

Then Gender and Development Program in 1989, GAD have already envisioned an improved status of women both urban and rural and outside the formal school system.

As part of their objectives, GAD formulates and implements gender-sensitive programs in UP Cebu and mainstreams gender concepts and issues in degree programs in the college.

When asked on the status of women, GAD coordinator Dr. Sofia Logarta believes that women are not still empowered.

“They are not empowered, not most women.  We cannot say really scientifically because we do not have a research how many women are empowered,” Logarta says.

Believing that gender is easy to inculcate, Logarta suggests to focus on gender desegregation or to integrate gender issues to academic subjects for students to acquire gender consciousness in the earliest possible time. 

 “Ganahan jud unta ko ma-spread ang gender sa Math, Science and Computer, because there is a misconception nga ang mga laki ang mas maayo sa maong subjects. (I would like to integrate gender in Math and Science and Computer because of the misconception that only men are better in those subjects),” Logarta explained.

Prof. Chito Patino of the Science Cluster thinks that while there is equality in terms of numbers of males and females attending school, this measure does not necessarily translate to gender equality.

“For a society which remains patriarchal in essence, the curriculum continues to lack the necessary advocacy to advance genuine gender equality,” he said.

Gender inequality absent in UP Cebu

On the contrary, Dr. Belinda F. Espiritu, Mass Communication cluster head and member of the Gender and Development (GAD) Office of UP Cebu, thinks that the university doesn’t experience gender inequality in any way.

            “In UP, I don’t see any gender inequality, in terms of teachers’ treatment towards enrolment process, or their students, and even the access to education,” Espiritu says.

What Espiritu perceives is that the inequality may arise probably in the area of population contrast among males and females, since there are coursed favourable to men.

For her, courses such as Computer Science being male-dominated arises not because of gender inequality, but because males are more inclined to take the said course than females. A similar situation shows for the Mass Communication course, which in contrast has a dominantly female population.

Espiritu thinks that this contrast in population among courses doesn’t necessarily manifest that a male or female student is ‘smarter’ in the said field. She debunks notions such as “men are smarter in Mathematics” and the like.

In her point of view, everyone is equal in intelligence inside the classroom and it’s a matter of who is diligent and who is not, regardless of gender.

A change to ‘herstory’

However, despite this belief in gender equality in the University of the Philippines- Cebu, Espiritu thinks that the education system in general is still male-biased as it is based in the remnants of its formators.

“In reality, most books are authored by males. Even theories formed are male-dominantly authored,” Espiritu says.

At this point, Espiritu thinks that despite theories and references being authored by males, the content should be gender fair especially in language and history. Gender neutral terms should be appropriate, and the female icons like Gabriela Silang and Tandang Sora should also be given importance when mentioned in books.

Patino observes that a number of books remain to stick on gender stereotypes like women as loving housewives, men as hardworking breadwinners, stereotypes which are far different from current realities. He also thinks that LGBT issues are not even integrated in classroom discussions.

Mainstreaming is not only the solution   

Patino, who believes that mainstreaming gender in education is a good initiative, sees another way to genuinely solve gender issues.

“Inequality of gender is embedded in our societal structures and not just an issue of curriculum development. Such can be seen in the reality that while women compose the big majority of our educators, our legislators are mostly men,” he explained.

To address gender inequality in education, Patino believes that we must challenge the societal structures that perpetuate inequality.

“No matter how hard we inculcate gender into the minds of our students, they ultimately have to face a patriarchal society. Books, thus, are limited in its power to advance the issue of gender equality,” he added.

Despite this flaw in the education system, Espiritu has still high regard for the treatment of gender in the Philippine context.

            “In the Philippines women are more liberated; we have more freedom as females,” Espiritu says.