This document discusses the concepts of the "Maria Clara" ideal of Filipina femininity which emphasizes modesty and chastity, and contrasts it with the "Manila Girl" and "Other Mary" which represent women who engage in premarital sexual experimentation. It describes a study of young women in Kalibo, Philippines who experience tension between living up to the Maria Clara ideal in public but exploring their desires in private through premarital sex. The document analyzes factors like urbanization, media exposure, and migration that influence women's sexuality and identifies themes in how women frame and account for their premarital sexual experiences.

1. Maria Clara, Manila Girl and the Other Mary

2. Maria Clara
 Women of “Good Virtue”
 Conservative and “Traditional”, especially
in the realm of sexual activity
 “Demure, Self-effacing beauty whose
place was on the pedestal of male
honour” – Jose Rizal
 Ideal feminine behaviour of Filipina
women

3. Maria Clara, Manila Girl and the Other Mary

4. • Sex Scripts allot different degrees
of sexual agency to men and women
Man Woman
- Sexual explorer - Gatekeeper
- Persistent - Resistant
 Women’s retreat from sexual advance is a
“Test of Strength and Control”
 As a result, the ability to curb male sexual
impulse has become culturally constructed
female virtues

5.  Women (in Kalibo) are positioned
as “gatekeepers” - to manifest the
‘Maria Clara’ femininity
 However, still many become the
Manila Girl or the Other Mary
 They position themselves as
unaccountable, in order to ward off
negative evaluation

6. Maria Clara, Manila Girl and the Other Mary

7. • Women in Kalibo guard their virginity
for many reasons:
 Femininity norms
 Religious morés
 Fears of:(1) pregnancy
(2) having a bad reputation
(3) angering one’s parents
• “Love” – breaches normative codes

8.  Some consider premarital sex as
pardonable as long as it is enacted in a
committed relationship and can be
morally redeemed by Male Approval
 However, it is considered morally
unacceptable if sex was done out of
casual desire (prostitution)
○ Women -> the Other Mary

9.  Many respondents experienced
tension between the Maria Clara and
Manila Girl sides of themselves.
- assertion of Maria Clara behaviour
while in public and experimenting their
desires in secrecy (Manila Girl/Other
Mary)

10. Possible Factors Influencing
Premarital Sexual Activity
 Women’s low self-esteem
 Alcohol or Drugs
 Premarital sex as a “Trend”
 Adaptation of Foreign Culture
 Exposure to media
 Disintegrating family
 Rural to Urban Migration

11. Rural to Urban Migration
 Provides variation in lifestyle and
increases the young woman’s
freedom from the body-social and
the underworld of gossip
– developing the Manila Girl
behaviour.

12. Rural to Urban Migration
 Mills’ study of Thai modernity (1994)
concludes that city living allotted young
women new forms of self-expression
and self-exploration
- still compromised due to emotional ties
with rural home and broader cultural
ideologies
- similar to the tensions between Maria
Clara, Manila Girl and the Other Mary

13. Gateway to Divergent Futures

14. Participants in Interviews:
 Differ in economic brackets
 Differ in attained level of education
 Differ in degrees of urban exposure
 Differ in church-going behavior
 Had diverse experiences with men
 All are Catholics

15. Participants in Interviews:
 Over half experienced premarital sex
 Of all respondents who already kissed a
man, half engaged in premarital sex
 No respondent terminated sexual
activity after their first
-breached the Maria Clara virtue, ‘tainted’
 All respondents relied on Coitus
Interruptus as a contraceptive

16. Participants in Interviews:
 Almost half that has experienced
premarital sex became pregnant
- reflects national health discourses
(influenced by Catholic ideology) and low
rates of condom use
 Most that already had premarital sex
formed a union with their partner
- formal marriage or live-in arrangements

17. Emerged Themes
 Picking a marriage partner
- can result to successful intimate
relationships
- or to relatively unhappy marriages
 Single Mothering
- caused by abandonment or
preference to being with the father of
the child

18. The ‘Sexual Explorers’
 Situated between those who united
with their partner and single mothers
 establish new sexual relationships
 Frame their experiences as shameful
and try to hide their transgressions –
double life.

19.  Succumbing to desires often
leads women to have a change
in self-identity
 The Other Mary - crossed the
threshold of morality
 Manila Girl – if they somehow
accept their actions positively

20.  Unfortunately, women rarely
disclose sexual experiences
with other women or ask advice
from health centres
○ Stigmatization
○ Gossip

21. Two themes structuring young
women’s accounts of Premarital Sex
1. Framing of scenario(s) under
conditions in which women do not
consider themselves responsible
2. Surrender to sexual intercourse
within the context of romantic love