Women are depicted in Philippine arts in both positive and degrading ways. Positively, modern films and media are showing women in roles of leadership, heroism, and strength rather than just stereotypical domestic roles. However, it can also be degrading when women are often depicted as half-naked merely to draw attention to their physical appearance rather than their character or abilities. While progress has been made in showing women's empowerment, more still needs to be done to ensure women are treated equally and with respect rather than mainly as objects for male pleasure or consumption.

1. 205_Journal_Carolino
Our Arts, Our Culture: That’s What It Means To Be A Filipino
How women are depicted in Phil. Arts? In modern cinema, TV, telenovelas, noontime/game
shows?
Woman in the Philippines is interpreted to be delicate with its positive features of being
wholesome, virtuous, tender, kind, loving, refined, simple, attractive and somewhat related to
nature as what we are using “Mother Nature” as it all encompasses the personality of a woman.
Nonetheless, as a woman as I am, I feel that there are differing level of depicting women in
Philippine arts, some could be highly appreciated and other could be degrading. I highly appreciate
how films and other work or arts depicted women because I feel that women’s roles have gotten a
lot better than before. They are now portraying roles as leaders, heroes and the one with power and
strength. Thus showing that woman can equate with men or even better than they are. I am
somehow glad to note that the role women in films, cinemas, TV, telenovelas showed how women
have transformed from the stereotype mother figure, the mahinhin, who does all the household
chores and the one who is always with lower rank when it comes to its role in the family, women
now are not strictly domesticated. Women now a-days were depicted with brave character, being
rigorous, wise, and even apparently comparable to how men can do things and more. However, it
is degrading in the sense that when women are depicted in a lot of shows of modern cinema, they
wear almost nothing just to be recognized that they exist, how humiliating it is and in that sense I
felt that women are oppressed in that matter, being treated as a mere substance for men’s pleasure.
Women in posters and advertisements are almost always half naked that the fashion seems to
openly show the female body and more of its physical part. Thus, women still struggle for respect.
I hope there is still a chance for many to realize that women are not subject for sex but be treated
as equal partner with men in the total development. Although, it has been recognized, but
something still is not right as I see how women are depicted in Philippine arts.